20 Days of Summer, Day 4: The Beach Party

Day 4: The Beach Party (1931)
Starring: Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto, Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow
Setting: The beach
Plot: A day at the beach turns into an all-out war when an angry octopus crashes the party.

Tan Lines
Horace looks downright dapper with the bowtie on his collar and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

In the colourized version of the short, Clarabelle’s swimwear is a vibrant green with yellow polk-a-dots.

Horace and Clarabelle give us the strangest and most whimsical gag with Horace imitating a train and Clarabelle the conductor while both pulling and bellowing a whistle.

With five partiers instead of the mere three in The Picnic, the exorbitant amount of food makes more sense.

It’s Horace who provides the most effective attack on the octopus by devouring watermelons and rapid-fire spitting seeds at the creature’s head.

Mickey delivers the finishing blow by anchoring the octopus and sending it hurtling back towards the ocean.

Sitting by the Campfire
In a pre-Donald and Goofy world, Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow are the go-to pals in any Mickey and Minnie ensemble piece.  Clarabelle especially shines playing the role Goofy would soon fill as the master of slapstick and physical gags. To that end, it was pretty modern to allow for a female to play it purely for laughs like she does.  It’s a shame the barnyard duo was more-or-less phased out because they are both such weirdos and a lot of fun – some might even say they manage to outshine Mickey and Minnie in this short!