Walt Disney Treasures - Mickey Mouse in Black and White
In these cartoons released between 1928 and 1935, Walt Disney created  one of the icons of 20th-century culture. Disney's reputation was built on these  early shorts, and the films shimmer with the energy of the young artists  exploring the new medium of the sound cartoon. Watching the films in  chronological order enables the viewer to see the remarkable progress Walt and  his crew made in animation, storytelling, and acting in just seven years. The  rambunctious, rubbery Mickey of "Plane Crazy" and "Steamboat Willie" quickly  developed into the polished charmer of "Gulliver Mickey" and "Mickey's Orphans."  More than 70 years after his debut, the black and white Mickey still displays  the appeal that made him so popular during the '30s, whenA Mickey Mouse  Cartoonappeared on theater marquees with the feature titles, and his fans  included Franklin Roosevelt, Mary Pickford, George V of England, the Nizam of  Hyderabad--and the more than one million children who joined the first Mickey  Mouse Club.Although it's fun to look at the old sketches and pencil tests, the high point  of the supplementary material is the discussion host Leonard Maltin conducts  with Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, the last surviving members of the justly  celebrated "Nine Old Men" of Disney animation. Thomas and Johnston were nearly  90 at the time of the interview, but their enthusiasm for their work, for  Mickey, and for the man who made it all possible remains undimmed. (Unrated;  suitable for all ages: cartoon violence)--Charles Solomon