The Flying Mouse

A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.

An adventurous little mouse daydreams of being able to fly like a bird. After saving a fairy from a nasty spider, he is given his wish. Soon, however, THE FLYING MOUSE discovers that sometimes dreams can become nightmares.

This is considered to be a significant cartoon for the Disney Studios, in that it marked a big step forward in creating a real personality for an animated character.

The SILLY SYMPHONIES, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most interesting of series in the field of animation. Unlike the Mickey Mouse cartoons in which action was paramount, with the Symphonies the action was made to fit the music. There was little plot in the early Symphonies, which featured lively inanimate objects and anthropomorphic plants & animals, all moving frantically to the soundtrack. Gradually, however, the Symphonies became the school where Walt's animators learned to work with color and began to experiment with plot, characterization & photographic special effects. The pages of Fable & Fairy Tale, Myth & Mother Goose were all mined to provide story lines and even Hollywood's musicals & celebrities were effectively spoofed. It was from this rich soil that Disney's feature-length animation was to spring. In 1939, with SNOW WHITE successfully behind him and PINOCCHIO & FANTASIA on the near horizon, Walt phased out the SILLY SYMPHONIES; they had run their course & served their purpose.

A nice animation about a little mouse seduced by the fly, looking to be like birds, using the simple tools for its dream becoming reality and learning about the need to be himself. The fairy is the good and bad piece in this piece, seeming one of characters for other type of Disney movies but representing decent drop of magic. Short, just nice.

What a great cartoon! When the mouse returns to his normal self at the end and runs for home crying out "Mom!" I think I cry just about every time. The music fits in perfectly too. His mother embraces him, his brothers dance around them, happy that he has returned, and all is well. Mushy? Maybe, but I love it anyway!

A little mouse wishes to fly and tries to make wings out of leaves. When he rescues a butterfly/fairy from a spider she grants him a wish. He wants wings. His wish comes true but he discovers that birds reject him, his family are afraid of him, and REAL bats taunt him. He begs with the fairy to go back to being an ordinary mouse.

It's a thoroughly average Disney cartoon with an obvious moral (always be yourself!). The animation is okay, but the characters featured are not memorable at all. It's strange that they chose to create another, generic, mouse character when they already had the much more popular Mickey to sell to audiences. It would have been a bit better if they did.

This is not my favourite of the Silly Symphonies, not like Flowers and Trees, The Old Mill, Skeleton Dance, Moving Day and The Ugly Duckling, but The Flying Mouse is a lovely little cartoon in every way.

The animation is beautiful, with crisp backgrounds, pretty colours and well-drawn and cute-looking characters. The music fits perfectly as well, it is very pleasant to the ears especially the tune "I would like to be a bird" and the story is simple but very sweet with the idea that even dreams can turn into nightmares(which for me from experience is true).

Not only that, there is enough humour, poignancy and cuteness to satisfy even the fussiest child or adult, so much of these components are in abundance in such a short running time, and that is why I love The Flying Mouse as much as I do. Then there is the title character, who is very endearing and cute in his personality and you do sympathise with him and his predicament. The ending is very poignant and makes me cry every time I see it.

Overall, lovely, cute and endearing, recommended. 10/10 Bethany Cox