Mickey’s Greatest Adventures
“If you plant these beans in the light of a full moon, you know what will happen?”
“YES! WE GET MOON BEAMS!”
40 years ago today on 1/20/80 “Mickey’s Greatest Adventures” aired on “Disney’s Wonderful World”. A retitling of “The Adventures Of Mickey Mouse” from 1955, it hadn’t been shown in 25 years when the show was still in black and white on ABC.
The show begins with Gary Owens as our audible host, telling us about the vast career of the world’s most famous mouse, starting off with the cartoon “Squatter’s Rights” with Chip And Dale being the original tenants of a cabin that Mickey and Pluto go to stay at, and then on to “Mickey’s Trailer”, with Mickey, Donald and Goofy driving a trailer into the mountains, with the gang making the mistake of having Goofy be the driver (“Well, I got you down safe and sound!”). Then the almost 20 minute “Mickey And The Beanstalk” segment of “Fun And Fancy Free” is presented, telling the story with Mickey, Donald and Goofy as our heroes, and Willie the Giant as the villain (voiced by the wonderful Billy Gilbert). Finally “Alpine Climbers” has Mickey, Donald, and Pluto climbing the Alps, along with a St. Bernard that helps Pluto a little too much.
In the original broadcast Walt Disney was the host, so accordingly all those sequences wouldn’t be shown in 1980, the idea of having a host on the show having been abandoned after his passing. In that original showing the first cartoon shown was “The Band Concert”, then “Alpine Climbers”, “Squatter’s Rights”, and finally “Mickey And The Beanstalk”. At the end Walt is closing the show and Willie the giant lifts the roof of the room to look for Mickey, just as he had at the end of “Fun And Fancy Free” with Edgar Bergen, and afterward walks over the buildings of Los Angeles, finding the Brown Derby, and putting it on his head. Humorous lumbering music is used for his nocturnal walk (editing out the initial part of the walk where Jiminy Cricket is seen), while in the original film the reprise of the gorgeous, jaunty title song “Fun And Fancy Free” was used, not having quite the same joyous spirit of the original film.
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