It's time to check out one of my favorite characters: Mickey Mouse.
While Mickey tends to shy away from any horror analogies,
the old, old Mickey Mouse could dark,
really dark.
[Thunder Clashes]
While good old Mickey can warm our hearts, he also reserves the power to be surprisingly
sadistic and creepy.
So let's check out the Top 6 Creepiest Mickey Mouse Cartoons.
Basically if Mickey's crew is in it, it's allowed on this list.
Just a heads up that there's a little more dark themes in this list than usual,
but of course we'll still keep it good fun.
"Hey Pluto, relax!"
And obviously, creepypastas aren't included, we'll save that for another day.
Anyways, let's do this countdown!
Number 6!
Ghoul Friend from the new Mickey Mouse series.
Some of this imagery is surprisingly grisly for Modern-day Disney.
I know they'd still like to show a little dark imagery nowadays, but
Jebus!
The story is your standard horror setting except with Mickey in it.
Mickey's car breaks down in the middle of nowhere at midnight.
He looks out silently at the secluded dark forest, the tension is slowly built as Mickey sees a shadow,
but then realizes it was just a squirrel, only to have a black,
horrifying image appear before him!
"AAAHHH!"
And basically the rest of the episode is Mickey running for his life from this creepy gruel,
that may have once been Goofy!
(I don't know they never tell us).
Even the music for this one is slightly unsettling.
And the way the undead Graveyard Goofy sways as he moves is
surprisingly uncanny.
This one's early on in the list though because while it's creepy,
it's got a pretty harmless, kind of funny finish to it.
Spoiler Alert!
Undead Goofy helps Mickey gets his car started again,
that was nice of him.
And Mickey takes him along with him.
Yeah, why not?
Number 5!
Mickey's Garden.
I've never been a bug person at all,
and being the anxiety prone terrified six-year-old I once was,
Mickey's nightmarish garden stuck with me even to this day!
We begin the episode by Micky concocting the most acidic,
vile,
noxious poison he can manage;
in order to annihilate every bug in his garden.
But then, Mickey accidentally gasses himself with these poisoned fumes,
sending him into what I can only describe as a
psychotropic breakdown where bugs grow to massive proportions,
and Mickey is but a helpless pawn in their bizarre disturbing world.
So, let's look at some of the imagery here.
To start with, look away for a second if you're trypophobic.
EUGH!
Even the designs of these spiders and bugs is kind of creepy.
The way they all hold in on the noxious poison and begin inhaling it, making them drunk.
We watch Pluto continually tortured as he is isolated,
letting off surprisingly disturbing screams as he gasps for air in his suffocating
firebug stomach.
I remember a lot of imagery from this one about people being trapped,
isolated, and plenty of Pluto screeching in terror.
Mickey can just not get a break in this place!
Everywhere he turns,
he's faced with another vile bug monster threatening to consume him.
And it ends with Mickey desperately trying to strangle a giant snake to survive!
He wakes up eventually to discover it's a nightmare,
but I still felt very unsettled by the whole thing.
I am perhaps even more disturbed by bugs now because of this creepy Mickey cartoon I happen to see as a kid.
Frankly, if I ever see any of these little monsters in my backyard,
I'm giving them a solid three full cans of bug spray and stomping on them before I'm satisfied.
Number 4!
Runaway Brain.
In this cartoon, Mickey makes the ultimate mistake.
The Pandora's box of bond shops, he reads
the want ads.
AGH!
And one ad offers a thousand dollars for a mindless day's work.
Little does Mickey know when they say mindless,
it literally means his employer is going to strap into a chair and remove his brain.
"Talk about your ironclad contract."
Once Mickey enters a secluded laboratory
we get some surprisingly hellish imagery as we discover Mickey is going to have his brain
forcefully donated to Pete's body.
EELH!
Has anyone else heard this laugh somewhere before?
Oh, that's why. It is Kelsey Grammer. That's neat.
But anyway, at the time the surprisingly macabre nature of this Mickey Mouse cartoon,
caused a lot of controversy when it was released.
One of the Disney chairman complained that it was disturbing to watch Mickey becoming possessed,
though a lot of audiences argued he overcame being possessed really well, and agree with that.
Pete (with Mickey's voice): It's me, Mickey. Minnie: Mickey?
While witnessing Mickey turn into an empty shell of a monster
void of any compassion is surprisingly confronting.
It remains a fun, kind of creepy Mickey's jaw, that I always enjoy looking back on.
And the 3rd Creepiest Mickey Mouse cartoons is...
Deh Fuhrer's Face.
"Heil Hitler!" [x11]
I'm bending the rules a bit with this one cause it's not directly Mickey Mouse,
but Donald's part of Mickey's crews so I decided to add it on the list.
Watching Donald be kicked around a German concentration camp is pretty unsettling.
Since it's a propaganda film, all of the imagery is subtly designed to be slightly darker,
slightly more unappealing to represent Germany in an ugly light.
"Heil Hitler!"
