CLASSIC TALES WITH A 22ND CENTURY TWIST
GANGWAY! Mickey, Donald, and Goofy are enjoying the great outdoors in an ultra-modern trailer that even provides its own pastoral backdrop — until, first thing in the morning, Mickey decides that it’s time to hit the road.
With Goofy at the wheel of the car, Mickey cheerfully prepares breakfast as Donald is awakened from a restful slumber. All of this is accomplished with the trailer’s push-button technology, playing up space-saving conveniences. A bedroom turns into a bathroom through a series of sliding panels and compartments, complete with an unzipping prefilled tub; another push-button then converts the bathroom space into a dining room.
Everything works perfectly, except for the driver. Goofy leaves his position in the driver’s seat for breakfast but obliviously fails to put on the brakes, leading to a hair-raising comedy sequence as the trailer is disconnected from the car and hurtles down a winding mountain road backwards.
Mickey’s Trailer was inspired by a trip that inventor William Stout made to the studio to give Walt a demonstration of a mobile trailer home he had designed. In the finished short, the trailer even adapts to traveling on a windy mountain road, by hugging the narrow road edges most of the time, anyway and on two wheels, no less. What suspension… what suspense!
ABOVE: The original 1938 poster art for Mickey’s Trailer, drawn by Hank Porter. Image courtesy Walt Disney Photo Library; color by Digikore Studios.
COVER DRAWING ON PREVIOUS PAGE: layout, cleanup, and inks by Lorenzo Pastrovicchio, color by Valentina Pinto (Arancia Studio).
ONCE UPON A MOUSE • 1938
MICKEY’SMARTIAN ROVER
ONCE UPON A MOUSE... IN THE FUTURE
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as we’ve said already… even 100 years in the future, some things never change!
a day full of surprises and wonders, just waiting to become special memories!
shining in the sky is the sun of a brand-new day!
…and this is their first day of vacation!
mornin’, pals!
mickey, donald and goofy have been living on mars for work…
[yawn!] is it time ta go already? wait! just gimme another moment...
no more sunnybeach holovision, donald! we’ve got a vacation schedule to keep!
BZZZZZZZKKK
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yes, not a second will be wasted of the next 24 hours and 37 minutes…
we start now for our camp, gang! what a swell adventure it’s gonna be!
are we sure we wanna do this? don’t we want to rethink it… even a little bit?
we’re living yearround under the safety-dome of mouseton-mars! we’ll return to its comforts in just a week…
bah! gimme the comforts of a resort in some colony any day! or on one of the closer moons!
…because that’s how long a day on mars lasts!
now, donald… we discussed it an’ voted on it! adventure won!
sorry, but now it’s time to see close-up what our new home planet looks like! canyons, canals, peaks an’ valleys… look how excited goofy is!
yeah! standing like a swooning statue!
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an’ then there’s our astrotrailer to take us everywhere! it has all th’ comforts of home… [heh!] mobile home, that is! it’s gonna be a blast, you’ll see! don’t blasts do serious damage? let’s go back while we can!
VROOOOOM
that donald, always in a mood! but I bet it’ll just take a minute for him to come around an’ enjoy our little trip! here goes!
[hyuck!] that sound means MiCKEY’S started thuh engines…
do tell!
…an’ we’re movin’!
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let’s make breakfast! pancakes, anyone?
this must start thuh oven!
…just a washing mach--[]
CLACKETY CLACK BOING! SMACK
an’ this sets-up thuh table!
eh? we don’t have an oven on board…
this retracktubble furniture is thuh greatest!
thuh manual said sumthin’ about a machine thet makes fresh eggs… but I don’t see it…
[puff! pant!]
CLICK
S
G OOOOOO
O
H A
SHAGOOO O O
DONK!
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cluck! wak!
