Ta b l e o f C o n T e n T s

Setting the Stage

Of Mouse and Man: Adapting Mickey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Foreword by Thomas Andrae

The Adventures: Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse Stories

With Introductory Notes

Looking Forward, Looking Back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

“THE GREAT ORPHANAGE ROBBERy” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17January 11 – May 14, 1932. Story and pencils by Floyd Gottfredson; Inks by al Taliaferro

King of the Cannibal Island Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

“MICKEy MouSE SAILS FoR TREASuRE ISLAND” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55May 16 – noveMber 12, 1932. Story and pencils by Floyd Gottfredson; Inks by al Taliaferro and Ted Thwaites

Growth of a Hero . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

“BLAGGARD CASTLE” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109noveMber 14, 1932 – February 10, 1933. Plot and pencils by Floyd Gottfredson; Script by Webb Smith; Inks by Ted Thwaites

“PLuTo AND THE DoGCATCHER” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134February 11 – 25, 1933. Plot and pencils by Floyd Gottfredson; Script by Ted osborne; Inks by Ted Thwaites

Gloom and Greatness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

“THE MAIL PILoT” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141February 27 – June 10, 1933. Plot and pencils by Floyd Gottfredson; Script by Ted osborne; Inks by Ted Thwaites

Betting the Farm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

“MICKEy MouSE AND HIS HoRSE TANGLEFooT” . . . . . . . . . . . 173June 12 – ocTober 7,1933. Plot and pencils by Floyd Gottfredson; Script by Ted osborne; Inks by Ted Thwaites

Mickey Mouse the Detective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

“THE CRAZy CRIME WAVE” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209ocTober 9, 1933 – January 9, 1934. Plot and pencils by Floyd Gottfredson; Script by Merrill de Maris; Inks by Ted Thwaites

Ta b l e o f C o n T e n T s

The Gottfredson Archives: Essays and Special Features

Gallery feature—The Comics Department at Work: Mickey Mouse in Color (...And Black and White) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

Gallery feature—Gottfredson’s World:The Great Orphanage Robbery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

The Cast: Horace, Clarabelle... and Dippy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242by David Gerstein

Mousterpieces: Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse Paintings . . . . . . . . 244Appreciation by Malcolm Willits

“Mickey Mouse in the Frozen North” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246Painting by Floyd Gottfredson

Gallery feature—Gottfredson’s World:Mickey Mouse Sails For Treasure Island . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

The Cast: Pete and Shyster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248by David Gerstein

“Mickey Mouse Sails for Treasure Island” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249Painting by Floyd Gottfredson

“Mickey Mouse and Clarabelle” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250Painting by Floyd Gottfredson

Gallery feature—Gottfredson’s World: Blaggard Castle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

The Gottfredson Gang: In “Their Own” Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252by David Gerstein, with texts by Eleanor Barnes

The Cast: Ecks, Doublex, and Triplex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256by David Gerstein

Sharing the Spotlight: Webb Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257by Alberto Becattini and David Gerstein

“Mickey Mouse in Blaggard Castle” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258Painting by Floyd Gottfredson

Gallery feature—Gottfredson’s World: The Mail Pilot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Sharing the Spotlight: Ted Osborne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260by Alberto Becattini and David Gerstein

“Mickey Mouse the Mail Pilot” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261Painting by Floyd Gottfredson

Gallery feature—Gottfredson’s World:Mickey Mouse and His Horse Tanglefoot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

“Mickey Mouse and His Horse Tanglefoot” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263Painting by Floyd Gottfredson

Sharing the Spotlight: Merrill de Maris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264by Alberto Becattini and David Gerstein

Gallery feature—Gottfredson’s World: The Crazy Crime Wave . . . . . . . . 265

“Mickey Mouse the Detective” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266Painting by Floyd Gottfredson

The Cast: Tanglefoot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267by J.B. Kaufman and David Gerstein

