The Toontown Field Guide: Country Living Issue 34.6

Mickey's Toontown Fair at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World is dense with details and rich with backstory. The area's various attractions and set pieces come together in a central point of connectivity in Minnie's House, by way of large framed covers of the magazine Minnie's Cartoon Country Living. A careful examination of these covers will reveal connections to characters and locations scattered throughout Mickey's Toontown Fair.

Issue 34.6 features Minnie as the "Toon Painter of the Year." This bears a very direct connection to one of the rooms in Minnie's House. The room is an arts and crafts studio and in it are displayed various works of art including paintings and sculptures. It is also the home of Minnie's sewing machine and a prize-winning quilt is displayed nearby. Quite a bit of crockery is displayed in the room, indicating that Minnie also has some skill with a potter's wheel. The view from the room looks out across Toontown Fair to Goofy's Wiseacre Farm. From this vantage point, Minnie must have bore witness to Goofy's cataclysmic plane flight that formed the basis of the backstory to the Barnstormer attraction. She is in the middle of capturing on canvas Goofy's fateful encounter with the farm's water tower.

One less obvious detail from the magazine cover involves the headline "New Toon Diet- ERASE THOSE POUNDS AWAY!" In the hallway just outside of Minnie's kitchen is a small table with a telephone. On the table is a note Minnie has received from Flora, Fauna and Merriweather, the good fairies from Sleeping Beauty. The note reads:

Dear Minnie,

We tried the diet you recommended in your Summer Issue and it works like magic!

Yours Truley,
Flora, Fauna & Merriweather

We will continue to explore the various covers of Minnie's Cartoon Country Living in future installments of the Toontown Field Guide. Stay tooned!

The Toontown Field Guide: Certificates of Merit

In the living room of his house in Disneyland's Toontown, Mickey proudly displays two Certificates of Merit, both awarded by Toontown Mayor Anna Mation and both bearing the official Toontown Seal. Each one corresponds to a specific classic Mickey Mouse cartoon. The certificate for Alpine Climbing refers to the 1936 short Alpine Climbers that featured Mickey, Donald Duck and Pluto. A certificate for Excellence in Mice Skating makes reference to the 1935 cartoon On Ice. Each certificate bears a date that corresponds to each cartoon's original date of release; On Ice on September 28, 1935, Alpine Climbers on July 25, 1936.

The Toontown Field Guide: No Fools Inc.

Though Jiminy Cricket is certainly best remembered for his star turn in Pinocchio, he is that rare feature film character whose career quickly and successfully eclipsed his point of origin. He would go on to star in a second feature film, Fun and Fancy Free, and enjoyed frequent appearances on the Disney weekly television program throughout the years. But likely most extensive of his extended studio duties were the various educational vignettes that he hosted on the original Mickey Mouse Club television show. Distinct homages are paid to one of those series in the Toontown theme park landscapes at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World.

A window on a building in Mickey's Toontown at Disneyland advertises the services of Jiminy Cricket, Motivational Speaker, representing the business No Fools, Inc. In both Mickey's House at Toontown and Minnie's country house in Walt Disney World's Toontown Fair, bulletin boards display fliers advertising Jiminy's acclaimed "I'm No Fool" lecture series.

I'm No Fool was a series of educational cartoons produced for the original Mickey Mouse Club. Jiminy hosted the series that focused on teaching safety on such subjects as fire, electricity and recreation. The first in the series, I'm No Fool With a Bicycle debuted on Thursday, October 6, 1955. A total of six cartoons were produced in the I'm No Fool series; they would all be later released in 16mm format for use in schools. In the early 1990s, Disney's Educational Media division created new editions for the series that would continue to feature Jiminy Cricket, but also include Pinocchio and Geppetto and add a number of new characters as well.

Media Images © Walt Disney Company

The Toontown Field Guide: Horace Horsecollar

Horace Horsecollar is certainly one of the better known of Disney's secondary cartoon players. Like his female counterpart of sorts Clarabelle Cow, Horace predated even Goofy, Donald Duck and Pluto. Significantly, his debut was in the Mickey Mouse short The Plow Boy, which was released on this date in 1929.

