Fred Moore Bill Tytla Frank Thomas Ollie Johnston Don Patterson Milt Schaffer Riley Thompson Jack Campbell Don Williams John Noel Tucker Andy Engman Les Clark
Release date(s):
September 29, 1938 November 22, 1991 (reissued with Beauty and the Beast)
Brave Little Tailor is a 1938 Mickey Mouse short cartoon.
Plot[]
Set during the Middle Ages in Europe, a king is seeking a brave warrior to kill a giant which has been terrorizing the small kingdom. There is much discussion in the village, but no one is willing to take on the task. Nearby in the same village, a young peasant tailor (Mickey Mouse) kills seven flies at once while at his work, and accidentally interjects several other peasants' discussion of the problems with the giant to brag loudly about his accomplishment:
Peasant (to his friends): "Say, did you ever kill a giant?"
Mickey (interjecting unwittingly): "I killed seven (flies) with one blow!"
Gossip that Mickey has killed seven giants with one blow quickly spreads around the kingdom. The king summons Mickey, and asks if he really "killed seven at one blow". Mickey goes into an elaborate re-telling of how he killed the seven (flies, not giants as the king believes), which impresses the king enough to appoint Mickey "Royal High Killer of the Giant". Upon learning the misunderstanding, all of Mickey's confidence disappears and he attempts to stammer his way out of the assignment. The king offers Mickey both vast riches and the hand of his only daughter, Princess Minnie, in marriage if he can kill (or at least subdue) the giant. Smitten with the princess, Mickey proclaims that he'll "cut [the giant] down to my size", and sets off for the giant's lair.
After only a few minutes, however, he is ready to turn back and give up, but the townspeople and Minnie are counting on him. "Gosh," Mickey sighs to himself, wondering what to do. "I dunno how to catch a giant."
Just then, the evil giant appears, forcing Mickey to scramble for a place to hide while it crushes a mountain, a forest, and a house. The giant sits down on a barn and eats a cart of pumpkins (as if they were grapes), then a drink of water (using a water well as if it were a thermos) and a smoke (rolling a cigarette from a haystack Mickey was hiding in and lighting it with an oven in a nearby house after he pulls open its roof to get it) and leans on a silo to relax as Mickey briefly ended up in the giant's mouth but escaped. Mickey is caught in the giant's cigarette, and gives his hiding place away by accidentally sneezing. The angry giant attempts to squash the tailor, who quickly produces sewing thread and a needle and binds the giant's limbs. With needle and thread, Mickey swings about the giant, sewing him up and causing him to fall and knock himself out. The giant subdued, Mickey returns home and is hailed as a hero. An amusement park is built on the site of the battle (powered with wind power from the snoring giant). The short ends with the king and a newly married Mickey and Minnie enjoying a ride on the carousel.