Exceedingly

2/10

This cartoon introduces a new character with a lot of potential that is immediately squandered. Mortimer Mouse is apparently Minnie’s ex, since he refers to her as “his old sweetie”, and the two seem to still be on good terms. Minnie's characterization is terrible, at first oblivious and then apathetic toward Mickey’s feelings, and Mickey doesn’t come across any better, instantly jealous for no good reason and then, once he’s given a real reason to hate Mortimer, just a sullen grumbling jerk for the majority of the cartoon. Mortimer, at least, is an interesting foil to the normally pleasant Mouse, a cocky bully whose nature would have been better highlighted if Mickey hadn’t immediately been scowling at him. But there are far bigger letdowns in this cartoon than bad characterization. There’s some racism, when Mortimer dons a terrible Mexican accent and antagonizes a bull on the other side of an open fence. Then he runs away, disappearing permanently about halfway through the short. The remainder of the cartoon is then mostly focused on running away from a bull. It’s an utter waste of a new character, as though the creators had a great idea but then realized halfway through that they had no idea how to actually capitalize on it. But the most egregious thing, for me, is the cars. For some reason, Mickey and Mortimer’s cars have faces and can do things of their own accord. Mortimer’s car barely does anything, but Mickey’s car gets entirely too much screentime. This is just a really sub-par cartoon, unfortunately, filled with bad characterization, half-baked ideas, and annoyingly expressive cars. It also killed the character of Mortimer immediately; he never appeared in another classic Disney cartoon, or in anything else for that matter, until the 2000s, when shows like House of Mouse revived him.