Evidently, given other things going on in my life, I didn't get the memo until I found out about this last week: a new Mickey Mouse cartoon series (or rather, a continuation of the 2010s series) to air on Disney+ on November 18, Mickey and Minnie's birthday, known as The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse:
Out of curiosity, after Russi Taylor's passing last year, I asked around who would voice Minnie now. While they didn't know for sure, they thought that it would be the one who voices her now on Mickey Mouse's Mixed-Up Adventures: Kaitlyn Robrock, who took over as the voice on July 17:
You can hear a snippet of Robrock's dialogue as Minnie in the link to this Tweet here.
In all honesty, I think Robrock's Minnie sounds rather like Bernadette from The Big Bang Theory (maybe it's just the way she says "Sheldon doesn't have a spot" that does it for me (or maybe it's just that I love that clip so much)):
It's not known at this point yet, but chances are, Robrock is probably going to play Minnie in the new Mickey Mouse cartoon series coming up.
From what little I know about Robrock, it is revealed that she was born on December 30, 1983, so she's about a year younger than Bret Iwan, the current voice of Mickey. It's nice to know that Mickey and Minnie are now once again voiced by people who are relatively close to each other in age, just as Wayne Allwine and Russi Taylor were (almost) close in age (although chances are, Mickey will be voiced again by Chris Diamantopoulos in this new series, as it's a continuation of the 2010s series).
Personally, I have always thought there was something off-putting about Taylor continuing to voice Minnie while Mickey was voiced by someone much, much younger, so young that Taylor could easily have been Iwan's (or Diamantopoulos') mother in another life!
Anyway, I hope Kaitlyn Robrock continues to voice Minnie for a while to come.
In the first part of my wish list for Disney cartoon shorts on Disney+, I had listed out all the rest of the cartoons shown on Disney+ in Japan, which included pretty much all of the shorts in the "Have a Laugh" lineup (except for the Goofy short Tennis Racquet, which I would also like to see).
The second part involves various other parts of the Disney shorts series that should be included. For instance, it would be nice to get various other black-and-white Mickey cartoons, of which there are only two available: Steamboat Willie (which is there for obvious reasons) and 1933's Ye Olden Days. The main problem with these cartoons is content seen as questionable today, such as ethnic/racial stereotypes, antisocial behaviors like smoking or chewing tobacco, or just plain crude behavior, which came under the heading of "barnyard humor". According to Leonard Maltin, who hosted the Walt Disney Treasures line, which featured these cartoons, they were a product of their times; they were acceptable in the 1930s, but not today.
Maybe a good idea would be to avoid those with special intros by Maltin on the DVDs and focus on those that don't have them, while also taking out a few that did get listed with "regular" shorts (The Mad Dog and Trader Mickey have racial stereotypes, but they were inexplicably included with "regular" shorts). The list is so long, however, that it may warrant its own page here, of what's acceptable and not acceptable. At the very least, it would be nice to get 1930's The Chain Gang and 1932's Mickey's Revue, the respective debuts of Pluto and Goofy. Speaking of...
The second criterion involves non-sports-themed Goofy cartoons. As it stands now, the only such cartoon is 1946's A Knight For a Day. Several of Goofy's roles as an everyman in the 1950s would be nice, for starters, including Fathers Are People (with a tobacco warning at the start), Man's Best Friend, Two Weeks Vacation, Father's Day Off, Father's Weekend, How To Dance, and How To Sleep. And then there are the "miscellaneous" shorts that don't fall into the "sports" or "everyman" shorts. For instance, it would be nice to include Goofy's premiere solo short, Goofy and Wilbur, as well as other shorts like Goofy's Glider, Baggage Buster, The Big Wash, Lion Down, and Home Made Home. Also, it would be nice to get in some cartoons with Goofy paired with Donald. I had previously mentioned Polar Trappers, one of the cartoons available in Japan, but not the U.S., but there should be others like Billposters and No Sail.
The third criterion is pre-1947 Pluto cartoons, back when the dog's theme went like this:
(Incidentally, it would be nice if they actually used the original title cards for all of these cartoons that actually had the correct years on them.)
And yes, The Legend of Coyote Rock would be one of the several cartoons that I would like to see.
As it stands now, most of Pluto's pre-1947 appearances are in other cartoons, mainly those with Mickey and/or Donald. In addition to Coyote Rock, it would also be nice to include Pluto's first solo appearance in Pluto's Quin-Puplets, as well as others like Bone Trouble, Pluto's Playmate, The Sleepwalker, Pluto At the Zoo, Springtime For Pluto, Canine Casanova, In Dutch, and Pluto's Housewarming, all of which feature that pre-1947 theme in the video above.