And you can almost feel the strings being pulled on this one.
We're constantly hearing this echoing of a song about being worked to death for Hitler
as Donald is forced at knifepoint to create bombs for the evil men.
It's both funny to watch but simultaneously very unnerving
because of all the creepy undertones that play here.
Donald is forced at knifepoint to steadily work himself into
insanity, or else be executed.
There's something slightly off about everything in this cartoon:
the colors, the swastika shapes,
nothing is quite right.
As is tradition, Walt claims it to all be a dream at the end.
"Heil Hit-"
But this one always leaves a very unpleasant feeling in my gut.
And the 2nd Creepiest Mickey Mouse Cartoon is...
Pluto's Judgment Day.
Pluto was put on a fire to be burned alive!
Sure? Why not.
Western culture was considerably less secular in 1935,
so Disney felt the need to terrify kids into being good or else they would burn at the stake!
[cue Walt Disney Pictures logo] ♫Du-du-du-du-du♫
Chains slap down on him in an empty black room,
as he's put before a jury of cats.
Apparently, our lovable dog Pluto has mass murdered cats;
chasing them under steamrollers or leaving them mentally crippled with post-traumatic stress disorder.
"BARK! BARK! BARK!"
"Meraow! Ahh!"
I just kind of figured Pluto chase cats
I didn't think he cause mass genocide to the cat population, but he's a dog.
As annoying as it might be, it's his nature to yap at cats without thinking;
or cars or other dogs or humans or anything for that matter.
But he is literally put over a fire with a screaming jeering crowd to be burned alive!
And we watch him suffer and scream in terrors as the flames lick higher and higher!
I'll have my Pluto extra crispy.
Pluto's Judgment Day is an interesting but
disturbing reminder of how incredibly lucky we are today to be beyond the days of
electroshock therapy and very one-sided court cases.
And if you think this one is bad, believe me it is about to get even worse...
And the Number 1 Creepiest Mickey Mouse cartoon is...
The MAD Doctor.
Back in the very first years of Disney before even Snow White,
Disney would do some dark stuff and this one was the darkest of all.
This does not feel like a Disney cartoon.
This is the first and last official Disney Creepypasta
created by Walt Disney himself.
How Disney could make this and consider it suitable for kids is beyond me.
Let's go back to when cartoons just began.
When Disney actually thought surgery, amputation, and creating chimeras was cute children's entertainment.
Something about all the footage in this one is very isolating.
Its entire atmosphere is just strangely black and hateful.
This doesn't even look like a spooky castle, it goes beyond that.
It literally looks like Mickey has descended into Hell,
constantly being tormented by Beelzebub's minions.
And it gets better,
it actually gets better.
The MAD Doctor keeps tortured animals captive
and plans to do live surgery on Pluto in order to turn him into a chicken chimera.
Jebus, Walt!
This means that Walt has not only discussed live surgery with his child audience, but has literally pulled out
chimeras, one of the ultimate scientific taboos.
He is literally explaining the procedure of surgery to children with a big blood splattered soul!
I'm sorry, I've just got to use this again...
[cue Walt Disney Pictures logo] ♫Du-du-du-du-du♫
What was the wonderful world of Disney thinking?
And all throughout that we can continually hear Pluto's wailing in horror
as Mickey desperately tries to save him from live surgery by a psychopathic doctor!
If modern Disney gives Frozen a PG,
how the crapcicles would this get a G?
Great, and we finish off with Mickey being strapped to the surgery table for his own live surgery.
And now, we begin to see the doctor sawing him in two
with a giant rusty chainsaw!?
[Record Scratches]
[The MAD Doctor Laughs Evilly]
[cue Walt Disney Pictures logo] ♫Du-du-du-du-du♫
There's just NO topping this footage.
I don't know if I can ever see Disney in the same light again after seeing
this footage!
Oh, but it turns out in the last six seconds of the film that it was all just a nightmare.
"WHA!"
Well that just makes everything better, doesn't it.
I'm not at all scarred, nope.
1933's The MAD Doctor is the true representation of Mickey being sent to Hell.
And while it's very interesting, it is by far the Creepiest Mickey Mouse Cartoon I've ever seen!
But honestly, these are still powerful pieces of animation that remain revolutionary vintages in Disney history.
And most importantly, regardless of how cringy their teen sitcoms might get,
I appreciate that all of Disney's shows look not at the nihilistic empty side of life
but focus on brightening the perspective of all their viewers in a balanced and realistic way.
And I hope Disney can keep showing both kids and adults the graceful beautiful perspectives
of who and what we are through their cartoons and movies.
Do you think I missed a particularly creepy Mickey Mouse cartoon?
If you can think of one I missed, feel free to leave it in the comments.
As before, a big thanks go out to my Patrons who helped make it possible for me to keep making these videos,
as well as hidden videos and early releases.
I started doing commentaries and all my top list to try and give the patrons something else to say thank you.
So if you'd like to check some of those out, or just like to help support the channel,
check out my Patreon at
And as always,
thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time!