Wild Waves
Studio: Disney Release Date : April 25, 1930 Series: Mickey Mouse

Cumulative rating:
(2 ratings submitted)

Synopsis

Mickey rescues Minnie from drowning, then plays music with various beach animals. He scat-sings to "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep."

Characters

Mickey Mouse
Minnie Mouse

Credits

Note: "Unverified" credits may not be correct and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Director

Burt Gillett (unverified)

Animator

Norman "Norm" Ferguson

Producer

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney

Music Sources

Russell, Henry : "A Life on the Ocean Wave "
Traditional : "The Sailor's Hornpipe "
Traditional : "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean "
Knight, Joseph Philip : "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep "


Distributor(s)

Columbia

Reused Animation Used in:

The Castaway
Arctic Antics (Animation of walrus and seals.)

Television

The Mickey Mouse Club (Season 1, Episode 56)
The Mickey Mouse Club (Season 1, Episode 73)

DVD

United States

Mickey Mouse in Black and White - Volume 2

Germany

Mickey Mouse in Black and White Volume 2

Technical Specifications

Running Time: 7:00
Animation Type: Standard (Hand-drawn-Cel) Animation
Aspect Ratio: 1.37 : 1
Cinematographic Format: Spherical
Color Type: Black and White
Negative Type: 35mm
Original Country: United States
Original Language: English
Print Type: 35mm
Sound Type: Mono: Cinephone

Reviews and Comments

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From Jerry Edwards :

Mickey and his animal friends (seals, walruses, penguins, pelicans, and other water birds) have a wonderful day at the seaside singing and dancing. Minnie is swept out to sea and Mickey rescuers her. To help Minnie recover from her fright, Mickey and his animal friends resume their singing and dancing. One fun gag is when Mickey grabs an upside-down row boat to rescue Minnie. A romantic couple is revealed, who obviously were using the boat for "privacy." Once again the singing and dancing just goes on and on, too much for my tastes.

From Ryan :

This Mickey short was stupid. The only excitement was when Mickey rescued Minnie from the "wild waves." This was probably the last short that features that black title card (except that it didn't appear at the beginning) with Mickey and Minnie. This is probably not a short that I would want to add to my collection.

From Steve K :

I've always loved this short because it's just so darn weird! Mildly racy as Minnie changes her clothes, continuing the early shorts' obsession with her undergarments. Granted most of the 'toon is just typical singing, dancing and playing "instruments" but the action as Mickey rescues her, the way our mice heroes looks vary from shot to shot, and odd bits like Mickey's ears leaving his head to register joy/surprise as he finds a "harp" to play always made me smile. Not the best of the early cartoons, but definitely an 8 out of 10 on the weirdness scale.

From Bill :

Here the short starts with a nautical tune "Over The Bounding Main" with all Mickey's animal friends swaying in time with Mickey. I always liked the music in the mickey shorts. It just made them a cut above the rest. Remember these early shorts were when Walt and the team were experimenting and refining Mickey. Although this is not a stand-out short it was still enjoyable. The gags as usual were clever; the lifeguard chair dancing and how the ocean finally gets Minnie and drags her out. Also funny was when Mickey's ears come off as he makes a harp out of a fish net. Of course the best action is when Mickey rescues Minnie and all is well at the end. A nice early short.

From Gijs Grob :

Mickey is a lifeguard and he saves a nearly drowning Minnie. To comfort her he does some playing and dancing. Some animals (penguins, sea lions and a singing walrus that would be reused in Arctic Antics, half a year later) join in. This dull sequence contains some nice scatting by Mickey. Minnie cheers up, calls Mickey 'my hero' and kisses him. Iris out. In this short, there's a story at least the first half of the cartoon, making it slightly better than most early entries. One trivial remark: Minnie appears to wear a bra, when she's changing.

From Ryan Kilpatrick at The Disney Film Project :

It’s almost as if sometime before The Haunted House, Walt went into a story meeting with his animators and said, “Why is Mickey always bursting into song? Give him a reason to sing!” I don’t know if such a thing happened, but if it did, the result would have been The Haunted House or this short, Wild Waves.

Once again, the story of the short provides a way into a musical number, which makes the music piece so much more enjoyable. This short’s story is kind of a rehash of the Oswald short, All Wet. Mickey is serving as a lifeguard, same as Oswald did, and he has to save a girl, in this case Minnie. There are very similar scenes to All Wet, such as Mickey on the lifeguard stand and his careening through the waves.

Whereas in earlier Mickey shorts the copying from the Oswald shorts was more derivative, this seems much less the case. The animation is much fresher and more detailed than that earlier work, and the characters are so different that it makes this a fresh take on the subject.

