Squatter's Rights (1946)

Earlier this year, I took a look at The Painter and The Pointer, the 1944 Andy Panda cartoon that left a young Matt Groening grappling with some serious mental scars. And now I think I may have found that cartoon's Disney equivalent. Like The Painter and The Pointer, Squatter's Rights revolves around a dog getting pestered by two scrawny little nuisances while his squeaky-voiced owner remains oblivious to the full extent of his misery. Somewhere along the line the dog ends up with his face on the wrong end of a loaded shotgun. Neither short is for the faint of heart.

For the most part, Squatter's Rights plays like a tamer version of The Painter and The Pointer, except that it somehow winds up with the sicker punchline of the two. In fact, this feels like the ending The Painter and The Pointer should have had, had it followed its depraved vision all the way to the max. Mickey and Pluto have gone up to their winter cabin for a change of scenery, unaware that disease-spreading vermin Chip and Dale have taken up residence inside the stove in their absence and aren't keen on relinquishing their accommodation. War breaks out between Pluto and the chipmunks, while Mickey remains wholly oblivious to the root cause of the problem.

Squatter's Rights is notable for several reasons:

• It marked the Mickey Mouse's first post-war appearance in a theatrical short, following a three-year hiatus after Pluto and The Armadillo in 1943. By this stage, Mickey Mouse shorts were becoming fewer and farther in between, as Donald Duck and Goofy supplanted him in the popularity stakes.
• It was the first occasion in which Mickey was voiced by Jimmy MacDonald. Walt Disney had long provided vocals for his signature character, but by 1946 he was becoming too busy with other projects (not to mention, his nicotine addiction was starting to take its toll and his vocal range wasn't quite what it used to be). Squatter's Rights marked the beginning of the transitional period in which the torch was passed to MacDonald, who took over full-time as Mickey in 1947.
• It was Chip and Dale's second appearance - their first being in the 1943 short Private Pluto, in which they were likewise pitted against the hapless hound. You can tell that this was an early outing for the chipmunks because their character designs and dynamics have not yet been refined - here, Chip and Dale look completely identical (Dale was later given a red nose and larger teeth to make him distinguishable from Chip). For the most part, their characterisation is also indistinguishable here, although we do see signs of their separate personalities emerging early on in the short, when one of the chipmunks is clearly shown to be more bossy and sensible than his lazier, more carefree companion.
• It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short film at the 19th awards ceremony in 1947, but lost to MGM's The Cat Concerto, starring Tom and Jerry. I can't really object to that. The Cat Concerto is a stone cold classic. Squatter's Rights is a solid cartoon but doesn't really represent the best for any of the associated characters.

I've encountered a fair number of people in my time who don't like Chip and Dale and think that the karma police of the Disney universe frequently permit them to get away with murder because they're cute (people who initially knew them as the valiant heroes of the 1980s TV series Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers are sometimes surprised to look back and observe what little bastards the sciurines could be in their earlier incarnations, although they're far from the only classic Disney characters to have undergone something of a rectitude makeover - if you only know Huey, Dewey and Louie from Ducktales then you might be shocked to discover what a trio of proper little sociopaths they were back in the day; my theory is that Della had started medicating them come the Carl Barks comics). I would strongly disagree, although I do concede that the dynamics in their earlier appearances didn't quite hit the right balance, chiefly because they were up against the wrong nemesis. Although initially conceived as adversaries for Pluto, Chip and Dale quickly made the switch to being the omnipresent thorns in Donald Duck's side, and enjoyed a far more prosperous career because of it. After this, there were two further shorts in which they faced off against Pluto - Food For Feudin' (1950) and Pluto's Christmas Tree (1952) - but I doubt that Chip and Dale would have had nearly as much longevity as characters had they limited their repertoire to creating havoc for Mickey's faithful chum. Their chemistry with Donald tended to be a lot better, and there's something infinitely more satisfying about seeing them come to blows with the irascible fowl than with Pluto. I think it comes down to the fact that Pluto is too much of an innocent, whereas Donald is not (even so, you do get the occasional short in which the chipmunks harass Donald for no good reason, such as Crazy Over Daisy from 1950), which is one reason why Squatter's Rights ultimately leaves something of a sour taste.

