Even if the title "Mickey's Polo Team" could make you think it is. This is a color cartoon from Disney 1936, so it had its 80th anniversary last year. To put it in perspective that it's maybe easier to imagine is that this was the year when Hitler held the Olympic Games in Berlin three years before WWII. Director is prolific Disney animator David Hand and this film he made here is a tribute to some of the biggest stars of the 1930s. Admittedly, it is difficult for me to think of a more boring sport than polo really, but these characters make it somehow worth checking out. Mickey despite being the title character is really insignificant here though, even the Wolf has more material with his blowing scene and this scene also shows right away that several familiar faces are also in the stands. But Donald has a couple baity scenes and the film stars steal the show otherwise. I liked that the animals look exactly like (or symbolize) the characters sitting on them, not just Donald's, but especially when it comes to the silent film stars like Laurel, Hardy or Chaplin of course too. Anyway, I maybe do not really like this film that much because of the action because after all it is really just polo still, but I think it is a nice tribute to its era and also includes a lot of worth by today's standards and helps this generation and future generations in not forgetting who these icons were, like in my case already I had no idea who they guy with the blond curls was. Shame on me, I guess. I highly recommend these slightly under 10 minutes, one of 1936's finest.

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.

Now playing is a polo match between "Movie Stars" and "Mickey's Mousers." On the stars team is Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Harpo Marx and Charlie Chaplin. Playing for Mickey's team is Mickey, "The Goof," Big Bad Wolf and Donald Duck. Jack Holt is the referee.In the crowd are such luminaries as Porky Pig, W. C. Fields, Minnie Mouse, Eleanor Roosevelt, Shirley Temple and a bunch of other famous people. That is fun to look at, trying to spot as many people and caricatures as you know.The players are introduced. Those intros are funny. For instance, Harpo comes out on a ostrich, Chaplin uses a cane instead of a polo stick, etc.That's the good news. The bad news is that the rest of the cartoon, the last 65 percent, is not very funny. We see some Laurel & Hardy bits, some Harpo stuff and Donald Duck get pummeled by everyone. None of it is very funny.A good premise and a great start but overall, a disappointing animated short.

I've never seen humans drawn so ugly. Not so much the Polo players like Laurel and Hardy (I always like them) but more the spectators in the audience. I don't know who that huge-headed, bulbous-eyed guy was supposed to be but he freaked me out.Anyways, it's Disney stars vs Real Actors in this Polo match (A rather odd choice of sport. Was it popular in the '30s?) and nothing really funny happens. Sure there are a couple of clever moments but, like far too many Disney toons, it's all a set-up for everything to come crashing down.Vividly animated as it may be, it's still a bit too boring and doesn't hold up against Looney Tunes when it comes to hijinks.