House of Mouse : Season 2 Episode 12
"Ladies Night"

Air Date February 23, 2002

Synopsis

Mickey and the boys take the evening off, leaving Minnie, Daisy and Clarabelle alone to run things their way.(Includes "Mortimer Mouse Song" performed by Clarabelle, Minnie & Daisy.)

Shorts Shown

Purple Pluto

Daisy Visits Minnie

Maestro Minnie : William Tell Overture

Comments

From Lee Suggs : It's Ladies Nite at the House of Mouse. The boys have gone bowling and the Ladies are in charge for the evening. This means the House Band is now Daisy's nieces, (Seen in Disney Comic Books, but never on film?) and that the audience is almost entirely feminine. (except for Mortimer and The Reluctant Dragon?) This female centered environment leads to some nice cameos like a shot of Casey's Daughters Baseball Team. In the spirit of the evening we're treated to an excellent Minnie Mouse cartoon:

As we return to the House of Mouse the ladies are staging a fashion show. Clarabelle looks simply bovine in her Jasmine style dress. (Jasmine herself points this out!) Mortimer likes Clarabelle's look. He dresses as Aladdin and offers to show Clarabelle "a whole new world." He is promptly flattened by the Ladies Nite's bouncer. (Who is none other than the Ballerina Hippo from "Fantasia".) Minnie shows off a Cinderella style dress that changes from blue to pink. (We see Cinderella's Fairy Godmother and the Fairies from "Sleeping Beauty" giggling in the audience.) After all this craziness Minnie decides to calm things down by showing another cartoon:

In keeping with the "new" Minnie of this week's shorts Ms. Mouse has Mortimer thrown out of the House of Mouse. Unfortunately Mortimer was the evening's musical act so the Ladies have to take his place. This leads to a musical number that is just O.K. as an audio recording (on the House of Mouse CD) but is great fun here. The girls dress up as The Dapper Dans and have a great time using song and sight gags to humiliate Mortimer. Continuing the musical theme Minnie introduces the last cartoon:

The episode ends as the boys reappear to congratulate the Ladies' success. We end with two hilarious bits- the "Chip n' Dale dancers and an ad for "Rent a Prince". (Live happily ever after or your money back. However, some Princes may be Toads.)

This was a great episode with the House of Mouse happening blending perfectly with the "MouseWorks" cartoons. It also made the House of Mouse females stronger characters. A good thing when you're raising a little girl on this stuff.

From Juan F. Lara : This HoM segment was more a collection of skits than a story. The only plot was about Mortimer's meddling during Ladies' Night. Unsurprisingly Minnie played the straightmouse to Daisy's and Clarabelle's zaniness, but those last two were still fun to watch. I wondered how did Mortimer get booked for a Ladies' Night routine in the first place. When Mortimer went to the guys at the bowling alley I thought they were going to barge back into the club and embarrass the ladies, which I dreaded seeing. Gladly that didn't happen. We didn't know until the end that Mortimer was listening to the girls' number about him. They should've showed him watching right when the number started. It would've then been cool to imagine his reaction all through the song.

The skits themselves were amusing. The fashion show had good punchlines about two of the Disney heroine outfits. The ladies came up with some cute digs on Mortimer for their song. But I really LOL'ed at the last act they booked. I've heard the Chip'n'Dale Dancers pun several times, but I sure never expected anyone to actually animate it. That one scene's worth saving, as well as the Rent-a-Prince ad that followed, which featured a great zinger.

From John : Loved the Mortimer Mouse song to bits, for once Mortimer got want I long dreamed was coming to him. This was the only scene or short with Mortimer in it that I enjoyed (Mickey's Rival excluded of course).