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24 reviews in total

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7 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
They Try SO Hard..., 22 April 2003
Author: bbethel66 from Buffalo, NY

This comes VERY close to capturing the spirit of the classic Disney cartoons. But the fact is, these cartoons could never be as or more brilliant than the original cartoons that were under Walt Disney's supervision.

The House of Mouse is actually a retooled version of Mickey Mouse Works, but I think House of Mouse is better. This is partially because this show attempts to make a collage of every Disney animated character ever made. Incidentally, many cartoon characters from Disney movies (old and new), Silly Symphonies, etc. make cameo appearances in each episode. It's kinda cool seeing this in a way that one would say, "The gang's all here!"

All that is basically what makes this show so wonderful, because House of Mouse resurrects numerous concepts that had been abandoned as far back as the 1930's and 1940's. Aside from bringing back some old-time stars (like Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow), they've even gone thru the trouble of showing some of the classic cartoons on some occasions (whether they're fully shown or just clips), depending on the theme of each episode. This also proves that unlike those stupid movie sequels we've been seeing lately (curious as to why a bunch are being produced each year), Disney still shows SOME respect and recognition for its vintage animation.

Another thing I like about House of Mouse are the actual cartoons. This would be the first time in decades the regular Disney characters (Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, etc.) would be featured in the format of their former glory. This compensates for some of those lame contemporary versions of some of the classic characters we've seen during the 1990's (like Goof Troop and Quack Pack). Appropriately, the regular cast are the hosts of House of Mouse, while those that have appeared in movies, Silly Symphonies, etc. are the guests.

As for the debate on Disney versus WB: I love the original Looney Tunes (even though they've had their own problems with contemporary meddling of their identity in such concepts as Baby Looney Tunes (blech!)). But it's WRONG, WRONG, WRONG to choose between Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse. Each are in their own class of greatness.

Disney (and the animation medium for that matter) would NOT exist as it does today had it not been for Walt Disney's innovative improvements on synchronized sound and technicolor, or the introduction of Mickey Mouse. Warner Bros. wouldn't have gotten as far as it did today without its innovative approaches on cartoon comedy, or the introduction of Bugs Bunny.

Overall, House of Mouse is a great show, although the cartoons can never match the brilliance of the classics. If anything, most of the timing in each cartoon is off. But they mean well, since they brought back a lot of old age concepts that had been long forgotten by the Disney animation dept.

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7 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Weird. VERY weird. Not bad, mind you, just... weird., 3 September 2002
Author: Craig Carrington from San Francisco, CA

This will sound unrelated when I first mention this, but there's a reason why I briefly provide this fact: before I ever saw this cartoon, I had slipped in a bathtub and banged my forehead against its rim.

I was alright, but I would spend the next couple of days or so lying groggily on a couch with the TV on with an ice pack on my head. During the first day of doing so, Toon Disney just happened to be showing a 9-hour marathon of a cartoon I have never seen before called "House of Mouse". Since nothing else was on and I couldn't move, I watched it.

For the first couple of hours or so, I couldn't help thinking, "Is this a hallucination brought on by my accident or am I *really* watching this?" Hence the reason I mention my injury.

I got that thought wandering through my mind simply because the show seemed so... strange. Not bad, mind you, it was certainly fun to watch. Just... strange.

It basically strikes me as being a sort of combination of Mouse Works and "Cartoon Planet" from the Cartoon Network during the mid-'90s. Its cartoons, more often than not, are brand new ones with surprisingly fresh gag ideas and genuinely funny moments. But for some odd reason, the whole thing still left me hollow.

Part of that reason, I think, is because the show is advertised as "so many Disney cartoon stars in one place!", yet that concept only turns out to be fancy window-dressing for what is otherwise an essentially yet-another-run-of-the-mill cartoon anthology, although the cartoons it features are done very well. The idea is not explored anywhere near as much as it could have been, which is a genuine shame.

Also, this cartoon has one speed: fast-forward. It whizzes by to such a degree that a lot of the images simply do not "read" (for those of you who aren't familiar with the term, we in the animation industry use the word to refer to how easily the human eye can register what's being shown on the screen) too terribly well. It's not as bad a problem as it was in the atrocious "Cool World" (a film still guaranteed to give first-time viewers a massive headache and nausea from mental overload--and no, I don't mean that jokingly, I'm being serious), but it's still a bit much.

Even so, the show is better than many of the cartoons currently being offered elsewhere. It's a disappointment that its main idea isn't explored more thoroughly, though--I personally think that they should dive into the other characters' interacting and all much more thoroughly and effectively and not focus so much on the actual cartoon shorts, otherwise everything else comes across as gimmicky filler. Also, some new cartoon shorts starring the actual characters *in* the audience as opposed to merely Mickey, Donald, Goofy, etc. would be a refreshing change of pace and much more entertaining.

As it currently is, "House of Mouse" is sort of like eating a large cheap sweet roll when you aren't able at that moment to enjoy a full breakfast--it isn't particularly tasty, isn't particularly healthy or satisfying, but it just sort of temporarily fills you up a bit for the time being until you get to eat the real thing.

