Topolino e il mago

Mickey is a master magician. He is utterly amazing. The problem is a heckler in the audience, Donald Duck. Mr. Duck is abusive and confrontational (really?). He begins to try to sabotage the act, but it only leads to greater and greater tricks where Donald becomes the victim. In true cartoon tradition, Donald will not let it go. It soon becomes a color extravaganza, with Goofy, the stage hand, getting his two cents worth in.

Usually, when Mickey Mouse is paired up with Donald Duck (or, more often than not, with Donald and Goofy), they separate and do their own routines, with Mickey getting the comedy short stick. Here, however, the two are constantly in contention, and the cartoon is all the better for it. Mickey is a magician whose act is constantly being interrupted by a certain web-footed heckler in the balcony. He soon makes Donald an unwilling assistant, using his skills of prestidigitation to humiliate him. He makes him spit out cards, turns him into a paper doll chain, and even makes a monkey out of him, literally. It's a pity they weren't used more as adversaries, since it brings out the best in them, pitting Mickey's resourcefulness and pluck against Donald's irascibility and mischievousness. Incidentally, Goofy is in this one also, mostly out of sight as a stage hand. Highly recommended.

I completely agree with anyone who says Magician Mickey is one of the better Mickey Mouse shorts, if not the best. It is funny, enormously entertaining, and even after multiple viewings you can never grow tired of it. I do think the pace is a tad too fast, but other than that, it is all a delight to watch. Pinto Colvig, Walt Disney and Clarence Nash voice Goofy, Mickey and Donald(who is absolutely hilarious here) to perfection. The Technicolour animation is very fine, and the music score is lively. The plot is brisk and simply told, about Mickey performing magic tricks, Donald starts interrupting the proceedings and Mickey decides to humiliate him. This is clear evidence why I love this lovable trio of Toons so much. 9/10 Bethany Cox

"Mickey" is doing his best to entertain an audience with his magical trickery but "Donald" is sitting in his front row box determined to expose him as a shyster! He continually attempts to disrupt the act - but each time he is bettered by the increasingly irritated entertainer who eventually resorts to filling "Donald" with decks of playing cards so as to stifle his constant haranguing. This is an enjoyable comedy that has a duelling nature to it. The comedy is end-to-end for eight minutes of combative fun that uses magic (well conjuring and illusionism, really) as a conduit for the action that leads to a suitably messy ending that wouldn't have looked out of place in the "Sorcerer's Apprentice". Good fun!

STORY- Same story structure formula used with the hilarious Boat Builders.

Beginning: Join 3 opposite characters in same adventure.

Progress: Let them build a moving sensitive action-packed construction.

Ending: Destroy the construction as a sum of all 3 heroes' faults.

SETTINGS - My favorite. Proscenium Arch.

HEROES - Mickey Mouse on the stage facing his fans and audience applausing him for his mind and hand tricks.

Goofy on the backstage working as a light technician reference to Nikola Tesla.

Donald Duck as a nasty prank-maker who confronts Mickey's tricks by his own brutal force pranks.

MOTIVE - Donald does not enjoy Mickey's magician tricks. So he jumps off to the stage mockering and making a fool out of Mickey. But Mickey has enough magician tools to cause Donald bigger troubles than he can ever imagine. Goofy in the meantime does not interfere with the duo, yet he cannot run the show focusing the light and effects on more than one host. By the final prank Donald does it to Mickey, Goofy totally fails to maintain the backstage and the entire theatre falls apart nail to nail.