2D Disney Shorts making their way back in June

[krazystitch]

 

Watch out all you young whippersnapper toons. Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks’s 85-year-old character, Mickey Mouse, is coming back in a new short-form series of 2D cartoons. You can sample Mickey’s brand new look today during a special preview today (Tuesday March 12) at 3 p.m. ET/noon PT, exclusively on Disney.com. You can check it out here:http://di.sn/i9L.

This new series of 19 cartoon shorts will begin rolling out on Friday, June 28 on Disney Channel, Disney.com and WATCH Disney Channel. An online game, “Mickey Delivery Dash,” also debuts today on Disney.com. The announcement was made today by Gary Marsh, president and chief creative officer, Disney Channels Worldwide.Since his creation in 1928, Mickey Mouse has continued to be a timeless favorite, a character that embodies joy, innocence and impishness. While the direction and pacing of the new “Mickey Mouse” cartoon shorts are fresh and contemporary, they are at the same time homage to the art direction and storytelling of Walt and his animators in the 1920s and ’30s.

Emmy Award-winning artist and director Paul Rudish (Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls) is the executive producer and director. Aaron Springer (SpongeBob SquarePants, Gravity Falls) and Clay Morrow (Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls) are directors, and Joseph Holt (The Powerpuff Girls) is the art director. The series is produced under the supervision of senior VPs Eric Coleman and Lisa Salamone at Walt Disney Television Animation (TVA).

With the slapstick feel of classic Mickey Mouse, the series of cartoon shorts presents Mickey in a broad range of humorous situations that showcase his pluck and rascality, along with his long-beloved charm and good heartedness. Each cartoon short finds Mickey in a different contemporary setting including Santa Monica, New York, Paris, Beijing, Tokyo, Venice and the Alps, facing a silly situation, a quick complication and an escalation of physical and visual gags. The stories also feature genuine, heroic moments as Mickey explores and experiences life with his comical partners: Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Goofy, and Pluto.

Geared towards kids age 6-14 and families, and produced in 2D animation, the design esthetic for the Mickey Mouse cartoon shorts reaches back almost 80 years and borrows reverentially from the bold style of his 1930s design, but not before adding a few contemporary touches. Designs for other characters have a similar approach, favoring a “rubber-hose” cartoon style for more exaggerated animation. Background designs closely reflect the graphic design sense of 1950s and 1960s Disney cartoons. For those true eagle-eyed Disney fans, the production team has also included the occasional homage to other icons from the storied Disney heritage.

In the first cartoon short, “Croissant de Triomphe,” Mickey must deliver croissants to Minnie’s cafe, battling street traffic and other Parisian obstacles along the way.

Stories in the upcoming cartoon shorts include: “Yodelberg” — Mickey longs to visit Minnie atop her mountaintop chalet but quickly realizes that the threat of avalanche has made the trek up the mountain more challenging than usual. In “No Service,” Mickey and Donald try to buy lunch from a beachside snack shack but are unceremoniously turned down because of the classic “No shirt, no shoes, no service” admonition (of course, Mickey doesn’t wear a shirt and Donald doesn’t wear shoes!).

 

Source: http://www.animationmagazine.net/tv/mickey-mouse-to-star-in-new-disney-2d-shorts/

 

2D Disney shorts actually starring the main cast are coming back! When I read about this, I actually got really excited, as I really enjoy watching the old cartoons with Mickey actually being mischievous and going on all these different types of adventures in different places. I've been longing for them to come back to this for quite a while, so I'm really hoping this turns out to be something strong and well done. Using directors from cartoons like Dexter's Laboratory, Gravity Falls, and Powerpuff Girls, this is definitely some kind of collaboration. As it said in the article, 19 episodes are already confirmed at least, so I'm definitely going to check those out.

 

One episode is already out, running at a time of just three and a half minutes, following Mickey through Paris trying to deliver croissants to Minnie at her restaurant. I really enjoyed the art style, animation, action, music, and simplicity. I think this works really well for some shorts of this length. I found it really entertaining to watch and should work well for the younger age group that they're going for. It's the kind of quality that I think is short and sweet, like it should be.

 

If you didn't read the article, but still want to check out the first short, you can watch it here: http://video.disney.com/watch/croissant-de-triomphe-4d7b3aae690a98650d776d97

[Linkabel]

I saw it when it came out, and I can honestly say that I was impressed by it. Really like the art direction of the new shorts, it has that retro look but with new life added into it.

