Foreverisacastironmess After an evil scientist dognaps Mickey's pet and friend Pluto, the courageous mouse embarks on a rescue mission into a haunted castle where it turns out that the wacko scientist who conducts his fiendish experiments within literally has quite a few skeletons in his closet, and they ain't exactly dead! For 1933 the animation of this short is terrifically fluid and superbly fun to watch and is so suspenseful, with lots of dynamic fixed angles and deep shadows, it's very classically spooky and Gothic, much like in Mickey's The Haunted House and The Skeleton Dance, and to me this short is just as awesomely atmospheric and well done as those two. There's some excellent 'set' pieces in it, like the huge creepy castle that's built on a giant skull-shaped rock with the little drawbridge and lightning thundering above as the ocean waves crash below.. I so love that! It's such grand and dramatic macabre imagery, to my tastes very beautiful and timeless. The tone of this short distinctly feels a lot more early Fleischer than Disney, it almost feels like it should be sweet Betty getting terrorised by those mischievous skeletons! There are some great weird spooky sight gags to enjoy like when the door locks itself and the door within a door within a door, and the sequence where Mickey's making his way through the stone corridor is incredibly well detailed and impressively done, having an almost 3-Dimensional effect to it. And I love all the inventive gags they did with the skeletons - like a skeleton staircase of coffins, a skeleton cuckoo clock, a bizarre skeleton spider- everything! And they were some well detailed and proportioned skeletons! This is a cartoon short that feels especially well-polished, it has tons of rich details poured into its animation, not least the mad doctor's lab which is a homage to 1931's Frankenstein. Something else that I couldn't help noticing was that when the doc was wearing his black cloak disguise he looked very much like the figures that close the massive gates of cursed Pleasure Island in Pinocchio. I did feel a bit let down by the old "it was all a dream" surprise twist at the end.. But hey perhaps it wasn't so done and dusted back in 33! It was made so long ago but it's still so much scary great fun to watch, the truly classic stuff never grows old x

Cartoon King "The Mad Doctor" was considered by many to be very dark for a Disney short. The character of the Mad Doctor is quite creepy himself, and him trying to kill Mickey with a saw truly shows his evilness. But I'm not saying all of this is bad. This is actually part of why I love this short so much.Now I am a HUGE fan of golden-age cartoon shorts. And of course, some of the best of these classic cartoons come from Disney. I truly think "The Mad Doctor" is one of the best Mickey Mouse cartoons. It's dark, spooky and kind of eerie, but that just adds to how great this short really is. It's in black and white of course, since color wasn't very common in 1933, but the animation in this short is fantastic. Like other classic Mickey shorts, this one has a very rubbery feel to the animation, and that was really cool. The animation is just done so perfectly in this short, I can't find a single fault in it.The plot of this short is about Pluto being captured by an evil doctor who plans to attach Pluto's head to the body of a chicken. Mickey goes to the scary castle to rescue Pluto.Even the story of this short is kind of dark. Still, Ithis was a great cartoon. Sure it may frighten small children, but at least it has a happy ending."The Mad Doctor" is one of the best classic Mickey Mouse cartoons. It's dark, spooky, eerie, and kind of creepy, but it has great animation, an original, well-written story, and is very fun and enjoyable to watch.Rating: 9/10 "Excellent"

wmorrow59 While I wouldn't call it my favorite Mickey Mouse cartoon, The Mad Doctor is a genuinely impressive piece of work, a dazzling display of what Disney animators could accomplish within the six-minute, black-and-white format. It's hard to believe that this was made only five years after Mickey's debut, for where those early adventures have the crude look of a flip-book, this cartoon demonstrates sophisticated technique in every department, from the draftsmanship to the editing, voice work, and that perennial Disney specialty: the use of music. All of these techniques are deftly combined to put our heroes, Mickey and his dog Pluto, into a terrifying situation that evokes childhood fears with the intensity of a nightmare. I confess this isn't my favorite cartoon because I find the macabre atmosphere all too well realized to watch with undiluted pleasure, but I certainly admire the technique on display.The very first shot sets the tone with ruthless efficiency: a storm is howling and we see dark clouds, branches blowing wildly, lightning flashing, a small house in the distance and a dog house in the foreground where Pluto is sleeping peacefully. Cut to Mickey in his bed as the lightning flashes and thunder crashes, and then we hear Pluto howling and evil laughter in the yard. Mickey looks outside, and we see Pluto's house upended as a sinister hooded figure drags him away on a chain. Mickey plunges into the storm and takes off in pursuit. The hooded figure drags Pluto across a narrow bridge, high above a moat, to a castle on a skull-like island. (Hollywood inside joke: the castle's knocker identifies the owner as "Dr. XXX," a reference to a then-current horror film starring Lionel Atwill with a similar title.) Once inside, Mickey encounters bats, shadowy figures, and skeletons who hurl their own heads at him.Mickey's misadventures with the skeletons are creepy in a traditional, Halloween-y sort of way, but what makes this cartoon really disturbing are the scenes in the castle involving Pluto. There's a startling shot of the dog writhing as the hooded figure carries him into his laboratory, and then Pluto is strapped into an electric chair-like device alongside a long-suffering, sobbing chicken. Pluto's captor then throws off his hood and reveals himself as a bearded 'Mad Doctor' with a taste for eccentric gene-splicing experiments. Using a graphic diagram to illustrate what's about to happen, the villain announces his evil intentions in rhyme as the dog squirms. There's a particularly nasty shot of the doctor slicing Pluto's shadow in half while the dog watches in horror.I guess it goes without saying that things work out alright for Mickey and Pluto in the end, but squeamish viewers would no doubt prefer to see the happy ending come a bit sooner. As it stands, we have only a few moments at the fade-out to bask in our sense of relief. The Mad Doctor is a must for animation buffs, but I'm not kidding when I say that I'm glad I didn't see it until I was an adult, because if I'd seen this movie as a kid I would've had nightmares for a long time afterward.

mandzirm This cartoon has some pretty weird, spooky stuff - a dark side you would never see in later Mickey Mouse cartoons. Unless your four-year-old can handle a mad doctor threatening to cut Mickey's head off, steer him clear of this one. For adults, though, it's quite original.