Finally, it would be good to get some other shorts in here as well. For example, a smattering of Silly Symphonies is shown, but not one of my most favorites, Music Land. In addition, some more "special" cartoons would be nice as well. Disney+ does have Ferdinand the Bull and Lambert the Sheepish Lion, but it would be nice to get some more in there, such as Ben and Me (which is kind of available already as part of "The Liberty Story", an episode of the Disneyland show, in black and white) and the cult classic, Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom. And of course, more Donald cartoons like Donald and Pluto, Modern Inventions (these two, I believe, were in the beta version of Disney+ in the Netherlands), The Eyes Have It, and Donald's Double Trouble.
The main challenge with these cartoons, again, is questionable content, so, in the case of Goofy, cartoons like Californy'er Bust (Indians), African Diary (gunplay and African stereotypes), and No Smoking (Goofy struggling to quit smoking) would probably not make the cut, nor would the war shorts, such as Pluto's The Army Mascot and Private Pluto and Goofy's How To Be a Sailor (which contains Japanese stereotypes). They would probably too big for the obligatory "outdated cultural standards" disclaimer. The cartoons I had mentioned have few, if any, such questionable content in there.
But anyway, that's my take on this. What are your thoughts? Maybe at a later time, I will post the whole list of black-and-white Mickey cartoons to see which ones can or cannot be shown on Disney+.
Overall, I would say that Disney+ has been a relative success in terms of content.
Truly, it is worthy of the Disney Channel's original slogan: "Everything you've ever imagined. And more":
In a previous post, I had talked about the desire for more anthology episodes on the service. While they have included more of such episodes, including "Man In Space", "The Story of the Animated Drawing", "The Liberty Story", "Mars and Beyond", and even several two-part episodes merged into a single movie, such as "Sammy the Way-Out Seal" and "The Boy Who Talked To Badgers", they still haven't put up the stuff I truly would like, such as "An Adventure In Color/Mathmagicland". But I digress.
Another thing about Disney that I really enjoy are the old cartoon shorts, starring Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and the rest. They have been around since the service's launch, with a small handful available at first, but adding on more and more as time went on. However, here again, it would be nice if we could get more, lots more.
There are five things I would like to see:
Pretty much all cartoons released on the "Have a Laugh" line, which ran on the Disney Channel from 2009 to 2012 (and which comprise much of the content on Disney+anyway)
Several pre-1947 Pluto cartoons
Several non-sports-themed Goofy cartoons (the only there is A Knight For a Day)
A lot more black-and-white Mickey cartoons, of which there are only two: Steamboat Willie (for obvious reasons) and 1933's Ye Olden Days
Various miscellaneous shorts, like the Silly Symphony Music Land
I think one reason why they haven't released more cartoons is possibly because some of them have questionable content on them that would never fly today, such as racial or ethic stereotypes, smoking, or just crude behavior. Obviously, those would not be acceptable for inclusion, so half the black-and-white Mickey shorts would be out.
But what about the rest of the criteria? In this first section (like I said, this is a two-part post), I would like to talk about the first of the four things: the remainder of old cartoons from the "Have a Laugh" line, which are included on the Japanese Disney+, but not the U.S. I think one reason why more cartoons from the "Have a Laugh" line haven't been released, such as those involving hunting animals (such as Moose Hunters, Polar Trappers and The Whalers) may be because people, at least in the U.S. have been sensitive to the plight of animals, or they involve, in any way, shape or form, guns and gunplay.
As I have said, some of these cartoons were released on the Japanese Disney+ (based on some of the images above), but not on the American one. Here's the full list of cartoons on their Disney+ that should be on ours (in chronological order):
Mickey's Polo Team (1936)
Moose Hunters (1937)
Polar Trappers (1938)
Good Scouts (1938)
The Whalers (1938)
Mickey's Parrot (1938)
How To Play Golf (1944)
How To Hook Up Your Home Theater (2007)
Incidentally, it's rather amusing to see Goofy's name and not Mickey's displayed on the Whalers title, though to be fair, Goofy was kind of the scene-stealer in these "trio" cartoons.
So, that's the first of the criteria they can start with in terms of adding more cartoons to the streaming service: the rest of those on the "Have a Laugh" line. And while we're at it, they should release the rest of the cartoons in the Shorts Film Collection as well, which as far as I know is available only on Netflix for some reason. As far as I know, they are also available on the French Disney+ (or at least they will be soon if they haven't already).
