The Band Concert (1935)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Pretty Good

Please don't spend money on this.

Disney started producing the Silly Symphonies in the full 3-strip Technicolor in 1932, but the Mickey Mouse cartoons remained in black and white. This was because the Mickey Mouse cartoons were already so popular that Disney felt that the added cost was unnecessary. (I personally think some of the Black and White Shorts produced around this time could have benefited the use of Technicolor).Yet, in 1935 Disney decided to start producing the Mickey Mouse cartoons in Technicolor starting with The Band Concert. The use of color isn't particularly striking nor creative, but very bright. Granted, the studio was still perfecting its craft in all capacities. Mickey doesn't have any dialogue in this short, but its Donald that steals the show. Here Donald is more of a heckler and doesn't really showcase his short temper. The William Tell Overture segueing into Turkey In The Straw was a clever musical gag.This makes a milestone for Mickey Mouse. By the end of 1935, Disney stopped filming his cartoons in Black and White.

Brilliant color, wonderful animation, and tremendous characterization. Mickey is the leader of a kind of community band. Among the members are somewhat crude versions of very familiar Disney characters. Goofy, Donald, Horace Horsecollar, Clarabelle Cow and so on. Mickey is doing fine. The band is to play the "William Tell Overture." Donald Duck with his familiar sailor suit, but with a really long neck (sort of like a goose) has a flute and insists on playing "Turkey in the Straw." Mickey's rage get the better of him and he confronts the irritating duck, but has no success in squelching his awful sounds. Of course, the efforts lead to his conducting the orchestra with a sense of pandemonium. Also, when another piece called "The Storm" is to be played, an actual tornado appears and it's every animated character for himself. The result is pure joy along with an unforgettable visual memory of this piece (other than the Lone Ranger connection).

"The Band Concert" is a Disney cartoon which runs for 9 minutes (unusually long, mostly they are 7 minutes) from 80 years ago. Mickey conducts an orchestra, but he and the musicians have to face several obstacles on their way to a great performance. First, ice cream vendor Donald goes on everybody nerves, then a disruptive bee enters the picture and finally, in accordance with the piece they are playing, a massive storm erupts. I cannot say that I was too impressed by the comedy here. There were a couple mildly funny scenes, but the heart and soul of this film is definitely the music. The director here is Wilfred Jackson who worked on many Disney classics in the decades after this short movie here. Another interesting aspect is that this was done during the early days of Donald and Mickey in color. Mickey still has completely black eyes and Donald has an unproportionally big bead compared to his head. This was going to change in the years after that. All in all, an okay little movie, not bad, but not among Disney's best either.

In this, first color, Mickey Mouse short, he stars as a music conductor at a country fair. His band are playing, in the most average way, The William Tell overture. It gets worse though when Donald (playing a loudmouth ice-cream vendor) comes along and muscles in on the band with his flute, playing a bizarre alternate take on the music and causing the band to stray off course.Mickey gets mad (I like it when Mickey isn't always the clean-cut good guy) and tries his best to silence Donald. Once that's out the way a bee torments each and every band member, causing further collapse of Mickey's conducting. Once Mickey turns the page on his music script a rather difficult segment of music (called 'The Storm') is revealed. How appropriate, at that very moment a twister tears thru the countryside. The band are so lost in their performance that they don't even realize they're sucked up inside a tornado. It's the highlight of the cartoon, with some truly inventive animation and technically brilliant for it's day. Mickey doesn't actually say anything in this one but his facial expression do all the acting. Like I said, I like it when Mickey isn't always the opposite of Donald (IE not moody and easily frustrated) and this is their pairing here in this cartoon.