| The Chain Gang | |
|---|---|
 Poster | |
| Directed by | Burt Gillett |
| Produced by | Walt Disney |
| Starring |
|
| Animation by |
|
| Color process | Black-and-white latercolorized |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 7:57 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Chain Gang is a 1930Mickey Mouseanimated film produced byWalt Disney Productions forColumbia Pictures, as part of theMickey Mouse film series.[1] It was the twenty-first Mickey Mouse short to be produced, the sixth of that year.[2] It is one of a group of shorts of strikingly uneven quality produced by Disney immediately afterUb Iwerks left the studio.[3]
The cartoon was primarily drawn by Norm Ferguson,[4] and featured a pair of bloodhounds, who helped to track down Mickey after hisprison escape. Although these dogs were not named, the style in which they were drawn makes them clear forerunners ofPluto, who first officially appeared a few months later inThe Picnic.[5] The animation for one of the bloodhound scenes inThe Chain Gang was recycled as Pluto in four later cartoons.[1] Additionally, a few scenes contain reused animation from theOswald The Lucky Rabbit cartoonSagebrush Sadie.
Due to being published in 1930, the cartoon will enter thepublic domain on January 1, 2026.
Mickey Mouse is in prison, connected with a chain to six other prisoners as they are led out to the yard for hard labor. He keeps a cheery grin, banging on the iron ball and singing, until theprison guard,Peg-Leg Pete, tells him to shut up. The prisoners break rocks, but when the guard falls asleep at his post, Mickey playsVernon Dalhart's "The Prisoner's Song" on his harmonica.[6] The other prisoners join in with the song, singing and using their implements as instruments.
One of the inmates dances to the tune ofFelix Mendelssohn's "Spring Song", but when he spits on the guard, Pete wakes up and whistles for help.[6] This starts aprison riot, and the guards shoot at the prisoners. Mickey uses a seesaw to fly over the prison wall, and escapes into the nearby woods.
Mickey is chased into a swamp by a guard accompanied by two bloodhounds, and tries to get away by riding a pair of horses. With the horses out of control, Mickey flies off a cliff, which happens to be right above the prison. He falls through the roof into a cell, where two inmates happily sing "We're Here Because We're Here". Mickey joins in for the final iris out.
In a scene animated byNorm Ferguson, Mickey is chased by two bloodhounds after his prison break, and we see each hound approach and sniff, then bark directly into the camera. According to Gijs Grob inMickey's Movies: "These hounds are possibly the most elaborately designed and most naturally behaving animals in any theatrical cartoon hitherto, and would become the prototype of Pluto".[6] In 1932, Disney's in-house art instructorDon Graham said: "The dogs were alive, real. They seemed to breathe. They moved like dogs, not drawings of dogs. The drawings explained not so much what a real dog looked like, but what a real dog did".[7]
Variety: "One of the most amusing cartoons released. Has to do with animal prison. 'Volga Boatman' and 'Prison Song' theming. Usual method of using each other's tails or hoofs for instruments. A jailbreak is used effectively".[9]
The short was released on December 2, 2002, onWalt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in Black and White[10] and on December 7, 2004, onWalt Disney Treasures: The Complete Pluto: 1930–1947.[11]
