The Flying Mouse

The Flying Mouse is a Silly Symphonies animated short film produced by Walt Disney, directed by David Hand, and released to theatres by United Artists on July 14, 1934.^[1] The use of color here was rather innovative as it is set during the course of a single day.

The Flying Mouse
Directed by	David Hand
Produced by	Walt Disney
Starring	Marcellite Garner Marion Darlington Billy Sheets The Three Rhythm Kings
Music by	Frank Churchill Bert Lewis
Animation by	Hamilton Luske Bob Kuwahara Harry Bailey Bob Wickersham
Backgrounds by	Carlos Manríquez
Color process	Technicolor
Production company	Walt Disney Productions
Distributed by	United Artists Pictures
Release date	July 14, 1934 (1934-07-14)
Running time	9 min
Country	United States
Language	English

Plot

To the song "I Would Like to Be a Bird", a young mouse fashions wings from a pair of leaves, to the great amusement of his brothers. When his attempts to use them fail, the mouse got blown backwards from the wind and his rear end crashes into a thorn on the tree. The boy mouse falls down into the tub just as his mother finishes putting on a dress for his sister and gets them both drenched. While feeling embarrassed, he shrinks his sister's dress and attempts to run away but gets spanked and angrily released by his mother. The boy mouse cries and walks away, but when a butterfly calls for help, he rescues it from a hungry spider. When the butterfly proves to be a beautiful blue fairy, the mouse wishes for wings and begins flying around. But his bat-like appearance doesn't fit in with either the birds or the other mice, and he finds himself friendless; even the bats make fun of him, making a point that "You're Nothing But a Nothing". Then the beautiful blue fairy reappears and removes the mouse's wings, telling him: "Be yourself and life will smile upon you". The boy mouse runs all the way home where he is happily reunited with his mother and three mouse brothers who dance around him.

Production

The Flying Mouse boy and his mother make an appearance as spectators in the Mickey Mouse cartoon Mickey's Polo Team (1936).

Voice cast

• Bat: Billy Sheets
• Male voices: The Three Rhythm Kings
• Bird whistles: Marion Darlington
• Laughing mice: Marcellite Garner^[1]

Home media

The short was released on December 4, 2001, on Walt Disney Treasures: Silly Symphonies - The Historic Musical Animated Classics.^[2][1] Prior to that, the featurette also appeared on the Walt Disney Cartoon Classics Limited Gold Edition: Silly Symphonies VHS in the 1980s.

It was also released as a bonus feature, alongside fellow Silly Symphony short Elmer Elephant, on DVD and Blu-ray releases of Dumbo.^[3][4]