Mickey and the Seal 1948

Mickey Mouse James MacDonald visits the seal exhibit at a busy zoo, where the seals perform tricks to earn fish. He feeds them, coaxing their playful stunts and turning the enclosure into a lively stage of cheerful chaos. A curious young seal slips away from the group to grab more fish and somehow ends up inside the basket Mickey is carrying.

Mickey carries the basket home, while Pluto Pinto Colvig sits at the door, begging for a bite. When Mickey sets the basket down, Pluto approaches to investigate, but the seal’s flippers clip him on the nose, sparking surprise and confusion. The seal escapes from the basket and Pluto gives chase, only to have his head get wedged inside the basket. He blunders around the kitchen, creating a mess that immediately draws Mickey’s attention and earns a disgruntled frown.

Despite Pluto’s frantic attempts to signal what happened, Mickey quickly orders him outside. The kitchen chaos continues as the seal’s presence remains felt nearby, and Pluto’s efforts to explain are left unheard in the bustle.

Back in the bathroom, the drama escalates. The seal hops into the tub just before Mickey, who is about to bathe, and both remain blissfully unaware of the other. In a comic mix-up, Mickey ends up scrubbing the seal’s head with his brush instead of his back, while the seal, in a surprising reversal, starts scrubbing Mickey’s head in return, leaving him puzzled and bemused. Pluto tries to warn again from the window, but Mickey shuts the shade, missing the warning once more. When the seal steals the scrubbing brush, Mickey lunges to retrieve it—and, in a moment of misdirection, grabs the seal by mistake and yells in fright.

Jumping from the tub, Mickey grabs a stool to trap the intruder and drains the water, only then realizing there’s a seal in the tub. Despite Mickey’s orders to stay outside, an angry Pluto storms in, crashing into the tub and launching a (hasty) attack on the seal after Mickey introduces them. The rift between keeping a wild animal as a pet and letting it roam the house grows, and Mickey reconsiders his plan.

Seeing that Pluto won’t enjoy the seal’s company, Mickey changes his mind about keeping it as a pet and decides to return the seal to the zoo. Pluto, now relieved and receptive to the idea, helps by bringing over Mickey’s basket. After they drop the seal back off, the young visitor proudly demonstrates to the other seals what it learned about bathtime from its time with Mickey and Pluto.

When they return home, Mickey and Pluto discover that the entire seal group has moved into their house, turning the bathroom and bathtub into a personal exhibit and the ironing board into a makeshift diving board. The seals splash around, and the young seal waves goodbye from the shower, signaling the end of a bustling, goofy adventure.