The Flying Mouse
| The Flying Mouse | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | David Hand |
| Produced by | Walt Disney |
| Starring | Marcellite Garner Marion Darlington Billy Sheets The Three Rhythm Kings |
| Music by | Frank Churchill Bert Lewis |
| Animation by | Hamilton Luske Bob Kuwahara Harry Bailey Bob Wickersham |
| Backgrounds by | Carlos Manríquez |
| Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | United Artists Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 9 min |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Flying Mouse is a Silly Symphonies animated short film produced by Walt Disney, directed by David Hand, and released to theatres by United Artists on July 14, 1934.[1] The use of color here was rather innovative as it is set during the course of a single day.
Plot
To the song "I Would Like to Be a Bird", a young mouse fashions wings from a pair of leaves, to the great amusement of his brothers. When his attempts to use them fail, the mouse got blown backwards from the wind and his rear end crashes into a thorn on the tree. The boy mouse falls down into the tub just as his mother finishes putting on a dress for his sister and gets them both drenched. While feeling embarrassed, he shrinks his sister's dress and attempts to run away but gets spanked and angrily released by his mother. The boy mouse cries and walks away, but when a butterfly calls for help, he rescues it from a hungry spider. When the butterfly proves to be a beautiful blue fairy, the mouse wishes for wings and begins flying around. But his bat-like appearance doesn't fit in with either the birds or the other mice, and he finds himself friendless; even the bats make fun of him, making a point that "You're Nothing But a Nothing". Then the beautiful blue fairy reappears and removes the mouse's wings, telling him: "Be yourself and life will smile upon you". The boy mouse runs all the way home where he is happily reunited with his mother and three mouse brothers who dance around him.
Production
The Flying Mouse boy and his mother make an appearance as spectators in the Mickey Mouse cartoon Mickey's Polo Team (1936).
Voice cast
- Bat: Billy Sheets
- Male voices: The Three Rhythm Kings
- Bird whistles: Marion Darlington
- Laughing mice: Marcellite Garner[1]
Home media
The short was released on December 4, 2001, on Walt Disney Treasures: Silly Symphonies - The Historic Musical Animated Classics.[2][1] Prior to that, the featurette also appeared on the Walt Disney Cartoon Classics Limited Gold Edition: Silly Symphonies VHS in the 1980s.
It was also released as a bonus feature, alongside fellow Silly Symphony short Elmer Elephant, on DVD and Blu-ray releases of Dumbo.[3][4]
References
- ^ a b c Merritt, Russell; Kaufman, J. B. (2016). Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies: A Companion to the Classic Cartoon Series (2nd ed.). Glendale, CA: Disney Editions. pp. 146–147. ISBN 978-1-4847-5132-9.
- ^ "Silly Symphonies: The Historic Musical Animated Classics DVD Review". DVD Dizzy. Retrieved February 20, 2021.
- ^ Ben, Simon (July 13, 2003). "Dumbo: 60th Anniversary Edition". Animated Views. Archived from the original on May 8, 2011. Retrieved May 11, 2011.
- ^ Wharton, David (April 4, 2011). "Disney Opens The Vault And Brings Dumbo To Blu-Ray". Cinema Blend. Archived from the original on May 2, 2011. Retrieved May 5, 2011.
External links
- The Flying Mouse at IMDb
- The Flying Mouse at the Encyclopedia of Disney Animated Shorts