Western Animation / The Nifty Nineties

Hey, if this is the '90s, where are all the flannel shirts?

A day in the nineties

When Grandma was a girl

The horseless carriage was quite a show

Grandpa cussed when the thing wouldn't go

Those days were gay days

When Grandma was a girl

Come and take a look in our picture book

At The Gay '90s!

The Nifty Nineties is a 1941 animated short film from Disney.

Starring Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, this cartoon places them back in the olden days of the '90s — the 1890s, that is to say. The plot, such as it is, consists of Mickey meeting Minnie in the park, taking her to a vaudeville show, and then taking her for a ride in his "horseless carriage." But really, the storyline is just an excuse to showcase and/or parody tropes associated with the Mauve Decade.

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Tropes associated with this short include:

• Accidental Kiss: After crashing into a haystack, Mickey and Minnie try to kiss, but a cow that got caught up in the crash pops her head between them and they both end up kissing her instead.
• Alliterative Title: "The Nifty Nineties".
• Anachronistic Soundtrack: The song "In the Good Old Summer Time" is actually from 1902. The other featured songs all existed in the 1890s,^note With the obvious exception of "The Gay Nineties," the opening song that was written specifically for the cartoon. although some originated earlier.
• Art Shift: The vaudeville sequence has a non-animated slideshow done in the sketchy style of John Held, a 1920s illustrator who also liked to send up the 1890s.
• The Cameo: During the "In the Good Old Summertime" sequence, Mickey and Minnie pass by Goofy on a pennyfarthing, and Donald, Daisy, Huey, Dewey, and Louie on a tandem bicycle.
• Chicken Joke: The vaudeville audience cracks up at hearing this joke. Apparently, the 1940s writers assumed this ancient joke was still fresh in the 1890s. In reality, the joke dates from the 1840s, and it was considered old hat even in the 1890s.
• Creator Cameo: The vaudeville performers Fred and Ward are caricatures of animators Fred Moore and Ward Kimball, who also provide the voices.
• The Cover Changes the Gender: Well, not exactly the gender, but the cartoon's rendition of "The Fountain in the Park" does come with a pronoun change. In the original version, it's sung from the perspective of the man, who refers to himself in the first person ("A smile was all she gave to me"). Here, it's sung by an off-screen chorus, with both parties referred to in the third person ("A smile was all she gave to him").
• Forgotten Trope: Modern viewers may be perplexed by the inclusion of the rather morbid "Father, Dear Father" segment featuring a vaudeville slideshow version of the song "Come Home, Father!", about a little girl trying to get her drunkard father to leave the tavern and return to his family. This is a caricature of art produced by the temperance movement; the way it portrayed the effects of alcohol consumption would have been familiar to those who remembered the 1890s and who saw the short at the time it was released.
• The Gay '90s: The cartoon covers many of the tropes that a 1940s audience would have associated with the 1890s, from the newfangled "horseless carriage" (with a speedometer that only goes up to 20 mph) to vaudeville shows to maudlin temperance propaganda to penny-farthings and tandem bicycles.
• Iris Out: Like most Classic Disney Shorts, the cartoon ends this way.
• Mood Whiplash: The first segment of the vaudeville sequence is a magic lantern show entitled "Father, Dear Father", about a little girl trying to get her alcoholic father to leave the tavern as her little brother is dying at home. Minnie bawls her eyes out as Mickey tries to comfort her. The next segment features the dancing, joke-cracking duo of Fred and Ward, "two clever boys from Illinois". Mickey and Minnie share a good laugh over their antics.
• No Plot? No Problem!: There’s not much of a story here: Mickey and Minnie meet, go to a vaudeville show, then take a ride on Mickey’s car. The real purpose of the cartoon is to take a nostalgic look back at life some fifty years earlier.
• Ocular Gushers: Minnie sheds massive gobs of tears while seeing "Father, Dear Father" while Mickey tries to comfort her.
• Parasol of Prettiness: Minnie carries one.
• Picture-Perfect Presentation: The cartoon opens with an old black-and-white photograph fading into the real scene.
• Protest Song: "Come Home, Father!" is a real nineteenth-century song that was used to advocate for prohibition prior to the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. The W.C.T.U. even adopted it as their anthem. This cartoon, having been made several years after prohibition ended, it doesn't take the song's temperance message seriously.
• Spiritual Successor: Nine years later, in 1950, a Donald Duck short entitled Crazy Over Daisy was released, using the same 1890s setting, and many of the characters make brief appearances wearing the same costumes.
• Storybook Opening: Like several other Disney cartoons, the short opens this way.
• Universal-Adaptor Cast: Mickey, Minnie, and the rest are all the same, just relocated to the 1890s.
• Vaudeville: The middle portion of the cartoon has Mickey and Minnie attend a vaudeville show, where they see a temperance slide show and a comedy act.
• Wallet Moths: A pair of moths fly out of Mickey’s money purse as he pays for tickets for the vaudeville show.