Clock Cleaners
Clock Cleaners is a 1937 American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and directed by Ben Sharpsteen.[1][2] The cartoon depicts Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy tasked with cleaning the massive gears, hands, and faces of a towering city clock, where each character encounters distinct mechanical hazards and slapstick perils that escalate into frenzied comedy.[3][1] Released theatrically by RKO Radio Pictures on October 15, 1937, the eight-minute short exemplifies the era's innovative animation techniques and character-driven humor, pairing the trio in one of their early collaborative adventures.[2][1] It garnered critical praise for its energetic pacing and visual gags, establishing it as a standout among Disney's classic short subjects.[3]Production
Development and Direction
Ben Sharpsteen directed Clock Cleaners, overseeing the production as part of Walt Disney Productions' output of animated shorts during a period of expanding character ensembles and refined slapstick animation techniques.[2] Sharpsteen, who joined the studio in 1929, had risen to supervise action-oriented sequences and direct multiple Mickey Mouse cartoons by the mid-1930s, including earlier trio efforts like Mickey's Fire Brigade (1935) and Moose Hunters (1937), where he emphasized dynamic physical comedy through innovative animation methods such as multi-drawing peg systems for fluid motion.[4] The short's story was developed by Otto Englander, a key story artist at the studio, who contributed to scripting the chaotic interplay among the characters without venturing into supernatural elements, unlike the contemporaneous Lonesome Ghosts (May 1937).[5] Released on October 15, 1937, Clock Cleaners exemplified Disney's strategic push to highlight the Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy trio in high-stakes, everyday labor scenarios, building directly on the success of prior team-up shorts that capitalized on their contrasting personalities for comedic escalation.[1] By this time, all Mickey Mouse shorts had fully transitioned to Technicolor following the milestone of The Band Concert in 1935, influenced by the studio's earlier Silly Symphonies series that demonstrated color's enhancement of visual gags and atmospheric detail.[6] Pre-production decisions under Sharpsteen's direction prioritized observable mechanical hazards—such as gears and heights—to anchor cartoonish exaggeration in causal sequences, fostering a collaborative environment where animators trained under Sharpsteen's guidance iterated on timing and exaggeration for maximum comedic impact.[4] This approach reflected Walt Disney's oversight of the shorts division amid preparations for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, ensuring efficient workflow across story, animation, and music teams led by composers Paul J. Smith and Oliver Wallace.[2]Animation Techniques
Clock Cleaners employed traditional hand-drawn cel animation, with key animators including Bill Roberts, Al Eugster, and Frenchy de Tremaudan handling sequences of character interactions with the clock's intricate gears and springs.[7] These artists focused on precise timing to depict mechanical hazards, such as rotating cogs and recoiling mechanisms, which drove the physical comedy through cause-and-effect gags like Donald Duck's entanglement in cables and Pluto's pursuit amid pendulums.[8] The short highlighted the squash-and-stretch principle to exaggerate impacts and rebounds, particularly in scenes of spring recoils and collisions with the stork, allowing animators to convey weight, momentum, and elasticity in a manner that amplified the era's slapstick constraints without relying on live-action reference beyond basic physics observation.[9] Produced in three-strip Technicolor, it utilized Disney's matured color pipeline—refined through iterative ink-and-paint processes since the studio's adoption of the format in 1932—to render vivid contrasts between the characters' feathers and fur against the metallic clock interior, enhancing visual clarity for comedic chaos.[2] Complex layouts incorporated vertical pans and animated environmental elements, such as meshing gears, to simulate depth and scale in the tower's confined spaces, overcoming flat cel limitations via layered foregrounds and meticulous background detailing.[10]Plot Summary
Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy undertake the task of cleaning a towering municipal clock in Clock Cleaners (1937). Mickey ascends to the exterior clock face, where he discovers a stork nesting atop the minute hand, and attempts to dislodge the bird using a mop and ladder while balancing precariously as the hands move.[2][11] The stork awakens and retaliates by pecking at Mickey, knocking him about the dial and entangling him in the hand mechanisms.[2] Donald Duck ventures inside the clock tower to service the internal components, confronting oversized gears and a massive coiled mainspring that uncoils violently upon his prodding, wrapping him repeatedly and flinging him through the machinery as the clock chimes activate.[2][11] Goofy operates a bosun's chair suspended from the tower's upper levels to wash the windows, but his squeegee adheres stubbornly to the glass, pulling him into slips, somersaults, and near-falls over the edge, compounded by a swinging scaffold that defies his control.[2] The separate ordeals converge into escalating mishaps: Donald's struggles jam the gears, disrupting the clock hands and dislodging Mickey; Goofy's falls trigger further mechanical agitation, leading to a cascade of springs, weights, and pendulums ensnaring all three characters in a frenzy of entanglements, ejections, and collisions.[2][11] The sequence resolves with the clock functioning erratically but intact, leaving Mickey, Donald, and Goofy battered and slumped in exhaustion on the tower's ledge as the stork resettles.[2] The short has a runtime of 8 minutes.[12]
Voice Cast and Characters
Clock Cleaners features voice performances by Walt Disney as Mickey Mouse, Clarence Nash as Donald Duck, and Pinto Colvig as Goofy, with no human characters portrayed; the anthropomorphic animal trio embodies 1930s Disney archetypes of working-class laborers through distinct vocal styles that drive the short's comedic audio interplay.[8][11][13]| Character | Voice Actor | Vocal Contribution |
|---|---|---|
| Mickey Mouse | Walt Disney | Falsetto tones conveying resourcefulness and steady resolve amid mechanical hazards.[2][14] |
| Donald Duck | Clarence Nash | Raspy, quack-infused mutterings expressing mounting irritation and explosive outbursts.[2][14] |
| Goofy | Pinto Colvig | Deep, drawling exclamations and rustic guffaws underscoring bungled efforts and physical comedy.[2][14] |