Mickey Mouse Reviews

50. Mickey Mouse

Posted : 1 year, 8 months ago on 4 August 2022 07:08

Movie(s): Fantasia (1940), Fantasia 2000 (1999)

First Apperance: Steamboat Willie (1928)

Voiced by: Walt Disney, Jimmy MacDonald, Wayne Allwine

The most famous cartoon of all time, all the way down here? Why yes, because Mickey Mouse has never been a big character in feature-length animation, and his best performance was in a tiny segment of classical music oddity Fantasia. Here, he's the over-enthusiastic but under-disciplined assistant to a sorcerer, who tries to take a short-cut when his master is out of town and ends up with hundreds of magical mops flooding his home - and he's wonderful at it. The moral of the story is that it's best to take pride in your work and do it properly, and also that you should just never clean house because it'll only lead to trouble.

Stroke of genius

The hangdog (hangmouse?) expression on Mickey's face when his master comes back and discovers the flooded castle, full of enchanted mops.

Fun fact

The raised eyebrow and disapproving stare with which the sorcerer greets the havoc his apprentice has caused was referred to as the "Dirty Disney stare" by the animators on Fantasia and modelled on Walt himself.

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