No Service

Hello  &  welcome back to A Look at Disney.   As I mentioned earlier this year,  Disney is in the process of releasing new Mickey Mouse shorts, this year.  And I intend to review all of them as they debut on Disney.com.   No Service is the second of these Mickey shorts and actually,  I'd say just calling it a Mickey short is not far.  As in this short, Mickey and Donald are both in being lead characters. Here is a link to the video on Disney's website. With that out of the way, let's begin.  Now I should clarify that these shorts are made by Disney's television department but they are still very good and it almost feels as though they are attempting to hearken back to Mickey's heyday.

The Plot

The plot is admittedly rather simple but he way it is executed is so funny and over the top.   We open the short on Mickey and Donald walking on  a  boardwalk as they are about to meet up with the girls.  They come across this little place called the Snack Shack run by Goofy and decide to pick up some to surprise the girls with a picnic and this is where the title of the short comes into play.

What do I mean?  Well, this is where the title of the short comes into play as you see Goofy, refuses to serve them because of the No Shirt, No Shoes, No Pants rule.  

The boys don't take this lying down.  They at first get into a little scrape over who should go in and get the food and we see one of those classic cartoon fights, where everything is clouded to hide the fighting but you see the punches.  That was funny.   With their clothes landing on each other.   And then   they decide to draw straws or pluck feathers from Donald to see who'll go in and get the food,   and of course, Donald uses this to his advantage and cheats as he puts out a rather large feather and goes in to get the food.  Thus leaving Mickey naked.    And later on Mickey hears the girls coming and we see his various attempts to hide.        Which is rather humorous and it was a little odd to see a fully naked Mickey as that is a different direction to take the character then he has been used in recent years.   And the short comes to it's climax, when Donald tries to pay with a credit card and pulls out Mickey's Driver License. Oops!    And then we see Goofy kick Donald out and all of the clothes that Donald was wearing fall of him and Mickey does this really cool jump in the air that succeeds him in getting dressed and grabbing the food.  And he ends up taking the girls on the picnic while Daisy is left mortified by the sight of her boyfriend in his birthday suit.   All in all,  this was a rather funny short and I enjoyed it but I will say that I thought the short before this, Croissant De Triomphhe was funnier and had more action.  That short didn't leave you time to breathe with how exciting, it was.  That's not to say, this one was bad but the first one was in my opinion, the stronger of the two.  This short seemed to rely on a lot of sight gags.  And that seems to be something, I've  noticed in both of the shorts but they do make sense in the context of the story or they just clever.  Such as one where Mickey's ear detached  from his head and rolled down this post almost like a roller coaster while trying to stay out of Minnie and Daisy's sight.    Once again, all in all I enjoyed my time with this short and look forward to the next Mickey short.

Characters

Now  I don't feel the need to break this down any further then I already have. With that out of the way, let's begin.  Now,  I won't be going over Minnie and Daisy as they are barely in this short.

Mickey Mouse voiced by Chris Diamantopoulos 

I really enjoyed Mickey in this short as we got to see his playful,  and mischievous side and not to mention, his temper.   Which is pictured above because you see while in the Snack Shack, Donald was cracking jokes about Mickey being naked such as "those are some hot buns".  Well,  Mickey got a little more then agitated at the jabs from his fine feathered friend.  And settled on payback by dressing up like that and going around quacking.  It was humorous to be sure.  Something,  I find odd and  can't seem to find any information online as to why is that Mickey's regular voice actor, Bret Iwan is not providing the voice for Mickey in these shorts.  He's not retired from the role as he still voices Mickey elsewhere such as Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Part of me imagines with the voice work, he has to do,  Disney wants him to focus on other more important projects that involve Mickey. So instead, we have our fifth Mickey VA,  Chris Diamantopoulos.   And in that regard, I was little taken aback, mostly because  A.  I'm still not all that familiar with Iwan's Mickey work outside of Epic Mickey 2 and I really thought it was Bret Iwan.  Now as for our new Mickey voice actor,  I like him.  He seems comfortable in the role and his Mickey voice isn't bad.  It's not the best as it does seem to borrow for Walt's version of the voice a little bit but that's not a bad thing. Maybe I just have high standards, when we've had great VA's like Walt Disney and Wayne Allwine voicing one of the most iconic Disney characters.   I'd say I'm not trying to compare Chris Diamantopoulos  to Mr. Disney or Mr. Allwine but it's hard not to, when you are dealing with a character of Mickey's status.  Still,  our new voice actor was great in the role.  Still, it's a little peculiar that Bret Iwan didn't voice Mickey, yet every regular voice actor was in this short voicing their characters.  Hmm, who knows?

Donald Duck voiced by  Tony Anselmo

Donald was well, Donald.   There's really not much to say about Donald here.  He was the playful jokester that loves messing with his friends.  The interesting thing is, we didn't see Donald's temper in this short.  No, he really didn't get angry.  Oh sure, he retaliated when Mickey made fun of him but to be fair, he started that.     So, this short proves that there is more to Donald then just his trademark temper.

Goofy voiced by Bill Farmer

Goofy was the only one that felt slightly out of character in this short.  Goofy, who is usually well meaning but a goof, came across as a bit of a jerk.  Albeit,  I understand where he was coming from as he was running a restaurant and wanted the patrons to follow the rules. Of course that is how subverted at the end, when it's revealed that Goofy isn't wearing any pants. Uh, why?   I get what you were going for here with that joke but Goofy has always been fully clothed.   And in my opinion, he was the wrong character to use for this role.   This role should've either been filled by Pete (wearing pants) or Mortimer Mouse (again, wearing pants).   Actually,  the more I think about it, this role would've been prefect for Pete.  I can totally picture him saying all the things about No Service and hear it delivered wonderfully in Jim Cumming's   loud and gruff Pete voice.   Talk about a missed opportunity, guys.  This should've been Pete because he would've not only been more believable in this role but you could do so much more, comedy wise.  Sure, it's only three and a half minutes and the stuff with Mickey and Donald was funny but Pete is the perfect foil for Mickey and there is a reason, why he was always cast in the management positions.  Because it adds another layer of humor to the situation.



My Final Thoughts

This short wasn't that bad. Other then the missed opportunity with not having Pete in this short, I really enjoyed it.  It  was very funny and highly entertaining.  The new voice actor for Mickey is decent and it's nice to see the gang go back to their old short film roots.    This short while not as good as the previous entry, I reviewed as highly entertaining.  I say give it a watch.