[Tara]

That was adorable! I definitely look forward to more of this!

 

Also, the sentient moped kind of reminds me of the anime "Kino's Journey."  Interesting.

Edited March 14, 2013 by Akito

[Gregzilla]

Glad to see Mickey and the gang getting some more love!  I always thought Disney should be doing more with those characters as of late.  The art style is definitely interesting.

 

Can't wait to see Donald and Goofy and friends show up in some shorts.  

[iDEATH]

I think the video must be us exclusive for now, link's just taking me straight to disney.co.uk

 

Like the look of this though, glad to see them going back to their roots. also good to see the acknowledge the character was created by Ub Iwerks and not Walt himself.

[Kevin]

I saw it as well and I too was impressed by it and am very much looking forward to seeing what Disney makes.

[krazystitch]

I think the video must be us exclusive for now, link's just taking me straight to disney.co.uk

 

Like the look of this though, glad to see them going back to their roots. also good to see the acknowledge the character was created by Ub Iwerks and not Walt himself.

If it's any help, try watching it here instead

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir0SXuKh-X8

[Emperor Robrainiac]

As someone who is a huge fan of old timey style shorts (especially ones by Disney and Iwerks, alone or together,) I can say that this short tickled my fancy and I am more than ecstatic to hear that there's more of of these on the way. Plus with the talent behind these shorts, there's no way any of these will disappoint.

 

Now that we have finally some new Mickey Mouse toons after all these years, all I need is some new Oswald the Lucky Rabbit shorts, and I'll be the happiest "old timey toon" geek alive.

Edited March 14, 2013 by MAYHEM!

[TheJorsh]

I can't say I'm a fan of the attempt at a slightly more modern version of the original style, but the cartoon was nice, nonetheless.

The closer I look into the animation though, the more it reminds me of Mighty Bee.

[Ming Ming Hatsune]

Please Disney, if you ever do a Donald Duck short, make sure you keep this wonderful song in:

 

[Mega]

I wonder if they'll ever produce shorts with Oswald in them. This aesthetic is fantastic, and I'd love to see the rabbit costar his mouse brother.

[Clouder]

So it looks like the Epic Mickey games started a classic Mickey craze. Give me Bob Clampett Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and you get all my money.

[Ferno]

I really liked that. I like how fluid it looks, good old classic "excessive fluidity, because we can! fuq yeah!!" That you would always see in Disney's old stuff, now with a modern touch.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

So it looks like the Epic Mickey games started a classic Mickey craze. Give me Bob Clampett Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and you get all my money.

 

Those are from Looney Tunes, which belongs to Warner Bros, not Disney.

[Mega]

I think they meant that they want Looney Tunes shorts drawn in the style of the Bob Clampett works. :|b

[Tara]

I think they meant that they want Looney Tunes shorts drawn in the style of the Bob Clampett works. :|b

At this point, I hardly care how they draw Looney Tunes as long as it's not in some unamusing animated sitcom format. =/

[iDEATH]

If it's any help, try watching it here instead

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir0SXuKh-X8

ah brilliant, thanks a lot.

 

Wow, that was lovely, loved the style of it, they really managed to get a nice mix of the classic style while keeping it really modern. I would have preferred hand drawn animation as opposed to havin g it done on computers (while it's still obviously brilliantly animated there are still occasional things like tweens and shape tweens that cheapen it in my opinion), I can understand and forgive that though.

 

As for the content, I was a little disappointed, there's too much focus on action, mickey racing his scooter along rooftops etc. instead of jokes. The old mickey cartoons were joke after joke after joke whereas here, the jokes are much smaller and used really as an addition to the action instead of being the main driving force of the story.

I didn't laugh at all, that's a big problem.

[Clouder]

At this point, I hardly care how they draw Looney Tunes as long as it's not in some unamusing animated sitcom format. =/

The animated sitcom stuff wasn't that good. But I don't even have time to watch it now so WHO CARES?

[TrueBlue]

...I rather like The Looney Tunes Show...

Edited March 15, 2013 by Ringo ~

[Milo]

Excellent news and great cartoon, loved the modernized retraux animation style and the classic Mickey Mouse/Disney gags/shout outs are a rather nice touch. The 2D animation department Disney is definitely on a roll both in terms of films and television animation.