In Mickey's Toontown at Disneyland, Horace is a fitness entrepreneur, being the proprietor of the Horace Horsecollar Gym. The image that appears on a punching bag sign is drawn from the 1941 color version of Orphan's Benefit.

In the book Encyclopedia of Walt Disney's Animated Characters, author John Grant noted:

" . . . it must have been galling for Horace and Clarabelle to take part in so many of the early Disney "greats" and then watch Johnny-come-latelies like Goofy and Donald Duck ascend to the heights while they remained forever struggling to reach the first rung of the ladder of stardom."

The Toontown Field Guide: The Simple Things

A simple homage to the Mickey Mouse cartoon The Simple Things can be found just inside the front door of Mickey's house in Mickey's Toontown at Disneyland. In that particular cartoon, Mickey heads to the beach with faithful pal Pluto, but also takes along a fashionable hat and fishing rod, both of which are represented in the entrance foyer of his home.

The Simple Things, released in 1953, represented Mickey's initial retirement from animated short subjects. It just recently celebrated its 55th Anniversary on April 18. Check out our earlier post that details the significance and simple pleasures of this often overlooked cartoon.

The Toontown Field Guide: Toby Tortoise

In films, Toby Tortoise was a long distance runner and a boxer; in Disneyland's Toontown, he is a private investigator and a proprietor of soup products.

Toby was one of the early stars of Walt Disney's Silly Symphony series of cartoons. He was introduced along with co-star Max Hare in 1935 short The Tortoise in the Hare, a retelling of the Aesop Fable. The pair returned a year later in the sequel Toby Tortoise Returns, this time squaring off against each other in a boxing match.

Toby made a cameo of sorts in the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? In an alley in Toontown, a poster lining a brick wall advertises Toby's Turtle Soup. Imagineers reproduced that set piece for the queue area of Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin in Mickey's Toontown at Disneyland.

Nearby in Mickey's Toontown, a window advertises the services of the Toby Tortoise Detective Agency with its motto, "Slow & Steady Solves the Case."

The Toontown Field Guide: Chinny, Chin, Chin Construction Co.

It is certainly not difficult to trace the roots of the Chinny, Chin, Chin Construction Co., the latest identification from our Toontown Field Guide. This window is featured on one of the buildings in Mickey's Tootown in Disneyland. The Silly Symphony The Three Little Pigs was released in 1933 and has long been considered a high water mark in the history of Disney animation. Central to the story was of course the building of houses, thus the casting of the three heroes as Toontown construction contractors.

Even more fun is that if you travel cross country to Walt Disney World in Florida, you will find Practical Pig and his brothers similarly referenced in Mickey's Toontown Fair at the Magic Kingdom. There, the Chinny, Chin, Chin Construction Co. has been contracted to do remodeling work on the kitchen in Mickey's country house. This is evidenced by blueprints that can be found on Mickey's kitchen table.

The Toontown Field Guide: The Post Office

The next identification in our Toontown Field Guide series relates to the post office in Mickey's Toontown at Disneyland. The sign for the building is done in the style of an old fashioned airmail envelope with Mickey Mouse featured on the stamp. The image for the stamp is also featured on a flag that flies near the top of the post office building. The airmail theme and illustration of Mickey are derived directly from the 1933 cartoon The Mail Pilot.

Aviators were popular heroes of that era and in the film, Mickey plays the plucky pilot challenged by thunderstorms, blizzard and a dangerous air pirate in the form of Pegleg Pete. In the end, Mickey defeats the nefarious villain, delivers the mail, and is rewarded with a parade and the always welcome affections of Minnie Mouse.

Image © Walt Disney Company

The Toontown Field Guide: The Official Seal

Navigating the details at both Mickey's Toontown at Disneyland and Mickey's Toontown Fair at Walt Disney World sometimes requires at little research. Hence we present the Toontown Field Guide, a new ongoing feature here at 2719 Hyperion.

Our first identification takes us to City Hall at the west coast Toontown incarnation. While the Official Seal denotes the year 1928 in reference to Mickey Mouse's debut in Steamboat Willie, the character featured on the crest was born in 1946 in the Pluto cartoon Rescue Dog. According to John Grant's Encyclopedia of Walt Disney Animated Characters, the little seal was named Salty. He would return to torment Pluto a year later in the Mickey Mouse cartoon Mickey and the Seal.