Lonesome Ghosts


Lonesome Ghosts is a 1937 Disney animated cartoon, released through RKO Radio Pictures on December 24, 1937, three days after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was directed by Burt Gillett and animated by Izzy Klein, Ed Love, Milt Kahl, Marvin Woodward, Bob Wickersham, Clyde Geronimi, Dick Huemer, Dick Williams, Art Babbitt and Rex Cox. The short features Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy as members of The Ajax Ghost Exterminators. It was the 98th short in the Mickey Mouse film series to be released, and the ninth for that year.
This short marked the first use of one of Goofy's catchphrases, "Somethin' wrong here!".

Plot

The Ajax Ghost Exterminators - Mickey, Donald and Goofy - are hired by telephone to drive out four ghosts from a haunted house that has long been abandoned. Unbeknownst to them, they were hired by the ghosts themselves, who are bored because nobody has visited the house since they had been haunting for a long time. They wish to play tricks on the living, and do so through a series of inventive, annoying pranks.
The exterminators arrive and knock on the front door, which falls down. When they announce themselves, there is nobody to receive them. Mickey decides they should get to work anyway. When entering, the door lifts up and throws them inside before putting itself back in place. After hearing the ghosts' laughter, the three split up to hunt the ghosts individually.
The exterminators are toyed with at every turn; a ghost knocks Mickey on the head and puts its fingers in his gun when he tries to shoot it and it explodes. Mickey is driven upstairs and tries to open a door that the ghost disappears into, which falls down and the ghosts come out of the fallen door and go into another. Mickey opens the door, which causes water to poor out of it while the ghosts surf across it on surfboards. The last one comes out on a motorboat that goes around Mickey until it and the water disappear altogether. Donald, meanwhile, is whacked with a wooden board and is scared away by the sounds of banging chains and dishes. Goofy, in a bedroom, becomes tangled in a dresser and stabs his own rear with a pin, mistaking his blue pants for a ghost and is shoved down into the basement.
In the end, the three exterminators accidentally become covered in molasses and flour, making them look like ghosts and consequently scaring the actual ghosts out of the house in a panic. The ghost hunters stand victorious, having driven the spirits out of the house, although not exactly certain how. Donald smugly assumes the ghosts fled in capitulation to their superior tactics.

Voice cast