AllMovie

Though running slightly less than a half-hour, Walt Disney Productions' animated Ben and Me is produced with as much loving care and attention to detail as any of Disney's feature-length cartoons. Sterling Holloway provides the voice of Amos Mouse, who, according to this cartoon, was the principal inspiration for 18th century American "renaissance man," Ben Franklin. According to the mouse's recollections, Franklin would never have come up with such inventions as trifocals, the Franklin stove and the Declaration of Independence were it not for him. Best bit: Amos stepping into a puddle and glowing with electricity after Franklin's kite-and-key experiment. Ben and Me was originally released as one-third of a Disney short subject package; the other two components were The Living Desert and Stormy the Thoroughbred.