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5 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Awesome!, 5 August 2003
Author: m0rpher

I love this show! It's great. I bet that those people that do voices for Disney characters are happy about it too. Almost every main Disney character I can think of appears (or has appeared) sometime in this show.

The jokes are pretty funny, and the cartoons they play within the show itself are great too. The animation is neat, and so are the stories.

I recommend this show to any Disney fan. :)

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3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Terrific New Show!!!!!, 10 February 2001
Author: signs933 from Hubertus, Wisconsin

The previous reviewer appears not to have seen the show, and based their opinion on descriptions of the show. There are many new shorts, and the House of Mouse scenes are very funny and smart. When I first heard about this new incarnation of "Mouseworks" I was concerned it would just be a commercial for Disney movies on videos, but the writers and animators have really made the premise work!

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Very original concept, that comes so close to capturing the spirit of the original cartoons, and almost succeeds, 29 December 2009

Author: TheLittleSongbird from United Kingdom

This show is in general terrific, I like it very much. What I loved most about the show was its concept, resurrecting all those Disney gems and expanding on those that never made it to film it was very original. House of Mouse comes very VERY close to capturing the spirit of the original cartoons and almost succeeds. But as another reviewer says, it doesn't quite, as the cartoons done under Disney's supervision are truly brilliant and cannot possibly be surpassed. That aside, the animation is absolutely great, the theme tune is catchy, the humour is funny and memorable and the story lines are fresh. Mickey(marvellously voiced by Wayne Allwine) is the most ideal character for the role of the host, and is joined by his friends Donald, Goofy and Minnie. Of course they could have expanded more on its show's concept, I would have loved to have seen more on the guests. I loved the guest appearances from the likes of Pete, Snow White, Ariel, Jafar, Jiminy Cricket, Lumiere, Captain Hook, Timon, Cinderella, Piglet and Cruella DeVil. But what made the show was the cartoons themselves, they showed my old favourites and ones I'd never seen prior to watching this show. All in all, great show. 9/10 Bethany Cox

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Original Disney characters last stand, 29 August 2009

Author: Boricanator from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Back in the early 2000s, I was already leaving childhood and entering the teenage years. Already you could see Disney's deterioration with the lack of original Disney cartoons been shown or new series and movies with the characters appearing. Then with Lizzie McGuire coming along, I thought Disney was doomed for sure.

This show was a really nice surprise. Even though it integrated modern aspects of society like cellphones and the internet, it stayed true to the original Disney spirit. All the characters(Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Minnie, Daisy...etc.) acted as they always had, so it felt as if you were continuing their stories from over 50-60 years ago. This show even presented some of the old shorts and integrated them as part of the past of the characters.

In addition to the old shorts, they made new shorts in the show that, although modern, stayed true to the innocent, fun and sometime educational old school Disney. We had episodes like Goofy going through 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s fashion with a narrator explaining everything much like the original Goofy cartoons talking about how to dance. We saw Donald Duck again having issues with his nephews and pretty much everything in life. Pete's story of trying to shut down the club was very in character with his general sleazy nature from the old cartoons and Goof Troop.

Lastly, this show ingeniously integrated all the other characters of previous movies and series from Snow White all the way to The Emperor's New Groove.

It saddens me to write this, because this shows success in making such an accurately canon Disney show with all the original characters, it basically makes it the last stand for the original Disney characters.

I saw one episode of the "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse". I saw enough. The magic is totally gone. These are not the same characters we've known for the past 60 years. The stories are gone. The magic is gone.

Farewell, guys. You've had a good run. I guess good things must come to an end.

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
So Many Disney Characters All Gathered Under One Roof!, 23 May 2009

Author: Dawalk-1 from Hialeah, Florida

First of all, this is one of my all-time favorite Disney animated shows. Although my only quip is that I kind of wish that the Mickey Mouse Works shorts and the featurettes from the '30s, '40s and '50s would've been dropped as intervals for what took place during the club scenes/segments, and that the latter were the bigger focus, and emphasized more. Since that's mainly what many people prefer to see a lot more for the aforementioned apparent reasons and some of us could care less about that. But I think the series is a lot better than the direct-to-video/DVD movies. Anyway, this isn't the first time various Disney characters have been shown together, from not only the shorts, but the full-length features. That title would go to 1938's Mickey's Polo Team. But this cartoon marks the first time this many characters have been assembled in this convention by that point a few years ago. Who knows when and if we'll ever see anything like this again in the future. But should another project that involves the crossover of this many Disney characters ever be made, I hope it'll be better and they get more screen time with nothing to interfere with that and them the next time around. But the show's most defining (and I think best) as well as signature, and probably most memorable moment/highlight is the part in the episode "Ask Von Drake", in which the professor duck performs a song naming the clientele there whom we've gotten to know over the decades. I wish that Disney didn't come up with and stick to that 65 episode rule, and that this one lasted longer. I too believe it had potential and limitless possibilities, if given the opportunity to grow more, so much more could've been done I agree, not all Disney shows even made it that far to 65 and this is one of them.

