Mickey Mouse Short: Croissant de Triomphe

Season 1, Episode 3: “Croissant de Triomphe” 6/30/13
Starring: Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse
Co-Starring: Daisy Duck, Mickey's Scooter
Cameos by: Prince Charming and Cinderella
Setting: Paris, France

Plot:
Minnie Mouse is the proprietor of her very own Paris café called “Café Minnie’s.”  But when all of her customers order croissants, she realizes her bread box is bare and enlists Mickey Mouse, her delivery boy, to bring her a new batch from Daisy Duck’s pastry shop.

Mickey, riding a motor scooter, quickly finds himself stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic but he’s not one to take this bit of misfortune lying down.  He goes on to use the streets of Paris, as well as its most famous landmarks, as his very own off-road, stunt course.  And, in doing so, successfully delivers Minnie’s croissants in particularly gallant fashion and earns himself his second kiss in the last two episodes.     

Short Stuff:
It’s nice to see that Minnie and Daisy’s friendship extends to business with Patisserie Daisy as Café Minnie’s supplier of baked goods.

Mickey’s scooter has received a bit of personification much like the vehicles from the Disney-Pixar movie Cars (2006).

Parisian landmarks that Mickey rides up, over, around and through are: Notre-Dame de Paris, the Arc de Triomphe roundabout, a statue of a Napoleon Crossing the Alps (?) and Moulin Rouge.

I applaud Disney’s great act of restraint in not using the Eiffel Tower as one of the many set-pieces.  In fact, we only get one fleeting view of it during the opening shot.

Hidden Mickeys can be found on Notre Dame’s flying buttresses. 

Love the gag poking fun at the French Police’s tiny cars.

Although it’s not an actual Parisian landmark, we get another FANTASTIC Disney Park’s reference with Walt Disney World’s Cinderella Castle!  However, it wasn’t Prince Charming who fit Cinderella with her Glass Slipper - it was the Duke!

Could the all-white-horse carousel also be a reference to Disneyland’s King Arthur’s Carrousel???  Or, am I stretching it?

While not without dialogue like the previous short, the few bits of spoken word here are all in French.

Sure, Minnie is once again in the role of “damsel in distress” but at least she’s in a position of power over Mickey as the employer to his employee.  #PROGRESS

Final Grade: B+
The only reason this episode didn’t get a higher mark is that the whole “damsel in distress” thing just feels pat and stale to me.  Other than that, I really liked it!  The setting of Paris, including the characters actually speaking French, really gave the story a rich sense of atmosphere.  I also love how all the landmarks were actual tangible set-pieces and not just static background.  Oh, and you know how I feel about the whole Cinderella Castle scene – ooh, la and la!