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Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Short Subject: Magician Mickey (1937)



Mickey performs a magic show.


Okay an animated magician is totally cheating considering the whole point of a magic show is to trick the audience’s eye into thinking something impossible and amazing happened when of curse it’s just sleight of hand.  In animation you can do anything you want so of course all of Mickey’s tricks that no one could ever pull off in real life.

The short does manage to negate my cynicism a little bit though by having Donald heckling Mickey all throughout the show, and as a consequence all the magic becomes directed at him.  Leading to some funny gags like him spitting out cards every time he throws a tantrum, and Mickey shrinking him down and shooting him into an egg.  I also really like the fireworks effects of the magic gun when it was shot    

This isn’t a bad short by any means, but for me it was a little less engaging than others simply because of the subject matter.  I like magic shows, because they bring the unreal into our world if only for a moment.  Seeing an animated character that is already unreal performing a ‘magic’ show for an animated audience is just underwhelming even with some nice effects and Donald the eternal butt monkey.   

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