Mickey's Piano Lesson

A Mickey Mouse Cartoon

Release Date : September 18, 1999

Synopsis

When Minnie signs herself and Mickey up to perform in a piano recital, Mickey decides the music is too easy for him to practice. But when he begins the performance, he realizes that without practice things never go as planned.

Characters

Mickey Mouse

Minnie Mouse

Pluto

Credits

Television

Mickey Mouse Works: Season 2 - Episode 2

House of Mouse: Season 3 - Episode 25

Technical Specification

Comments

From Patrick Malone : Another disappointment, and another short where the animators didn't seem to know what to do with their material. This could have been another great one; they set us up for another situation like Symphony Hour but then fail to really deliver on what they've set us up for. How many times have we seen someone's fingers getting tied together? And the music at the end came together perfectly; wasn't the whole point of the short that Mickey hadn't practiced properly? We should have seen more of a Spike Jones thing at the ending, or at least some sort of musical jokes to accompany the rather abbreviated action at the end. I left the short scratching my head and thinking, "what was the point?"

From J. D. Weil : This is another short with opportunities missed. It starts out like Mickey's Airplane Kit, that is, Mickey ignores the instructions (in this case, from Minnie, and spends the day goofing off, so by the time of the piano recital, it's an absolute disaster. The problem is that the rectital should have been the high comic point in this short, with a kind of Spike Jones (does anyone in this present generation remember Spike Jones?) treatment or even a kind of piano duet/duel as occured in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" but it just never came off. Too bad.

From Juan F. Lara : And this short parallelled Mickey's Mistake. The short started with Mickey walking down the street with a beat similar to his beat in "Mistake". Both shorts were about Mickey making an irresponsible decision. And this short had Minnie read off a list of concert attendees that was just as long and absurd as her list of things she had to do with her lost money in "Mistake". As a result I thought this short had the same preachy tone that turned me off to "Mistake".

Midway, the short had a dream sequence of Mickey vs. some anthropomorphized musical notes. But I found this sequence uninspired, and dropped into the short just to eat up time. This sequence was forgotten immediately after it ended. What followed was an unfunny scene of the actual concert that took up just as much time.

From Lee Suggs : This is a fun short, and it is only disappointing in that it's ending could have been so much better. Minnie asks Mickey to play a piano duet. He agrees and then does everthing else but practice. ("Cuz I'm Mickey Mouse, I don't need to practice!") This, of course leads to his last ditch effort to learn the piece. (When he realizes Minnie has invited the Czar of Upper Monogolia!) Mickey exhausts himself and falls asleep; dreaming that he is fighting a pitched battle with the musical notes for the duet. Finally he shows up late for the recital, and proceeds to entertain the audience by making a mess of the whole performance. As I said I liked everything about this short until the end. The whole ridulous performance and destruction of the piano seemed very contrived. It was almost like the animators ran out of ideas, and had to end the short fast. Still Mickey and Minnie are featured, so I shouldn't complain too much.

From Roy "AniDisTin" Lam : Stop being so critical,you lot! Good grief! You make Simon Cowell seem like a saint! OK, it may have been a tad disappointing. There may have been missed opportunities, as has been rightly pointed out. But overall, it was a good short worth re-watching, especially for the dream sequence. Also, Mickey's piano-playing was pretty fun to watch. I'm sure the audience attending the concert found it all the more entertaining with all his screw-ups, especially when the piano got destroyed!

From Grace : I understand that this short is not funny, but this does teach us a great lesson about time management. We learn about Mickey's weakness and that is keeping track in time. This is a great example of what happens if you get a difficult piece of music and if you don't practice it until the concert and you screw it up. Great lesson for musicians and students who hates homework, even though this is about music.

From Moonlight : I found it quite entertaining. Especially when Mickey syas, "easy as pie piano piece. hmmmm... pie" was really funny. By the way, does anyone know the title of the piece he and Minnie played? It was really nice.