CROSSOVER MADNESS

Whereas the Disney animated shorts usually only crossed over characters who had appeared in the cartoons, the Disney comic books, usually published by Dell, felt free to intermingle any characters any Disney project had adapted-- thus providing a "mass crossover" universe some time before Marvel Comics did so. In this 1960 tale "Bad Deeds' Club Annual Picnic" (DELL GIANT #33), Gyro Gearloose not only encounters a bunch of disparate villains-- the Big Bad Wolf, the Wicked Witch, Black Pete, Captain Hook and the Beagle Boys-- the story also works in Peter Pan, the Seven Dwarves, the Three Little Pigs, Mickey Mouse and Uncle Scrooge.                         

     The same issue also includes a Pluto story, "The Dancing Dog,"  in which the dopey dog encounters the satyr Pan but also Stromboli from PINOCCHIO.                                                                                       

From DELL GIANT #30. there's "Hook and Crooks." Uncle Scrooge and Gyro Gearloose chase the Beagle Boys to Neverland to recover the billion dollars stolen from Scrooge, only to find that the Beagles have joined forces with Captain Hook.                                                                                         

    Modern gender politics are well served by "The Scary All-Girl Safari," taking Daisy Duck, Minnie Mouse, Grandma Duck and Clarabelle Cow on a jungle cruise.                                                            

In "The Tiny Trouble Shooters," Chip and Dale ally with Scamp (a product of LADY AND THE TRAMP) avoid Monstro the Whale and help Pinocchio and Gepetto against a Giant who looks familiar though I can't place him from anything earlier.                                         

On a minor personal note, I remember having read these comics in real time, when I was about five years old, give or take a year, and upon re-reading them sixty-plus years later, I still remember some of them pretty well.