“Mickey’s Amateurs”

Obviously, the vast majority of entertainers throughout history have been amateur. Technically, we’re amateurs here, for the most part; the Patreon money for the site keeps the site running and isn’t enough to do much more than that, and few of us make much on our personal Patreons. We’re also, many of us, amateurs in other fields. Most singers and writers and storytellers throughout history have been. It’s only as there was enough distribution to start mass media that people really much worried about the distinction between the two, and as soon as we did, it seems, we started amateur talent productions.

We’re starting with no warning here; barely has the title card faded before we get Pete (Pinto Colvig, this time!) bellowing “Asleep in the Deep” in a low roar. He is gonged offstage and replaced with Donald, who can’t remember “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” Clarabelle and Clara perform “Il Bacio,” with Clarabelle on piano and Clara singing. They are not gonged, even though there are issues. Donald makes his way back; when he once again fails to remember the lines, he actually opens fire on the audience with a Tommy gun. He’s hauled off, not by the police, and Goofy comes on with a one-man band.

There was apparently a review of this from 1937 that said “the fun it offers defies description.” Personally, I am able to describe it quite well, with a word borrowed from a different animated IP, albeit one now owned by Disney—meh. There’s not a ton to grab onto, here. Alarm, certainly, and Donald’s firing approximately all the bullets at Mickey and the audience. I don’t know what kind of bullets they are, though, because they don’t even hurt the floor when he fires point-blank, so that’s a thing.

We do get a little light fourth wall-breaking at the end, when Donald sticks his head through the iris to finish finally reciting “Twinkle Twinkle.” It’s probably the most innovative part of the short, which other than that is a series of tropes, not even really gags, most of which have appeared other places. It doesn’t have any of the visual experimentation you’d sometimes get with Disney, who after all were ramping up for the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs later that year. I cannot say there’s much reason to watch it at all.

I do remember having done so as a child, of course, in those long-ago days when The Disney Channel played a lot of stuff out of the vault. I don’t remember what I thought about it then, and since my kids are back in school, I didn’t really run this by them. It’s another example of Donald Duck, Aquatic Sociopath, though. Obviously everyone thought those bullets would hurt; why else would the whole audience hide from them?