The Jazz Fool

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.

Mickey's Big Road Show arrives with THE JAZZ FOOL himself as the star attraction.

This is an enjoyable early black & white film, with the plot driven entirely by the musical soundtrack, which features elements of ragtime & Dixieland jazz. Horace Horsecollar gets to showoff his solo instrumentalist talents. The animators threw in a heavy dose of their favorite posterior jokes - even Mickey's piano has its bare bottom smacked. The title is a salute to two recent Al Jolson film hits, THE JAZZ SINGER (1927) & THE SINGING FOOL (1928). Walt Disney performs Mickey's squeaky voice.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.

I assume that with this title, the Disney folks were parodying the title of the sound sensation "The Jazz Singer", though the film itself has nothing to do with this Jolson film. Instead, it mostly consists of Mickey entertaining the audience by playing the piano in a jazzy fashion. However, several times as he plays there are riffs that sound strongly inspired by George Gershwin. The music is all very pleasant but there just isn't much to the film. As a result of it having no plot and a lot of songs, it doesn't stand up as well as other early Mickey toons. Worth seeing for die-hard Mickey fans and film historians but pretty easy for others to skip.

Prior to the creation of the Hays Office (named for Will Hays, the first official censor, who left Washington just ahead of the posse, having been part of the Harding administration, the most corrupt administration pre-1968) and the installation of the Code in the early 1930s by these paragons of virtue, films were more free-wheeling and cartoons were no exception. The Mickey of this timeframe was closer to Dennis the Menace than the Mouse he came to be just a few years hence. In some ways, this Mickey was more interesting and more fun. Music was almost always large part of cartoons in general and in the early days of sound, was hugely important just as something of a novelty. Excellent score here and hilarious almost from first frame to last. Well worth tracking down. Most recommended.

This is not a bad little cartoon featuring Mickey and a host of other Disney characters, playing instruments, including a feisty piano, to some really catchy tunes. Not much of a story here, but a nice musical number that is sure to enchant the younger audience.

Grade B

The shorts in those times were more about showing some pictures on screen rather than telling a story. This one is very similar to Mickey mouse shorts of that period, i.e, it's just music and dancing. If it had amazingly great music or great choreography, I could have liked it. But it's nothing more than normal dancing, with added a naughty piano and some cows.