Squatter's Rights does not seem to know (nor care) which characters in this equation it intends for us to root for; Chip and Dale might initially come off as the underdogs, but their tactics grow increasingly devious as the short goes on (to the point where they're setting Mickey's toes ablaze and getting a real kick from it to boot). Meanwhile, Pluto does cast a handful of malevolent glares in the chipmunks' direction (and gets eerily excited at the thought of dousing the tiny intruders in kerosene), but he's too intrinsically sweet-natured to be convincing antagonist material, and surely we're not supposed to be rooting against the prospect of Mickey Mouse (of all characters) having an enjoyable vacation in the cabin that's rightfully his (the fact that he possibly intends to devote a part of it to blasting his rifle at innocent wildlife notwithstanding)? In the end, this is a simple battle of conflicting ids; Pluto grows increasingly exasperated in his efforts to evict the chipmunks, while Chip and Dale become ever more cutthroat in their attempts to hold onto their residence, and Mickey has to deal with the inevitable calamity. As noted, Mickey never learns that there are rodents in his property (besides himself) and misconstrues all of the strange occurrences as being down to Pluto's bad behaviour. Thankfully, Mickey is not Andy Panda (or Andy Panda's evil, Shamus Culhane-created doppelganger), and he's not actively mean to Pluto, even when he incorrectly deduces that Pluto was responsible for setting his toes on fire. In this scenario, Pluto finds up with a shotgun in his face when Mickey steps out to get more firewood and Pluto chases the chipmunks around the cabin, only to bump into the rifle while pursing them across the mantelpiece. Pluto gets his nose stuck in the barrel of the shotgun and discovers, to his horror, that the trigger is directly adjacent to the hook on which the gun has been mounted, meaning that he cannot jar himself free without the risk that it will fire. Pluto's best plan is to hold perfectly still, which is easier said that done when the stool on which he's standing is none too stable. Pluto's shotgun dilemma occurs toward the end of the short, so it isn't as disturbingly drawn-out as Butch's comparable predicament in The Painter and The Pointer, but the tension is no less excruciating. Pluto's plight is further underscored with an unsettling visual gag in which Pluto looks up at the mounted moose head above the mantelpiece (bagged and stuffed by Mickey?) and imagines his own head stuffed and mounted in its place (although, if that gun were to fire then it's probably optimistic to suppose that there'd be very much of Pluto's head remaining).

Chip and Dale didn't deliberately set Pluto up to this, of course, and they do look genuinely concerned when they realise what kind of a mess he's in, so at first I was expecting them to come to Pluto's aid, thereby making peace with the mutt and enabling all four characters to come to an amicable arrangement in which they could have share of the cabin. But nope. The chipmunks just sit back and gawk as Pluto struggles with the shotgun, until finally something gives and the gun ends up firing; Pluto slips free of it just in time to avoid getting his brains blown out, but the gun falls and hits him on the head, knocking him unconscious. It's then that Chip and Dale come up with the deranged idea to pour ketchup (sorry, catsup) over Pluto's abdomen, thus simulating a gruesome gunshot wound. Mickey returns and finds Pluto out for the count with the shotgun spread across his inert body and lots of red gushing from his gut, and breaks down into tears, assuming his friend to be dead. Pluto comes to, sees Mickey in distress and reflexively starts comforting him...then he looks down, becomes aware of his own predicament and freaks out, believing that he really has shot himself in the gut. The short ends with Mickey rushing the wailing Pluto out into the snow to seek emergency help, erroneously believing him to be bleeding to death, leaving Chip and Dale to rule the roost once again. The chipmunks laugh at how swimmingly their prank went and congratulate one another on a job well done. Obviously none of the characters were actually harmed in this scenario, and Mickey and Pluto are going to feel mighty silly when they finally do reach the emergency room, but still, that's pretty sick, dude. It's a strangely unsettling end-note for a cartoon that doesn't quite go the full hog in terms of nastiness in the build-up, and it rounds off with more bite than the otherwise crueler The Painter and The Pointer, which doesn't really produce a memorable punchline after its own nightmare scenario reaches its inevitable breaking point.

PS: If you're one of those people who like to think of Chip and Dale as a gay couple (and I know there are a lot of you out there) then Squatter's Rights should be right up your alley in that regard. Not only do we see the chipmunks sleeping in the same bed, but they even share a random kiss at one point. Hurrah for sciurine ho-yay.