Mickey's Follies

'Mickey's Follies' sees cartoonland's favourite mouse putting on a show in true vaudeville style, but this time in the barnyard.

So a rooster and a hen dance apache, there is an operatic pig (and a subsequent hoist and underwear gag which would be repeated many times over the live of these shorts), before Mickey introduces his theme song Minnie's Yoo-Hoo. And anyone who has seen the short which presented this song for the Mickey Mouse Club will realise that whoever sang the song in 'Mickey's Follies', it certainly wasn't Walt Disney (who did croak it in the short for the Clubs!).

Minnie makes one of her brief appearances here and the short is not without charm. Mickey is still in early design mode as a circular character with rubber legs and arms, but his personality already shines through.

This is one of those collections of acts. The barnyard has become a showplace and Mickey is in charge. There are several acts involving the animals. None of them is spectacular. However, Mickey does a command performance in the second half. He sings, dances, and generally displays his talents. He also sings his theme song which we will hear off and on throughout history.

This is an average little musical, with a bunch of barnyard animals singing and playing on instruments.

There's really no plot to the cartoon, just plenty of songs and dances. The highlight of the cartoon is when Mickey sings the classic Disney song, Minnie's Yoo Hoo.

Grade C+

Regardless of whatever merits or demerits of this cartoon, it is in my opinion a must see for the début of Minnie's Yoo Hoo; Mickey Mouse's theme song! (As they clearly introduce it by in the film). I thought I might have seen this one before, but this morning was my first time seeing it. I was definitely confusing it with another one which is not so good. I agree with Bethany Cox's review - not the best or worst, but certainly worth seeing for the historical significance alone. To me the most remarkable part of this was Mickey's singing! It really surprised me because his voice is again so much different from what I'm used to, given that it's not Walt's voice! The animation also looks different from what I'm used to. Very interesting stuff!

Mickey's Follies (1929)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Once sound came into play all sorts of studios were releasing "follies" so that they could show off various acts in hopes of finding someone that would eventually become big. This take-off on that has Mickey Mouse hosting a show in his backyard where various farm animals put on acts. This all leads up to Mickey's big singing debut. There's no doubt that the animation here is extremely good and there's actually more plot than your typical Mickey short but at the same time this thing contains very few laughs. I think the biggest reason that there aren't any laughs is that the farm acts simply weren't very well-written and this here pretty much sunk the film. Mickey's sounding like what Betty Boop would eventually sound like so you might want to keep ear plugs handy.