Magician Mickey

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.

Donald Duck will live to regret the evening he decided to heckle the performance of MAGICIAN MICKEY.

This is a wonderful little film from Disney's Golden Age, full of excellent animation and truly hilarious legerdemain. The pyrotechnic prestidigitation at the conclusion, involving stagehand Goofy, makes a spectacular use of Technicolor. Walt Disney provides Mickey with his squeaky voice; Clarence Nash does the honors for Donald.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by pictures & 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 comic 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 childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.

In "Magician Mickey", the mouse is trying to put on a magic show and inexplicably, Donald does everything he can to be a nuisance and destroy the act. However, Mickey seems to have god-like powers and again and again, he uses them to thwart Donald....yet Donald keeps coming back for more!

Like all the Mickey and friends cartoons of the 1930s, this one is gorgeously animated and is head and shoulders better looking than the competition, such as MGM and Warner Brothers. Beautiful backgrounds, smooth animation AND no cutesy songs (a problem in many 30s cartoon shorts) make this well worth seeing....and it's among the better shorts by Disney. A delight.

This is a Disney cartoon that features three of its biggest stars: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy. Mickey is a stage magician, performing all sorts of tricks from cards to rabbits, while Goofy is his stagehand. Sitting in the box in the audience is Donald, heckling at Mickey for what he thinks are childish tricks until Mickey uses his magic on him.

This is a hilarious cartoon short from start to finish and it is funny to see all three characters interact, especially how Mickey tries to counterattack the heckling Donald, resulting in endless funny scenes from Donald spitting our cards to shrinking to a size smaller than an egg. Goofy is his usual goofy self, trying to work all the gadgets without getting entangled in the stage ropes. You'll probably be roaring with laughter in how it all ends.

It's a show full of magic and misadventures - comical, delightful and fun for the entire family!

Grade A

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