“A Cowboy Needs A Horse” is a 1956 musical classic Disney animated short.
A young boy dreams he is riding like a cowboy saving the west.
- All Animals Are Dogs: A few times, the horse licks the boy like a domestic dog.
- All Just a Dream: Most of this short takes place in the little boy’s dream.
- Book Ends: This animated short opens with the outside of the pent house where the little boy lives. The screen cuts to the inside of the pent house and pans across the apartment into the boy’s bedroom where he is sleeping. This all happens again at the very end only in reverse. A “The End” card appears when the screen returns to the outside of the pent house.
- Cool Horse: The little cowboy’s dream horse.
- Damsel in Distress: The redheaded girl who the little cowboy saves from a bandit.
- Fat Badguy: Both the bandits the little cowboy defeats have rotund physiques.
- Limited Animation: This short uses a style very similar to that of UPA.
- Mime and Music-Only Cartoon: A few vocal sounds by the characters, a choir singing the titular song offscreen, but absolutely no dialogue. Most everyone, including the boy is silent.
- Peace Pipe: After lassoing a tribe of Native Americans, the boy and their chief share a peace pipe. When the boy smokes it, it blows bubbles instead.
- Perpetual Smiler: The boy’s dream horse smiles most of the time, but not much in serious situations.
- Racing the Train: The little boy and his horse race pass the train in their feat to stop it from falling off a bridge that is about to explode.
- Red Is Heroic: As the hero in this picture, the little cowboy rides a red horse and wears a red bandanna.
- Titled After the Song
- True Blue Femininity: The redheaded girl wears a blue dress.
- Would Hurt a Child: A bandit kidnaps a little girl and attempts to stab her with a knife.
