Building a Building


Building a Building is a 1933 American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Production and released by United Artists. A remake of the 1928 Oswald the Lucky Rabbit film Sky Scrappers, the cartoon depicts Mickey Mouse working at a construction site under the supervision of Peg-Leg Pete while Minnie Mouse is selling box lunches to the workers. It was directed by David Hand, his first directorial assignment at Disney, and features the voices of Walt Disney as Mickey, Marcellite Garner as Minnie, and Billy Bletcher as Pete. It was the 51st Mickey Mouse short film, and the first of that year.
The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 6th Academy Awards, but lost to Disney's own Three Little Pigs. This was the second Mickey Mouse cartoon nominated for an Oscar.

Plot

Mickey is operating a steam shovel at a construction site. Minnie appears on a cart pulled by Pluto; she is selling box lunches to the workers.
After he uses the steam shovel to retrieve Minnie's hat, Mickey accidentally throws dirt from the steam shovel onto Peg-Leg Pete, the foreman, making him angry and shout, "HEY!!! Don't put dirt on the blueprint! What do you think you're doing?!". Mickey hurriedly brings up a load of bricks in a wheelbarrow. Meanwhile, Pete sees Minnie and flirts with her, though she is not interested. Mickey, distracted by Minnie, accidentally drops the bricks on Pete, who literally shouts out, "Hey, you blankety blank baboon!"
Finally, Mickey himself falls through Pete's blueprint. Pete has had enough and starts to strangle Mickey, but just then it is noon and an anthropomorphic steam whistle sounds for lunch. Mickey settles down to eat a fish sandwich, but it is stolen by Pete. Minnie offers to give him a box lunch for free. As Mickey is eating the lunch, Pete abducts Minnie from above with a crane.
Mickey chases after Pete, and finally wrestles with him high up on the building. Minnie grabs a pan of red-hot rivets and drops them down Pete's pants. This gives the mice enough time to run away as Pete pours water down his pants.
In the process of chasing Mickey and Minnie, Pete has an anvil fall on his head and fires rivets at them with a handheld pneumatic hammer. This turns on him when the hammer falls into his pants and gets attached to his peg leg. The mice escape down a chute riding a wheelbarrow, while Pete falls into a cement mixer and accidentally dismantles a large portion of the building.
Once he hits the ground, Pete declares to Mickey he's fired, who goes immediately into business with Minnie selling box lunches.

Reception

Piotr Borowiec said that this cartoon has better animation, stronger story lines, and better gags than the previous ones. Studio art instructor Don Graham taught a class in which students studied live-action films and compared them to Disney cartoons. In the class, the students compared Elmer Elephant and this cartoon. The students said that Building a Building was better. Michael Barrier disagreed about their decision, but he said that the students did have a point.

Voice cast