The Karnival Kid

The Karnival Kid (1929)

Mickey Mouse is working as a hot dog vendor at a carnival when he meets and quickly falls for Minnie the "Shimmy Dancer". That night, Mickey and a pair of alley cats serenade her by performing the song "Sweet Adeline", much to the dismay of Kat Nipp, who is trying to sleep. The short marks Mickey's first speaking appearance.

Date of release
1929-07-30
TMDB
5.9 / 10 (62)
Runtime
8m
Genres
Animation, Comedy
Director
Walt Disney, Ub Iwerks

Casting

Interesting facts

The Karnival Kid is a 1929 American animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. It is the ninth film of the Mickey Mouse film series. It was the ninth Mickey Mouse short to be produced; the first where he speaks. Mickey's first spoken line is "Hot dogs! Hot dogs!", the voice being provided by composer Carl W. Stalling instead of Walt Disney. This would later serve as a basis for Mickey's later catchphrase "Hot dog!" It was released on July 31, 1929 by Celebrity Productions. As of January 1, 2025, the short is now in the public domain. Columbia Pictures reissued the film after Walt Disney Productions switched distributors.

Production

This was the first cartoon in which Mickey speaks English. Walt Disney was thrilled by the progress, but Pat Powers of Celebrity Pictures wasn't, as he worried that Mickey speaking English would affect overseas sales of the cartoons.

In Mickey's Movies: The Theatrical Films of Mickey Mouse, Gijs Grob observes: "The Karnival Kid shows that lip synchronization was far more difficult to master than synchronized sound itself. The animation of the mouth to form syllables was a totally new feat, and initially it was done all too literally. This led to awkward facial expressions at times, with especially Mickey's face distorting into a multitude of mouth gestures.

The hot dog gags are reused from an earlier film, Disney's 1927 Oswald the Lucky Rabbit short All Wet.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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