[Ferno]

ah brilliant, thanks a lot.

 

Wow, that was lovely, loved the style of it, they really managed to get a nice mix of the classic style while keeping it really modern. I would have preferred hand drawn animation as opposed to havin g it done on computers (while it's still obviously brilliantly animated there are still occasional things like tweens and shape tweens that cheapen it in my opinion), I can understand and forgive that though.

 

As for the content, I was a little disappointed, there's too much focus on action, mickey racing his scooter along rooftops etc. instead of jokes. The old mickey cartoons were joke after joke after joke whereas here, the jokes are much smaller and used really as an addition to the action instead of being the main driving force of the story.

I didn't laugh at all, that's a big problem.

 

The action sequences were actually my favorite part, as I tend to eat up that sort of thing in any media. Who knows though, maybe some of the other shorts will be more joke-oriented. As for the animation, yeah it looks like flash, but I still really like it. It's still got an awkwardly smooth framerate that flash-based stuff is known for, but the animators used that to their advantage here with how fluid and vibrant everything moves, probably with less effort than they would've had to put in doing it by hand, but achieving similar results, also with a slicker, cleaner, modern look to boot. Stuff like this and MLP have really helped me to sorta warm up to flash recently, (even though I still have a problem with 80% of the other shows that use it lazily.) My favorite piece of animation in the whole thing is probably the part where Mickey's being chased as he runs and jumps over boxes and stuff. It's just so zany looking and oozes style.

Edited March 15, 2013 by Inferno

[Gabz Girl]

This was great! I adore the animation style, since I've always had a fondness for Classic Mickey. Never really liked his look much in the 1940's shorts and beyond. Now I hope they do more of these with other characters like Goofy and Donald, especially the latter.

[Ultimate Waffle]

Oh wow, I saw this a few days ago, and this is the cutest thing ever. While obviously Flash, the animators defiantly used it to their advantage and I must say that I think the animation looks even better than MLP. The character designs are also extremely cute.

 

And I really like how they're portraying Mickey. Since his last short in 1995 (I think it was then), Mickey Mouse has been totally morphed from a mischievous troublemaker to a boring niceguy everyman in the House of Mouse. But you can still obviously tell that they just didn't know what to do with Mickey in the MD&G shorts. I guess we really can't tell much of his character from this very short short, but you can see that he is a lot more 'actiony' than he has been since the last short. He is also enough trouble that the cops have to come after him. I don't know, you can say I'm looking too much in to this and I probably am, but I'm really looking forward to June.

Edited March 16, 2013 by UsernameAlreadyTook-Waffle

[Death the Kid]

I saw it when it came out, and I can honestly say that I was impressed by it. Really like the art direction of the new shorts, it has that retro look but with new life added into it.

 

Same here. a mix of retro and modern animation is always cool, and they did a pretty good job of it unlike certain shows on Cartoon Network these days which sometimes have heads that are too big for a paper-thin body and whatnot. if you're gonna mix the two elements, do them right; and that's exactly what Disney did here. 

Edited March 16, 2013 by Death the Kid

[iDEATH]

The action sequences were actually my favorite part, as I tend to eat up that sort of thing in any media. Who knows though, maybe some of the other shorts will be more joke-oriented. As for the animation, yeah it looks like flash, but I still really like it. It's still got an awkwardly smooth framerate that flash-based stuff is known for, but the animators used that to their advantage here with how fluid and vibrant everything moves, probably with less effort than they would've had to put in doing it by hand, but achieving similar results, also with a slicker, cleaner, modern look to boot. Stuff like this and MLP have really helped me to sorta warm up to flash recently, (even though I still have a problem with 80% of the other shows that use it lazily.) My favorite piece of animation in the whole thing is probably the part where Mickey's being chased as he runs and jumps over boxes and stuff. It's just so zany looking and oozes style.

 

I'm one of those people who just kinda switches off during action scenes, they're just not for me at all. Making it feel more action orientated just made it feel less of a mickey cartoon to me but yeah, maybe the future shorts will sort that out.

 

I'm liking mickey's personality in this though, it's a lot closer to how he was in the first cartoons.

 

Edit: seeing as this  has put me in the mood for some classic disney, here's the first ever mickey mouse cartoon

Edited March 16, 2013 by Jake Bird