The Opry House (I) (1929)

Mickey Mouse runs a cheap opera house and performs on stage as a snake charmer, a belly dancer and a long-haired pianist.

Director:

Ub Iwerks

Storyline

Mickey runs a small theatre. The orchestra plays, rather badly, excerpts from Carmen. Mickey appears as a snake charmer, but the snake is revealed to be a cat with a snake's head painted on its tail. Mickey does a belly dance, to the audience's delight. Mickey then plays the piano, but the piano and stool, apparently annoyed at the violence and complexity of the piece, kick him off stage.

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Plot Keywords:

snake charmer | piano | orchestra | belly dancer | mouse | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Family | Animation | Short | Music

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

28 March 1929 (USA)

Also Known As:

Musse Pigg vid varietén

Box Office

Budget:

$6,017 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Walt Disney Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

6 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Powers Cinephone Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This is the first cartoon in which Mickey Mouse wears his famous gloves. He doesn't have them at the beginning, but by the end they are shown.

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Connections

Edited into The Mickey Mouse Anniversary Show (1968)

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Soundtracks

"Habanera"

User Reviews

More Music From The Little Mouse

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.

Although rundown and practically decrepit, you can still expect an evening of lively entertainment at Mickey's OPRY HOUSE.

This is an energetic little film, without dialogue, the very minimal plot being driven by the visuals & soundtrack (music mavens will recognize "Yankee Doodle," "Pony Boy" and snatches from Bizet's Carmen). Although a poster on the building's exterior promises Minnie as part of the Yankee Doodle Girls, she never appears. Instead, the belly dancer doing the vigorous hootchy-kootch turns out to be Mickey, who ends his performance with an unfortunate Jewish caricature. Mickey then closes the film with a forceful impersonation of Polish pianist Ignace Jan Paderewski.

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