Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Good concept, poorly executed.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I do have many favourites from the Disney shorts, and The Worm Turns is almost certainly among them. Here is some of the most inventive animation of any Disney short from the late 30s. It is colourful and fluid, and I loved most of all the facial expressions(cat's faces splitting in two, eyes bulging out until longer than body and heads getting squashed into the neck) and reactions of the characters especially with Pete when he is attacked by Pluto. The setting change from the barnyard is interesting too. The music, as I've said so many times that I'm starting to sound like a broken record, has always been a large part of the success of these shorts, and the music is really excellent in The Worm Turns. The gags are simply great, some are the same gag but done in clever variations right from what happens between the fly and spider, the cat and Pluto and Pluto and Pete(which is classic). The gag is simple, but not overly-so, and always involving. The characters are wonderful and each and every one of them show their comedic chops in some way or another. Mickey is more the bystander than the hero, but due to the fact that he is made into a mad scientist sort of character he is far from bland either. Pluto is the hero here strictly speaking and he is still the cute and energetic dog that we know and love and he also provides the funniest moments. Pete is as ever the antagonist, and the part where he got his well-deserved comeuppance from Pluto is the highlight of The Worm Turns. All in all, fantastic, though for a while I wasn't sure about the meaning of the title. 10/10 Bethany Cox

"The Worm Turns" is one of the best Disney cartoons I ever loved. It all begins with Mickey Mouse, dressed up as a mad scientist, puts the few finishing touches to the Weak Made Strong Courage Builder, a super strength potion that makes a smaller animal turn the tables on a larger animal. Now for a test, as Mickey says, he squirts the super strength potion on a fly, and the fly beats up on a sneaky spider for trapping him in his web. Mickey then squirts the super strength potion on a Jerry-like mouse, and after that the mouse chases a Tom-like cat and wrestles him (just like in a similar scene from a "Tom and Jerry" cartoon called, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse") for chasing him, and throws him out of the house, where Pluto is standing out there. Pluto then chases the cat into the tool shed. The cat gets scared of Pluto's digging, and his 8 lives went for cover in the roof. Mickey squirts the super strength potion on the cat's ninth life, then all of the cat's other lives went back into the cat's body, and the cat chases (and scares) Pluto out into the street after giving him quite a scare, where Pluto calms himself. But before he makes another move, Pluto gets caught by Kron (from the Disney movie "Dinosaur"), who, in Pete's role (!), is seen here as a dog catcher. After disposing of the dinosaur dog catcher, even with the help of Mickey's super strength potion, Pluto gets sprayed by a fire hydrant that Mickey squirts the super strength potion at it when he sniffs at the fire hydrant. This Mickey Mouse cartoon is available on the Walt Disney Treasures 2-Disc DVD, "Mickey Mouse in Living Color", along with the other Mickey Mouse cartoons from 1935 to 1938 including "The Band Concert", "The Brave Little Talior", and such.

Mickey brews up potion, in his mad scientist lab, to give super-courage and strength (the secret ingredient is Bravo Pronto) to it's consumer. He tests it on a fly, which soon beats up the spider who's web it is caught in. To make sure the potion is a complete success Mickey gives it to a mouse to in turn beats up a cat (they look soooo much like Tom and Jerry btw, odd since they weren't invented yet), the cat beats up the dog (Pluto) who then beats up the Dog Warden.With such an inventive and imaginative plot I would have expected more laughs and more complexity. I'm sorry to say that the cartoon is only mildly amusing and has an abrupt and rather senseless ending.

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.THE WORM TURNS as Mickey's magic potion helps smaller creatures gain the aggressive advantage over their tormentors.Lots of fun in this very well made little film, which begins as a spoof of the old mad scientist movies. The excellent animation bounces the swift moving story right along to its crescendo - a confrontation between Pluto and dogcatcher Pete. For the record, the ingredients necessary for the Courage Builder formula are Tigerus Marrow, Spiritu Bravado, Stimuli Valorus & Lionus Tonicio. Walt Disney provided Mickey with his voice.Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that simplicity of message and lots of hard work will always pay off.