I’ve been saying for some time that I would get to the talk about Figaro. And now that this short is on Disney+, the time has come. Actually, it’s the last of the Figaro shorts to be made; it wouldn’t surprise me if the increasing popularity of Sylvester and Tweetie Bird over at Warners was what did it, but either way, here we are. It turns out to coincide with Year of the Month, but honestly I just watched this because it’s one of the assortment prominently added after restoration. It’s not necessarily one I would choose, but clearly someone at Disney thought it was a good idea.
Figaro is Minnie’s pet. She also has a canary named Frankie, who sings constantly, annoying the bejeezus out of Figaro. Figaro, being a cat, decides the way out of this is to eat Frankie. Minnie discovers him at it and throws him outside, thereby making him the environment’s problem. Except someone has left a vicious dog outside, and while Figaro did not in fact eat Frankie, Butch is perfectly happy to eat Figaro. Or Frankie, who has also gotten outside.
We’ll start with the Figaro thing. He doesn’t have a separate character page on Wikipedia; the link on the giant list of Disney shorts takes you to the Pinocchio page. Apparently, however, according to the Disney wiki I frequent for information, Walt really liked the character—invented by the animators for the movie, along with the goldfish Cleo, and voiced by Clarence “Ducky” Nash—and insisted they add him to the shorts. So he made seven appearances as Minnie’s pet and shows up in the occasional property to this day.
It’s odd, though, because there’s no parallel. Oh, Jiminy Cricket would appear in things—wouldn’t I love to see the “I’m No Fool” series show up—but he was seldom in the main continuity. It wasn’t “Jiminy goes on a picnic with Goofy” or whatever, but Figaro lived in Minnie’s house and was sized in an appropriate way relative to the Mickey characters. He battled Pluto and cuddled with Minnie and it’s an odd choice. Walt’s fondness for the character is one thing, but it’s still the only time it happens in continuity.
Frankie, on the other hand, is more prosaic. Frank Sinatra was enormously popular among teenagers at the time, particularly teenage girls, and there are any number of references to the phenomenon in cartoons. At least this one isn’t demanding to know what they could possibly see in the “Frankie” character. Sure, Figaro’s annoyed by him, but that’s because Frankie constantly sings while he’s trying to sleep. That would be annoying no matter what he thinks of the music itself. Also, you know, he’s a cat who wants to eat a bird. That makes more sense than most Mickey Mouse continuity.