Gallery feature—Gottfredson’s World: The Perils of Mickey . . . . . . . . . . . 268

“RETuRN To BLAGGARD CASTLE” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269Disney Adventures, vol 3, no 10 and 11 (auGuST and SePTeMber, 1993). Story by David cody Weiss; art by Stephen DeStefano; Lettering by Stephen DeStefano and bill Spicer

“During the Continuities...” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279by Floyd Gottfredson

JANUARY 11, 1932–

MAY 14, 1932

T he one-time popularity of Uncle Tom’s Cabin—particularly as a story for all ages—seems foreign from today’s vantage point. Yet when one steps just a couple of decades into the past, there

is Uncle Tom: as common a “family classic,” in the public mindset, as The Wizard of Oz. And like Oz, Uncle Tom was capable of being interpreted and re-interpreted in numerous ways.

When Abraham Lincoln called Tom author Harriet Beecher Stowe “the little woman who started [the Civil] War,” he was only half-right: slavery was not the only reason for the conflict. Still, the original Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)—as a bestselling abolitionist novel—surely fueled the fires of battle. Its African-American slave heroes were smart, rounded individuals; the original Uncle Tom fought back against thuggish white characters by refusing to betray his runaway compatriots, or to lower himself to his owners’ level of violence.

Yet Stowe’s characters are seldom remembered this way today. Less than a year after the book’s publication, “pro-South” stage play versions of Uncle Tom were transforming the story radically.1 Slave girl Topsy, once the tragic image of an uneducated child, became a simple comic foil. Evil slave owner Simon Legree became one bad apple in an otherwise accept-able institution. Finally, Tom’s refusal to fight was transformed from moral superiority into timid cowardice, creating the cliché of “the uncle tom”: a minority member who behaves submissively toward oppressors.

While Stowe disliked some of these depictions, 19th century copyright law left her powerless to stop them.2

Luckily for Stowe, the abolition-minded boosters of her original novel mounted Uncle Tom plays of their own. These “pro-North” Tom shows still naïvely included some elements that offend today, such as white actors performing in blackface. But “pro-North” Tom shows tried to be pro-equality, too. Simon Legree once again represented slavery as a whole; Tom, while a victim of villainy, defiantly refused to give in to it.

The “pro-North” Uncle Tom was often the subject of early animation and comics. Battles with Simon Legree became a nearly constant activity for cartoon stars: from Felix the Cat in Uncle Tom’s Crabbin’ (1927) to Red Hot Riding Hood in Uncle Tom’s Cabana (1947). Mickey got his opportu-nity with Floyd Gottfredson’s “Great Orphanage Robbery” (1932); then again with a screen version, Mickey’s Mellerdrammer (1933), one year later.

Mickey’s versions of the Tom story reflect the state of progressivism in the early 1930s. Practicing for his role as Uncle Tom, Mickey commend-ably talks back to his master (January 29); Horace Horsecollar, playing Legree, is bombarded with vegetables or chased by his own hound.3 By the same token, however, Mickey’s retelling still includes severely dated ele-ments—like blackface gags and overexaggerated Southern dialect. The sheer ubiquity of some clichés in 1932 led even well-intentioned writers to overlook their negative impact. [DG]

LOOKING FORWARD, LOOKING BACK

1 John Frick, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin on the Antebellum Stage,” Uncle Tom’s Cabin & American Culture, http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/interpret/

exhibits/frick/frick.html (accessed April 9, 2011).

2 Eric Lott, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 213.

3 The punishment differs from film to strip; see Mickey’s Mellerdrammer (1933) on Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in Black and White

Vol. 2 (Disney DVD, 2004).

THE GREAT ORPHANAGE ROBBERY 17.

18. THE GREAT ORPHANAGE ROBBERY

THE GREAT ORPHANAGE ROBBERY 19.

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THE GREAT ORPHANAGE ROBBERY 27.

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