What else I love about it: The theme song "Rockin' At The House Of Mouse", which is performed by rockabilly singer/swing revivalist Brian Setzer is great and among my favorites. I've seen all the episodes except "Clarabelle's Christmas List", "Pete's Christmas Caper" and "Mickey And The Culture Clash". Though there are a few flaws, notably with some certain Mickey Mouse Works shorts, but I don't think that there are too many of those within them. As for the plots of what happened in the club, I'll save my critiques for individual episodes which are what would take for me to cover them. The concept of the show may be somewhat odd, I guess I agree to a certain extent, but it's still great for playing the game of "spot and point out the Disney characters". For the previous reviewers who aren't feeling this show and wrote that Looney Tunes are better, I'm partial to both and it's cool if y'all prefer one over the other more, but don't hate on Disney just because it isn't quite as wacky as the Warners/Looney Tunes stuff. Disney had wacky moments, albeit to lesser degree, on rare occasions. But the great thing about both of them is that they have there own unique qualities of what they're typically known for and that's just fine. So I don't mind nor do I see what's wrong with not being as wacky. On another quip, I wish more characters from various t.v. series made appearances and were included. I'm guessing or speculating here, but while some with then original characters who hadn't already been established yet could've appeared (e.g. the Gummi Bears cast), others that had established characters mixed with those who came along later (e.g. the Chip 'N' Dale Rescue Rangers cast), perhaps just would've been somewhat too difficult, complicated and confusing, considering the continuity or should I say alternate universes involving the previously established featurette/full-length feature characters. Or the writers simply wanted to focus almost exclusively on characters from the films. That's only my hypothesis.

Despite some of the flaws of effort that had been put into this series, I say that it's still worth checking out and shouldn't be passed. As it provides great entertainment with the jokes of characters making references to their renowned quotes, catch phrases and such for example. Master of ceremonies Mickey and doorman Donald make a great team as co-owners of the hotspot. Maitre d' Minnie makes sure things are going in tip-top form. Head waiter Goofy is at times clumsy as ever with the food deliveries. As for the others' responsibilities at the club, I'll just let y'all check it out and find out for yourselves, if y'all can. One more thing: No one ever seems to have mentioned this but me elsewhere, but it's apparent that the main reason why this show was created was to commemorate and nearly coincide with the 100th anniversary of Walt Disney's birth. And I think this was a great and the perfect way to honor him.

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2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Great Show, Make Another Spin-Off, 16 May 2004
Author: RSMskatr from California

"House of Mouse" was a good show. I really thought it was cool how they made new Mickey Mouse cartoons, and showed classic ones. I loved the Disneyland tie-ins (Pirates of the Caribbean, Autopia, etc.). Anyways, it's time they bring back a new Mickey Mouse show. There were some problems with it, though. The theme as a dinner theater that shows cartoons is a bit odd. The writers of the show obviously weren't very original, as they named the city "Main Street," which is obviously a rip off of Disney parks. But, all-in-all, it was a pretty good show. It revived Mickey. Kids today probably have never seen any older Mickey cartoons, so they don't really "know" Mickey Mouse. This show created a new generation of Disney fans.

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2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
I Love This Show!!, 28 November 2001
Author: (robocoptng986127@aol.com) from U.S.A

I never miss the show! Well honestly, I have missed some episodes, but I watch it whenever I get the chance! It's very entertaining. It was a creative idea getting all the Disney characters together. Mortimer Mouse can be quite annoying! My favorite character is Donald Duck; this show basically is a follow-up of "Mickey Mouseworks". Also a great show. The cartoons are just classic! They all make the very easy seem difficult.

Whether Donald tries to set up a lawn chair and it has other ideas; Mickey buys a new car but it has a mind of it's own; Goofy being an antagonizing waiter; anything. It's original. It's funny too!

You gotta catch this show! I recommend it!

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3 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Great show!, 19 August 2003
Author: DanMat6288 from The cartoon world of USA

I think it's a very funny show bringing back all the classic characters, making them the crew of a lively nightclub, and making all the memorable new Disney stars the audience.

Mickey hosts the show, Minnie keeps everything backstage running smoothly, Pluto... I forget his job... Donald is the greeter, Daisy seats people, Goofy is headwaiter, Gus is the chef, Max (one of the newer characters, but still...) parks cars, Clarabell works with "word on the street", and Horace runs the cartoons.

Before the "House of Mouse", I never heard of characters like Clarabell and Horace. And when I heard that they were around before (though the other comments posted here) I was quite surprised. And I agree that it was great of Disney Studios to bring them back.

And, of course, let's not forget the new member of the Disney family, the spunky, enthusiastic talking microphone, Mike! Something I really wish is that they'd give this guy his own big break.

I love hearing lines like "Hit it, Horace!" and find it hilarious when Horace pulls out a sludge hammer or a boxing glove extender thing to, literally, well, HIT IT!

The things I don't like about the show aren't the crew's fault. Those characters I don't like are just who they are to make the show interesting. I don't like Mortimer Mouse at all. He's a jerk and a snobbish pig! And, Pete, lay off trying to shut down the House of Mouse! Though, I do wish PJ would make an appearance some time.

Well, over all, I give this show 2 ears up! (Pardon the quote from the episode "The Mouse who came to Dinner")

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