Where Wild Waves branches off is when it comes to the second half of the short, which is the musical number. When Mickey saves Minnie, she cries because of the ordeal, and Mickey decides to comfort her by performing a dance to “Sailor’s Hornpipe.” Soon, the other animals join in, and the patented Ub Iwerks silly dances ensue.

What is interesting about this short is the subtle changes in Mickey from his early appearances. The evolution of his design is almost complete, as we see here the rounded shoes appearing much as they do today, a little more bulbous and full. His limbs are thicker, and his eyes are much more expressive. This has evolved over the past few shorts, like Jungle Rhythm and The Haunted House, but it’s very noticeable here.

The other change I noticed in this short is the difference in Mickey’s character. In the early shorts, he was aggressive and rude, grabbing Minnie in Plane Crazy and planting a kiss on her, regardless of her wishes. This time around, after performing his dance, Minnie professes him to be “her hero,” Mickey shifts his shoulders and blushes, obviously embarrassed. If you had not seen the other shorts early on in Mickey’s career, you wouldn’t notice it, but it’s a big change in his character.

This is part of what Leonard Maltin talks about on the DVD, that as Mickey evolved, Walt and his crew found him more and more uninteresting. It was hard to find situations for Mickey to be funny, because he was always heroic and upstanding. Soon, the focus would shift to Mickey’s supporting cast, at first Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar, but later Goofy and Donald Duck.

Finally, one last interesting thing about Wild Waves. The short features two instances of Mickey singing, and a few instances of him talking. We know that Walt provided the voice for Mickey when talking, but his singing voice seems totally different. I would guess that Walt did not sing for Mickey, based on this short. Does anyone know who did? I do not, but would be curious to find out.


From Ryan Kilpatrick at The Disney Film Project :

Hiyuga and B.D., thanks for answering the question. I think it seems right that Stalling did the voice of Mickey here. Makes sense, because this would be the last Mickey that Stalling did, so perhaps was he the voice throughout? I wonder.

Mac, you're right about the appearance of the characters. They do take some strange forms here. I like when Mickey's ears pop off as he plays the harp. It's such a departure from what we've always heard about the ears being visible from each side, etc. that it stands out.

I do have to say, though, that I see Maltin's point. Mickey is just not as interesting without a foil or someone to play off of. In the earlier shorts, he was a swashbuckler, and now he's a much more timid guy. Long term it worked out for him, but it's not coming across with great cartoons here, although I liked this one.


From B. D. :

The "girl in the inking department" that Stalling mentions in the interview Hiyuga brought up was probably Marjorie Ralston, who provided Minnie's voice in 1928 according to Wikipedia. At the time this cartoon was made, Minnie was voiced by Marcellite Garner, a voice actress who played her from 1929 until 1939. Either that, or Garner might have worked in the inking department normally and done Minnie's voice on the side - I haven't been able to find very much information on the subject.

From Hiyuga :

I think the voice in this cartoon isn't provided by Disney, but by Carl Stalling.

Not too many. They couldn't decide whether they wanted him to speak or not. I was his voice in only one picture. I don't recall the title [probably Wild Waves (1930)] but Mickey was a lifeguard at the beach, and saved Minnie's life. She said, "My hero," and Mickey said, "Oh, shucks, that's nothin'," in a falsetto. One of the girls in the inking department did the voice for Minnie. I left not long after that, so I don't know what they did about Mickey's voice after that.

http://www.michaelbarrier.com/Funnyworld/Stalling/Stalling.htm


From Mac :

Nice quote, Hiyuga. I suspected the voice might be Carl Stalling (I knew he did the voice of the singing walrus in this cartoon) and that quote seems to confirm it.

Ryan, it's interesting you talk about the appearance of Mickey in this cartoon. I think Mickey and Minnie look and sound a little weird in this one. It doesn't help that they change appearance quite a lot from scene to scene (their faces look different and their body proportions change). Some of the time they're right toothy little blighters and look a little creepy. They're great fun to look at though and a lot of the early merchandise is like it too.

One thing that's back in this cartoon is the main character looking to the audience. Oswald did it quite a bit in Oh, What a Knight and Mickey does it here when he's wondering how to console Minnie. It's true that Mickey's personality has already changed quite a bit and now he and Minnie are very much a cute couple (like in Mickey's Choo Choo). Mickey does get to remain very much the star of his own series for a quite while yet though (I seem to remember I didn't 100% agree with Maltin's comment on the DVD about the focus shifting to characters like Horace and Clarabelle).