Building a Building

Building a Building is a 1933 American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Production and released by United Artists. A remake of the 1928 Oswald the Lucky Rabbit film Sky Scrappers, the cartoon depicts Mickey Mouse working at a construction site under the supervision of Peg-Leg Pete while Minnie Mouse is selling box lunches to the workers. It was directed by David Hand, his first directorial assignment at Disney,^[3] and features the voices of Walt Disney as Mickey, Marcellite Garner as Minnie, and Pinto Colvig as Pete.^[1] It was the 51st Mickey Mouse short film, and the first of that year.^[4]

The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 6th Academy Awards, but lost to Disney's own Three Little Pigs.^[5] This was the second Mickey Mouse cartoon nominated for an Oscar.^[6]

Plot

At a construction site, Mickey is operating a steam shovel. Minnie appears on a cart pulled by Pluto; she is selling box lunches to the workers.

After he uses the steam shovel to retrieve Minnie's hat (which had blown off and landed by him), Mickey inadvertently throws dirt from the steam shovel onto foreman Peg-Leg Pete (whose peg leg is on the left leg rather than the right), to the latter's frustration. Mickey hurriedly brings up a load of bricks in a wheelbarrow. Meanwhile, Pete sees Minnie and flirts with her, though she is not interested. Distracted by Minnie, Mickey accidentally drops the bricks on Pete.

After Mickey eventually falls through the blueprint, Pete begins to strangle Mickey, but the workers have their lunch break soon after. Mickey settles down to eat a fish sandwich, but it is stolen by Pete. Minnie offers Mickey a free box lunch, but Pete uses a crane to abduct her.

Mickey chases after Pete, and finally fights him high up on the building. Minnie grabs a pan of red-hot rivets and drops them down Pete's pants. This gives the mice enough time to flee as Pete pours water down his pants.

In the process of chasing Mickey and Minnie, Pete has an anvil fall on his head and fires rivets at them with a handheld pneumatic hammer. This turns on him when the hammer falls into his pants and gets attached to his peg leg. The mice escape down a chute riding a wheelbarrow, while Pete falls into a cement mixer, accidentally dismantles a large portion of the building. Enraged by the damage, Pete angrily fires Mickey, but the latter doesn't care as he immediately goes into business with Minnie selling box lunches.

Reception

Piotr Borowiec said that this cartoon has better animation, stronger story lines, and better gags than the previous ones.^[7] Studio art instructor Don Graham taught a class in which students studied live-action films and compared them to Disney cartoons. In the class, the students compared Elmer Elephant and this cartoon. The students said that Building a Building was better. Michael Barrier disagreed about their decision, but he said that the students did have a point.^[8]

Voice cast

• Mickey Mouse: Walt Disney
• Minnie Mouse: Marcellite Garner
• Pegleg Pete: Pinto Colvig
• Crane: Unknown

Home media

The short was released on December 2, 2002, on Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in Black and White.^[9] It was released to Disney+ on July 7, 2023.^[10]

Legacy

• Building a Building is an area in the Timeless River world in the 2005 video game Kingdom Hearts II. Other shorts that are featured as areas of that world are Steamboat Willie, Gulliver Mickey, The Fire Fighters and Mickey's Orphans.
• The steam shovel Mickey pilots in this short reappeared in the 2010 video game Epic Mickey during the Mickeyjunk Mountain level, while the short itself appears as a 2D level in the 2012 sequel Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Building a Building (1933).

• Mickey Mouse (film series)

References