User Reviews

This is an early Mickey Mouse cartoon produced by the Disney studio. There will be spoilers ahead:

This short features cannibals as characters for most of the short, so it will offend quite a few people. There are probably more skulls in this short than in The Skeleton Dance, which is appropriate given the fact that these are cannibals.

The animation is good and the cannibals use musical instruments in decidedly unusual ways, but beyond that, there's not much that's terribly interesting. Mickey and Pluto are traveling down a river with a load of trade goods (apparently, Mickey intended to sell this stuff, although to whom is a mystery) when they are surrounded by cannibals almost immediately upon grounding their craft.

Clearly, Mickey and Pluto are on the menu, but they come upon Mickey's stuff and start basically playing with it, in abnormal and arcane ways, until Mickey takes a saxophone and starts playing. The cannibals then start making music, but again in atypical fashion. That's it to the cartoon.

This short is available on the Disney Treasures Mickey Mouse In Black and White, Volume Two DVD set and the set is worth tracking down.

. . . offensive to any rational empathetic viewer than TRADER MICKEY. Many of the most egregious hallmarks of the Dizzy Mob are featured here. Insensitive depictions of Native Peoples, disparaging illustrations maligning another continent, wanton destruction of musical instruments and misogynist alternative dressing shaming those of the feminine persuasion: It's all here. Therefore, TRADER MICKEY can serve as a primer on Dizzy Evil.

The title "Trader Mickey" is a play on the title to another film that debuted about the same time, "Trader Horn"--a film where Harry Carey is a big game hunter and adventurer living in Africa. So, not surprisingly, this finds Mickey in Africa on safari. Unfortunately, he's soon captured by headhunters--and they would love to add Mickey to their collection. How will Mickey manage to avoid certain death?!

While the plot is about as thin as you can find in a cartoon (about half of the film is a long dance number), this isn't the main problem with this cartoon. The problem is that the natives are a giant-lipped and VERY negative stereotype of Black people. It's not just that they eat people but they look ridiculous and are sure to offend MANY people--not just the overly politically correct. Overall, one of the poorer Mickey cartoons and I am pretty sure you WON'T see Disney airing on television!! You gotta see it to believe it!

So why did I still give the film a 3? Because even with its many problems, the short is very beautifully animated. Also, listen to the Chief's laugh--it's Goofy's!