L'anniversaire de Mickey

This short is aptly titled: it is a birthday party for Mickey. Disney released much more interesting and engaging shorts than this, but it is quite a collection of the majority of significant characters in Disney shorts and is at least worth seeing on that score. The animation, as is typical, is excellent. Worth seeing at least once.

This is a cool cartoon short from Walt Disney, rich in animation and featuring some of the best drawings of the characters, including that of Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy.

Minnie surprises Mickey with a get-together of his favorite friends on his birthday at her house. There are plenty of fun moments including Minnie playing on the organ (Mickey's new birthday gift), Donald doing a Spanish dance, and Donald doing the salsa with Clara Cluck (which was more he could handle at the end!).

Another funny moment is when Goofy attempts multiple times to bake a cake, only to fumble it each time. So, he resorted to buying one from a bakery, only to accidentally tossing it at Mickey.

This is one great party. Awesome seeing so many characters together: Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Clara Cluck and Carabelle Cow - all having fun celebrating the Mouse's birthday and doing the conga!

Grade A

This short was released in conjunction with the 25th anniversary of Mickey Mouse. The film kind of plays like your grandparent's home movies. There aren't many comic situations, just a lot of the classic Disney characters clowning around in front of the camera. There really isn't any story. The animation is classic Disney but only Goofy's attempts at making a birthday cake results in any comedy.

Feeling a bit low that no one has really done anything for his birthday, Mickey is overjoyed to find that Donald, Minnie and a group of other friends have set a surprise party for him at his house! Now, all it needs is for Goofy to finish that cake.

Although I'm not a fan of this period of Disney I did enjoy this short. Usually when I see the wholesome comedy of Disney I begin to yearn for the slightly cleverer WB cartoons of Bugs et al. However this film does what it does well and didn't make me wish it were anything else.

The central scene of the short is the party, where Mickey and guests dance with Minnie continually breaking away to check Goofy's progress with the cake. Each time she checks him, he has just managed to destroy his most recent effort. While it isn't exactly cutting edge humour (even then) it has energy to it that makes it seem funnier. The ongoing dance feeds into Goofy's movements in the kitchen and makes it all feel joined up.

Overall this isn't the height of comedy and isn't consistently laugh out loud funny. However it has rhythm and is fun to watch and well worth a 5 minute slot of your time.

Not one of my favourites, but a nice cartoon all the same. The story is rather routine, though crisply paced and never less than entertaining, and Mickey though as likable as ever even for a character that has his name in the title plays second fiddle in terms of laughs to Goofy and Donald. Goofy and Donald are just great though, Goofy's hopeless attempts to bake a cake and his idea at the end represented by a light bulb that he reaches up to touch are the highlights of the cartoon and Donald's dancing was great to see, amusing and interesting. Another good scene was the Conga Train, which does make you want to go to the Rio Festival. The animation is bright and colourful, and the music from the whimsical orchestration to the rhythmic South American dance music(even a little bit of atonality on the organ) is typically wonderful. I also appreciated seeing the likes of Clara, Horace and Clarabelle, all three fun in their own way and makes one wish they were in more cartoons. All in all, a fun if not completely exceptional cartoon. 8/10 Bethany Cox