Mickey McGuire (film series)

Mickey McGuire was an American comedy series of short subjects from 1927 to 1934. Produced by Larry Darmour, the series was notable for essentially launching the careers of Mickey Rooney and Billy Barty.

The series was based on Fontaine Fox's popular comic strip series, Toonerville Trolley. In 1925 Fox placed a newspaper ad for a dark-haired child to play the role of "Mickey McGuire" in a series of short films. This ad attracted the attention of Mrs Nell Yule, the recently separated wife of vaudevillian Joseph Yule, who believed her son Joseph "Joe" Yule, Jr. (later known as Mickey Rooney) was right for the part. Lacking the money to have her son's hair dyed, Mrs. Yule took her son to the audition after applying burnt cork to his scalp.[1] Joe got the role and became "Mickey" for 78 of the comedies, running from 1927 to 1934, starting with Mickey's Circus, released September 4, 1927 and ending with Mickey's Medicine Man in 1934.[2] These had been adapted from the Toonerville Trolley comic strip, which contained a character named Mickey McGuire.

Yule briefly became Mickey McGuire legally in order to trump an attempted copyright lawsuit (if it were his legal name, the film producer Larry Darmour did not owe the comic strip writers royalties). His mother also changed her surname to McGuire in an attempt to bolster the argument, but the film producers lost. The litigation settlement awarded damages to the owners of the cartoon character, as well as compelled the twelve-year-old actor to refrain from calling himself by the name Mickey McGuire on and off screen.[3] Rooney later claimed that, during his Mickey McGuire days, he met cartoonist Walt Disney at the Warner Brothers studio, and that Disney was inspired to name Mickey Mouse after him,[4]although Disney always said that he had changed the name from "Mortimer Mouse" to "Mickey Mouse" on the suggestion of his wife.[5]

The series was very popular in its day, often rivaling Hal Roach's Our Gang series. In fact, it was the only Our Gang series rival to make a successful transition into the talkies. The films were later distributed well into the 1940s, but were rarely shown on television. Therefore, the series is all but forgotten today.

Cast and Characters

The series had a wide variety of interesting characters, many of which were created by Fontaine Fox. The characters lived in a town known as Toonerville.

Films

Silent Films

1927

1928

1929

Sound Films

1929

1930

1931

1932

1933

1934

1945

Reissues

Although the series ended in 1934, several of the films were reissued well in the 1940s. These reissues were often given new titles (i.e. Mickey's Race became Mickey's Derby Day, Mickey's Explorers became Mickeys Brigade).

In 1945, Darmour and former series director Jesse Duffy edited five of the shorts into a feature film compilation titled Mickey the Great. In this feature, Delia Bogard and two of the series' female supporting players returned to 'host' the complication of shorts. The five films used (Mickey's Big Broadcast, Mickey's Charity, Mickey's Ape Man, Mickey's Disguises, and Mickey's Race) were cut down to about half of their original length, and music was added into the background of each film.

Many of the shorts found their way into the home movie market. The edited versions of the films used for Mickey the Great showed up on the market, as did various five minute clips of the silent shorts for toy reel projectors.

The last six shorts in the series were originally distributed by Columbia Pictures. Along with several other Columbia short subjects, these six films were bought up by Screen Gems and shown on television beginning in 1958.

The silent films also appeared on various television programs that also featured various Our Gang silent shorts. The Mischief Makers series, created by National Telepix, was a children's program during the early 1960s, and mainly featured various Pathe Our Gang silents cut down to about half of their original length. Sound effects and carnival music were added to the films, as were narration. Some of the McGuire shorts found their way into this package. Shorts from other Our Gang rival series also wound up in the package.

Another children's television program Those Lovable Scallawags with their Gangs also featured various Our Gang silents, as well as various rival series shorts (including Mickey McGuire).

Sadly, the films were rarely shown on television, as opposed to the Our Gang shorts. Because of this, the series is hardly remembered today.

The late 1980s brought the arrival of the Mickey McGuire shorts to home video for the first time. United American Video and Summit Media Co. released three volumes of the Columbia Mickey McGuire shorts. Mickey Rooney introduced each short.

In 2001, ten of the sound shorts made their way to home video on five VHS tapes through Virgil Films and Ent. Though the films were mostly unedited, Virgil did add piano music into the background of some scenes that mainly had action in them, rather than dialogue.

In 2006, 8thman restored and remastered nineteen of the films, and released them to DVD. Though restored, 8thman did add a musical soundtrack into the background of selected scenes.

References

  1. ↑ Current Biography 1942. H.W. Wilson Co. (January 1942). pp704-06. ISBN 99903-960-3-5.
  2. ↑ Mickey Rooney at the Internet Movie Database
  3. ↑ Server, Lee, Ava Gardner "Love is Nothing" (2006), St. Martin's Press
  4. ↑ Albin, Kira. Mickey Rooney: Hollywood, Religion and His Latest Show. GrandTimes.com Senior Magazine. 1995.
  5. ↑ Gabler, Neal, Walt Disney, (2006), Alfred A. Knopf

External links