Excellent but underrated film

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This is a crazy cartoon featuring Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and his friends who face off against a team of celebrities in a polo match. It's nice seeing the celebrities represented in this cartoon - Laurel and Hardy, Harpo Marx and Charlie Chaplin. There are even familiar-looking faces in the audience stands as well including Shirley Temple, Clark Gable, the Three Little Pigs and the Hare from Tortoise and the Hare.Plenty of slapstick stuff, but the appearance of the many characters seem to be the only fun thing about this cartoon short. Other than that, the story just consists of lots of running and around and chaotic game-play. Not much entertainment here.Grade D+

One of my personal favourite Disney cartoons without a doubt. I have always had a soft for the Disney cartoons, and Mickey's Polo Team is no exception. Apart from Donald and Goofy looking cruder than they do usually, though not as much as On Ice, the animation is colourful and fluid(Big Bad Wolf is the best animated of the characters), and the music is typically energetic and action enhancing. The story is simple, but goes by quickly with not a dull moment. As with Mother Goose Goes Hollywood, the gags and the characters are the real stars of Mickey's Polo Tem, plus it was really interesting to see Disney's characters and caricatures of famous stars of the time playing polo. I enjoyed seeing Mickey(though he doesn't get much to do), Goofy, Donald, Clarabelle Cow and Big Bad Wolf, as well as caricatures of Clark Gable, Shirley Temple, Harpo Marx, Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Robin. Stars of the likes of Peculiar Penguins, Who Killed Cock Robin and The Golden Touch can also be seen. The gags overall are not as clever or as hilarious as Mother Goose Goes Hollywood, but there is still much to enjoy. The best of the laughs come from Laurel & Hardy(reminiscent of their films but still very funny) and Donald(very outlandish), though it was interesting to see Charlie Chaplin with his cane rather than a polo stick and the Clark Gable vs.Clarabelle Cow moments are amusing, likewise with Harpo. Overall, simply great. 9.5/10 Bethany Cox

The cartoon is fairly amusing, but nothing notable by itself. In the 1930s there was a serious polo playing group out of the Hollywood movie set. It included Walt Disney (it also included Spencer Tracy, of all people, and Will Rogers). Odd that such a kind of upper class sport became so popular in the movie colony. In any case, Disney made this 1936 cartoon showing a polo match between a Disney team of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, the Big Bad Wolf, and Goofy, against a "star team" of Laurel & Hardy, Harpo Marx, and Charlie Chaplin. The Western star, Jack Holt, is the referee. Disney enjoyed doing cartoons with caricatures of various stars of the day. Here he includes other figures in the viewing stand. Among them are Clark Gable (who is sitting with the amorous Claribel Cow, a long forgotten Disney cartoon figure who was usually teamed with Horace Horsecollar). Gable keeps getting bothered by Claribel, and eventually blushes red when she kisses him. The Three Little Pigs are in the stand next to Shirley Temple. Their appearance leads to a pleasant kind of sequel to the earlier Disney cartoon classic. Eddie Cantor, Harold Lloyd, Edna Mae Oliver (who is annoyed by Oswald the Rabbit), W.C. Fields, Greta Garbo, Mrs. Roosevelt, and Charles Laughton (dressed up as Henry VIII) are also in the bleachers.The humor of the bulk of the cartoon is not the greatest the Disney studio ever concocted, but it is better than average. The different polo players are riding animals that resemble them (Harpo is on an ostrich; Ollie is on a tremendously fat horse, whose face has a Hardy scowl on it, and a smudge of a mustache, Chaplin's horse is like Charlie in appearance (even bow legged), and Stan's has a head of tousled hair and a silly grin. Even Holt's horse looks like Holt.We see incidents like Harpo and his ostrich (when they seen the other players charging them) putting their heads in the earth; or Hardy having trouble remounting his horse with "assistance" from Stan; or Charlie deftly turning his horse a quarter to the left by use of his cane on the goal posts. Donald Duck (who gets into a kind of fight with Harpo - which he loses) swallows the polo ball and keeps trying to avoid the other players. As for the Big Bad Wolf, he is heckled by his old enemies, the pigs (now aided by Shirley). But now they are not in the third pigs' brick house, but in a wooden stand. The Big Bad Wolf stops his playing, turns and blows the portion of the stand apart, causing the pigs and Shirley to hide from him. It's somewhat nice to know that here Disney actually gave an ironic follow-up to a previous cartoon for a change.A pleasant and enjoyable cartoon, it is not one of Disney's greatest works but it is worth looking at.

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.MICKEY'S POLO TEAM (Mickey, the Goof, the Big Bad Wolf & Donald Duck) enter the field against some of Hollywood's funniest fellows - Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Harpo Marx & Charlie Chaplin.This very enjoyable little film features excellent animation and lots of laughs. The Disney artists get to display their skill at caricature, with all of the movie stars being perfectly recognizable. Frenzied & flustered, Donald Duck (voiced by Clarence Nash) dominates the proceedings, leaving no doubt as to who was the top toon at the Disney Studio. It's humorous to watch the various Disney characters act with complete equality alongside their Hollywood counterparts - the unspoken, and very true, assertion being that their fame was as big as any flesh & blood inhabitant of Tinsel Town.Notice how all of the riders have a mount (not always a horse) which is a reflection of the player's personality - the Big Bad Wolf and his steed are both dastardly, Donald and his mule are both stubborn, Harpo's ostrich is as zany as his master. Babe Hardy's frustrations with his gigantic horse are very funny.The fun isn't confined to the field - there's plenty going on in the stands. Hollywood's biggest star, Shirley Temple, is there with her buddies the Three Little Pigs. Irritable W. C. Fields is seated with Greta Garbo, Harold Lloyd, Eddie Cantor & Charles Laughton - costumed, naturally, for his title role in THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII (1933). Meanwhile, Edna May Oliver is regretting her decision to sit alongside Max Hare, and, most hilariously of all, Clarabelle Cow is taking advantage of her close proximity to do a little sweet romancing with Clark Gable.Polo was very popular among the Movie Capital's male celebrities, including Walt Disney. It not only provided great exercise & excitement, but also a kind of elitism, as only the wealthy had both the leisure & the funds necessary to devote to the sport. Jack Holt, who serves as referee in the cartoon, was an avid real life polo player.It was originally planned to depict Will Rogers as part of the Hollywood team, but after his tragic death in Alaska on August 15, 1935, the Disney animators replaced him with Harpo.Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew comic figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work will always pay off.