1935 was a terrific year for Disney cartoons, featuring possibly my all-time favrotie triplet: the haunting and mysterious "Who Killed Cock Robin", the colorful and exhilarating "Band Concert" and the nightmarish and disturbing "Pluto's Judgment Day".
It's worth noting that none of them won the Oscar for Best Animated Short, ironically the winner that year was Three Orphan Kittens", a boringly cutesy cartoon not devoid of racist undertones, less for the depiction of a Black housekeeper than her cold-hearted attempt to throw the kittens outside at cold winter before faceless Shirley-Temple-like little girl played white savior... thinking of that cringing ending, I feel an urge to get back to the good stuff.
If each short of this 1935 trifecta delivers on a different emotional level, the one that stands out is "Pluto's Judgment's Day", it even brought nightmares to cartoonist Matt Groening (and I thought I was the only one!) inspiring an episode of "Itchy and Scratchy". It also probably inspired the classic Tom and Jerry's episode "Heavenly Puss" based on the same narrative, but this one is perhaps worthy of the superlative of scariest. And unlike "Kittens", cats here play their trademark antagonistic role introduced by Mickey's nemesis Pete, but Pete is Winnie the Pooh in comparison to these 'Judgment Day' cats.
They say the first ten minutes of a movie are vital; I guess in a short, it applies for the opening credit and the first thirty seconds. The Mickey Mouse cardboard used to scare the hell out of me, less for its look (though Mickey isn't really appealing on close-up) but for its startling effect, especially with the sound of an ominous organ. The tone is followed by a thrilling riff announcing danger and the barking of Pluto leaving you wondering whether he's the one in danger or not. The title cardboard is a spotlight containing "Pluto's Judgment Day".
In one image, you have everything: danger, Pluto, religion and doom, if that doesn't set the tone of the cartoon, I don't know what it does. And then it starts, Pluto is chasing a little white kitten over the countryside and while the audience of 1935 is used to animals chasing each other (and so we are), this one looks pretty intense, Pluto is so willing to get to that cat that you're wondering what awaits the poor creature if he catches it. The chase ensues and takes the two from a pool of mud to Mickey's house and ends with the latter's intervention.
Pluto gets summoned by his master like he's never been. Mickey calls the dog a bully and wishes him good luck for the judgment's day. We'll never see Mickey as angry and bigoted with Pluto, but looking at his hurt reaction, he still needed to be taught a lesson. Indeed, little did Mickey know that his speech had planted the seeds of the on-going nightmare and one of the most frightening Disney experiences.
And saying it's a nightmare isn't a spoiler because the cartoon makes it clear that it is one, when the gray cat talks Pluto into following him you can see a sort of ghostly Pluto leaving the body and even the door stays closed. This is a neat trick from Disney animators, they're warning us that what we're seeing right now isn't 'real' in the story's context but the magic of animation doesn't make it any less real for us.
So Pluto chases another cat (again) in a forest where trees look like cats in frightening gargoyle-like poses and as a child, it was the signal for me to cover my eyes because I couldn't watch the big cat's head as the cave's entrance. Then came perhaps the most intense and vivid illustration of a nightmare regardless of its morale or context. When I saw the short for the first time, I didn't exactly know why Pluto was being harassed and bullied, but it made me focus more on his ordeal: being chained, trapped in a sort of ominous ceremony, having to face that scary-looking red-clad prosecutor, that hostile crowd, and the imagery was so powerful that the nightmare became mine.
Disney really has a way to make you empathize with a character what's with Pluto's reactions to all the accusing fingers pointed at him varying from symbolic shrinking, constant trembling and heartbreaking sobbing. The film is also served by a powerful soundtrack and watching the cartoon many years later, the 'Uncle Tom' song immediately re-emerged from the abysses of my memories as soon as the three black kittens started singing. A pity that this part would be edited today for censorship, some classics ought to be untouchable.
"Pluto's Judgment Day" has always became an instant part of my childhood, it was so intense and I was so little I could never get it off my mind and I guess that's what Disney intended to do, to make a strong impression. It wasn't enough that Pluto had to go through this "parody of a trial" but the sentence had to be thrown to our faces and we had to see an army of trident's armed cats pushing him the bonfire. If you watch on Youtube the clip, just pause at the first image of Pluto after the verdict and you'll have perhaps one of the scariest moments of Disney's history, no wonder it gave Groening the creeps.
The fire climax fed my intuitive perception of hell and it's only fair that after that last sadistic showcase, Pluto had to wake up and the film to end on an abruptly gentler tone, but that's like the best rollercoaster rides, you're not given time to recover from the thrills that it's over already. Sure we're glad for Pluto that his judgment's day has been postponed (and we wish him a fairer trial next) but the experience will be pretty tough to eradicate from memory. And that's why, eight decades after, this cartoon has still the same emotional impact!
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