Jetée

Here is one of Mickey Mouse's Silly Symphonies features, one that I especially like because it is uncharacteristically shorter than any of the others, it is still early into Mickey's conception (within a year of his debut) and it features yet another plotline centric to classical music-playing. It's also quite hilarious. I think roachboy posted a Mickey short in his blog a while back, so I thought, it's about due time that at least one of Disney's featurettes would be included here.

The Opry House (1929) (abridged)
Directed by Walt Disney
Music composed by Carl Stalling
Released on March 28, 1929
Distributed by Walt Disney Productions

{The full short can be found here: YouTube - Mickey Mouse - The Opry House (1929) }

This is a short clip from an early b&w Mickey Mouse cartoon called "The Opry House". It shows the first time in an animated film where the "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C-sharp minor" is used. This tune would become famous in animation history due to later cartoons such as "Rhapsody in Rivets", "The Cat Concerto" and "Rhapsody Rabbit". And if you watch closely, you'll see that "Rhapsody Rabbit" borrowed heavily upon this performance by Mickey, as they use the same general situation and have a number of similar gags.

Mickey runs a small theatre. The orchestra plays, rather badly, excerpts from Carmen. Mickey appears as a snake charmer, but the snake is revealed to be a cat with a snake's head painted on its tail. Mickey does a belly dance, to the audience's delight. Mickey then plays the piano, but the piano and stool, apparently annoyed at the violence and complexity of the piece, kick him off stage.

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As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world (that is the myth of the Atomic Age) as in being able to remake ourselves.

—Mohandas K. Gandhi