The short's slight plot consists entirely of a polo match between two teams, the Mickey Mousers and the Movie Stars. Mickey's team includes himself, Goofy, Donald Duck and the Big Bad Wolf from Disney's Three Little Pigs (1933). Pitted against Mickey's gang are Laurel and Hardy, Harpo Marx, and Charlie Chaplin. In addition, several of Hollywood's Depression-era stars cheer on the players from the stands. The appeal of the cartoon is in the caricatures, which capture the stars' facial features and well-known personas, while the gags play off their physical attributes. Oliver Hardy's rotund physique is too much for his horse, which falls to the ground after Ollie mounts him. Chaplin's horse moves across the field with the same waddling gate as the Little Tramp. And, instead of a horse, Harpo rides an ostrich who wears the same blonde fright wig as the comic.
Jack Holt, a major star of the silent era who transitioned to talking Westerns, serves as referee for the game. The ruggedly handsome Holt boasted an impressive physique and chiseled features, which were exaggerated by the Disney animators. He puffs up his chest as he energetically keeps the less-than-professional players in line.
Meanwhile, back in the stands, Shirley Temple sits with the Three Little Pigs, who deliberately annoy the Big Bad Wolf during his mad dashes to hit the ball. Clark Gable's reputation as a ladies' man is spoofed as Clarabelle the Cow flirts with him while he tries to watch the game. She wiggles her ears at him, which prompts Gable to respond by contorting his own good-sized lobes back at her. Gable was often teased by Hollywood insiders and the entertainment press for his big, protruding ears. Sitting together in another section are Charles Laughton dressed as Henry VIII, Harold Lloyd, W. C. Fields, and Greta Garbo. Some of the caricatures capture the star's famous attributes, such as Fields' peculiar vocal inflections, while others subvert the star's image for laughs, as with Garbo who uncharacteristically waves a pom-pom. Sharp-eyed viewers might recognize Edna May Oliver who sits next to the hare from "The Tortoise and the Hare." The mingling of Disney's famous cartoon characters with Hollywood's elite cleverly elevates the animated figures to the same status as the live action stars.
Humorist Will Rogers, Walt's friend as well as a major polo enthusiast, was included in the preliminary stages of "Mickey's Polo Team" as a player for the Movie Stars. Unfortunately, Rogers died in a plane crash while the cartoon was in production, and his scenes were redone.
The cartoon generated a small controversy two years later when an actor-writer named John P. Wade accused Disney of stealing his idea. Wade claimed he showed Walt a script for a cartoon in which the animals rode humans. At the end of "Mickey's Polo Team," a huge crash of players and horses provided the climax of the match. When the dust settled, the horses were riding the players. In court, Disney testified that the scene was an example of the "reversal gag," a device that goes back to Aesop. The judge dismissed the suit.
More than a compendium of the era's famous stars, "Mickey's Polo Team" reflects Hollywood's love affair with the game of polo from the early Depression to the beginning of World War II. As many as 25 polo fields existed in Los Angeles during the 1930s. Whether Hollywood's rich and famous were attracted to the game because of its air of refinement, or because it offered a respite from their high-profile, pressure cooker lives, polo matches among the stars could be found every week. Hollywood's most notable polo fanatics included producers Darryl F. Zanuck and Hal Roach, director Frank Borzage, character actor James Gleason, stars Clark Gable, Leslie Howard, and Spencer Tracy, and Walt Disney.
Disney was at the peak of his obsession with the game when he originated the idea for "Mickey's Polo Team" in 1935. He had taken up the sport a few years earlier, enlisting some of the personnel at the studio to join him in a team. He persuaded his brother Roy to take up the sport, though the elder brother was not as enthusiastic. Walt hired a professional, Gil Proctor, to tutor them, then arranged for the group to practice before work at a riding academy in the San Fernando Valley. Within a few weeks, they were ready to play against other teams. Disney purchased over a dozen polo ponies and joined the prestigious Riviera Polo Club. His players were called the Mickey Mouse Team, a name close to the Mickey Mousers in the cartoon short.
After witnessing various injuries and accidents, Roy Disney left the team and began lobbying his brother to quit the rough-and-tumble sport because Walt was responsible for a studio of employees as well as a family. Walt did not heed his advice at the time, but eventually he did quit. In one game, Walt was hit in the neck by the ball. He broke four vertebrae, resulting in lifelong back and neck pain. More unsettling was the collision between Disney and MGM actor Gordon Westcott during a match in October 1935. Westcott was trampled under several horses and died three days later. Disney began to retreat from the sport after than tragic event. In 1938, he sold his polo ponies and resigned from the Riviera.
"Mickey's Polo Team" was not the only all-star cartoon produced by Disney during the Depression. The first, Mickey's Gala Premiere, was released in 1933 and included Lionel, Ethel, and John Barrymore in addition to Chaplin, Garbo, and the forgotten comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey. Two years later, Disney produced Broken Toys, his most clever short based on real-life stars. A heap of broken toys that look and sound like Hollywood stars ends up lost and forlorn in the city dump. A sailor doll that is a caricature of MGM character actor Ned Sparks encourages the other toys to quit moping around. Eventually, the toys march out of the dump toward the city orphanage. In 1938, Mother Goose Goes Hollywood included a cartoon Katharine Hepburn as Little BoPeep, though, once again, Laurel and Hardy steal the spotlight. Finally, in 1939, Donald Duck starred in Autograph Hound in which he hopes to meet the elusive Garbo as he hangs out by the studio gate. When the she does arrive, her long luxury automobile resembles her, with droopy-lidded headlights and an aloof manner.
This animated genre, which was not limited to Walt Disney Productions, speaks to the prominence of movie stars in the public consciousness and the power of the star system to fuel the industry.
By Susan Doll
Producer: Walt Disney for Walt Disney
Productions Director: David Hand
Animators: Art Babbitt, Johnny Cannon, Paul Hopkins, Dick Huemer, Grim Natwick, and Bill Roberts
Cast: Mickey Mouse (Walt Disney), Donald Duck (Clarence Nash)
1936 Color 8.47 mins.
