Studio: Walt Disney Productions
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Short Synopsis
It is Christmas Eve, and snow is falling outside Mickey and Minnie's house. A dark, cloaked figure creeps up to the door, leaves a large basket on the step, rings the bell and disappears into the storm. Inside the basket are dozens of kittens. Mickey and Minnie take them in, and the kittens immediately take over the house. They swarm over the furniture, swing from the lamps, crawl up the staircase, set the gramophone going and pound the keys and strings of the grand piano. When the Christmas tree is lit and Mickey arrives as Santa Claus with a sack of presents, the orphans tear into the gifts with toy guns, horns and sticks, and the party turns into a riot that wrecks the tree, the room and Santa himself.
Why It Matters
- The kitten swarm is the attraction. The animators fill every corner of the frame with small, separately moving figures, a demanding piece of crowd animation in 1931, and the destruction escalates with a cheerful lack of sentiment that sets it apart from most Christmas cartoons.
- It was nominated for the first Academy Award for Best Cartoon Short Subject, at the 1932 ceremony, alongside It's Got Me Again! and the winner, Disney's own Flowers and Trees. That makes it one of the first three cartoons ever nominated for an Oscar.
Notes and Trivia
- Disney returned to Mickey and a horde of destructive orphans in Orphan's Benefit (1934), where Donald Duck is their main victim.
- The cloaked figure who leaves the basket is never explained.
- See also: The Picnic (1930), Flowers and Trees (1932).