August 24th, 2021 
Michael Lyons 
At one time, re-makes at Disney were rare. Today, we are used to seeing and expecting a new live-action version of the studio’s classic animated films. In the studio’s early days, Walt and his artists were more focused on original output. This makes the 1941 Mickey Mouse short subject, Orphans’ Benefit, even more of a rarity. Initially produced in black and white in 1934, the short was remade in Technicolor in 1941. Both have contained very iconic moments for Mickey and the gang, and this month marks the 80th anniversary of this color re-make.
Orphans’ Benefit from 1941 is essentially a shot-for-shot remake of the 1934 original, with the key difference being the shift from black and white to color and the change in the character’s designs that had occurred in the seven years between the two shorts. Mickey shifted from his “early look,’ with black, button eyes and a “rubber hose” frame, to the more traditional Mickey design we know today: eyes with pupils and a fuller frame. Donald also transitioned from his earlier look with a longer bill to the more familiar Duck we know. There are also differences in the stars, Goofy, Horace Horsecollar, and Clarabelle Cow seen between the two versions of Orphans’ Benefit.
A search of YouTube uncovers fascinating side-by-side comparisons of the two versions, revealing just how much the characters evolved and how similar the staging and animation is between both shorts.
Thanks to Michael Ruocco for creating this comparison video:
Orphans’ Benefit opens with mice orphans (each looking like clones of Mickey’s nephew’s Morty and Ferdie) being marched into a theater with a marquee that announces: “Mickey’s Big Show: Orphan’s Benefit.”
Mickey comes out on stage, introducing Donald, who recites “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and “Little Boy Blue.” The jam-packed theater full of orphans heckles Donald when he gets to the “…come blow your horn…” line of the poem, as one of the orphans blows their nose, making a “raspberry” noise. The theater then erupts in laughter.
The 1941 poster
Then comes the “barnyard nightingale,” Clara Cluck, who “clucks” her way through an opera, as Mickey accompanies on piano.
For the finale, Donald returns to the stage, attempting another go at “Little Boy Blue,” but is once again taunted by the orphans, who go to the extreme of tying heavy objects, such as potted plants, a fire extinguisher, and a crate of eggs, to balloons and floating them over the stage. Just as the objects are hovering above Donald’s head, the orphan’s fire slingshots, bursting the balloons, causing the objects to come crashing down on Donald’s head.
After being pummeled by the items, Donald declares, “Aw Phooey!” at the end of the short (a change from the original, in which he said “Aw, nuts!”).
This scenes with Donald in the original (and the remake) became defining moments in the character’s film career and shaped his short-tempered personality.
The 1934 poster
Through his research of Disney’s conference notes, Kaufman found that in the late ‘30s, Walt considered re-releasing his older cartoon shorts. The technology had advanced, and he was somewhat embarrassed by how primitive shorts from just a decade earlier now looked. Kaufman writes: “The answer was to remake the cartoons – not simply to revisit the same storylines, but to produce exact scene-for-scene duplicates of those early shorts, identical in every way except for character design and visual details.”
The color re-make of Orphan’s Benefit debuted on August 22, 1941. Watching the short eight decades later, it is oh-so-comforting to see Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and the rest of the gang all in the same place and to revisit wonderful, clever Disney animation of a time gone by…even if we feel as if we’ve seen it all before.
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