The Moose Hunt is number 28 in the Mickey Mouse short film series, being released on April 8, 1931. It begins with Mickey Mouse and Pluto out in the woods on what looks to be a lovely day for hunting moose. Mickey is whistling merrily as Pluto bounds ahead of him to lap up some water from a small pond.
This cartoon is important to Disney’s history in a few ways. One, it is the first film that Mickey calls Pluto by his name. It also establishes that Pluto is in fact Mickey’s dog. Previously, Pluto had been seen as Minnie’s dog dubbed “Rover” in the November 14, 1930s film The Picnic. It’s funny to note that Mickey’s best pal Pluto actually started out as Rover, a furry companion for Minnie.
The Moose Hunt is also known as the only cartoon in which Pluto actually talks. Some Disney fans maintain that “kiss me” are the only words that Pluto ever speaks. However, in The Moose Hunter, Pluto can also be heard saying the word “mammy” and “moose.”
After Pluto emerges from jumping in a pond, Mickey orders him to lie down, roll over, shake, and speak. When Pluto speaks, he gets on one knee, stretches out his arms and shouts, “Mammy!” This is derived from a parody of the famous performer Al Jolson's routine in the movie The Jazz Singer. The joke was moderately widespread for the time, having also been seen in Disney’s 1929 The Haunted House.
After that scene Mickey plays fetch with Pluto and throws him a branch that looks ironically like moose antlers. Pluto runs after it and while retrieving the branch, Mickey mistakes him for a moose in the distance and shoots his faithful friend. Once Mickey realizes what he has done, he cries and begs for Pluto to say something, as Pluto lies on his back seemingly dead. While Mickey cries into his hands, Pluto looks up and winks at the audience, letting them in on the joke, and then continues to play dead. Finally, after Mickey’s final plea for Pluto to say something he sits up and says, “Kiss me.”
Towards the end of the short, Pluto also frantically utters the word “moose” when trying to alert Mickey that there is a moose behind him. Pluto stutters, “the muh, the muh, the muh, the moose!” and then runs away, leaving behind Mickey to fend off the irritated creature. Mickey and Pluto both run all the way to a cliff, where Mickey then jumps on Pluto’s back, and they both leap off a cliff. Pluto begins flapping his ears with a Dumbo-like style, leaving the moose safely behind them.
See if you can make out what Pluto says by viewing The Moose Hunt at Youtube.com. Pluto says “mammy” at 3:23 specific video time, “kiss me” at 4:43 specific video time, and “moose” at 6:09 specific video time.
