Usually, when Mickey Mouse is paired up with Donald Duck (or, more often than not, with Donald and Goofy), they separate and do their own routines, with Mickey getting the comedy short stick. Here, however, the two are constantly in contention, and the cartoon is all the better for it. Mickey is a magician whose act is constantly being interrupted by a certain web-footed heckler in the balcony. He soon makes Donald an unwilling assistant, using his skills of prestidigitation to humiliate him. He makes him spit out cards, turns him into a paper doll chain, and even makes a monkey out of him, literally. It's a pity they weren't used more as adversaries, since it brings out the best in them, pitting Mickey's resourcefulness and pluck against Donald's irascibility and mischievousness. Incidentally, Goofy is in this one also, mostly out of sight as a stage hand. Highly recommended.
12 Reviews
One of the better Mickey shorts
CuriosityKilledShawn7 February 2005
In this short, Mickey is performing magic tricks on stage while Goofy does all the behind the scenes work, even though all of Mickey's tricks seem to be for real.
But Donald, as usual, isn't convinced and causes a fuss with his loud sarcasm and shouting. Mickey quickly silences him by using his magic. Donald becomes part of the act and is humiliated in various ways. It's actually quite imaginative and much better than the usual Mickey cartoons.
If only Mickey (who only has one line here) consistently kept to this high standard. He really needs Donald to make him funnier than he is and it's pretty obvious in this cartoon that the laughs come from angry Duck.
But Donald, as usual, isn't convinced and causes a fuss with his loud sarcasm and shouting. Mickey quickly silences him by using his magic. Donald becomes part of the act and is humiliated in various ways. It's actually quite imaginative and much better than the usual Mickey cartoons.
If only Mickey (who only has one line here) consistently kept to this high standard. He really needs Donald to make him funnier than he is and it's pretty obvious in this cartoon that the laughs come from angry Duck.
Most every cartoon lover agrees that Don Duck should be . . .
pixrox125 January 2022
Warning: Spoilers
. . . shot. This foul fowl rubs pretty much everyone the wrong way, with his obnoxious me-first attitude, anti-social temper tantrums and unintelligible ranting. Don Duck certainly provides a perfect template for his most famous namesake, America's penultimate Oval Office Occupant. MAGICIAN MICKEY does blast his frequent nemesis, though not exactly in the way viewers would most appreciate. Mickey shrinks the babbling blabbermouth down to ammo size, and shoots him OUT OF his blunderbuss musket revolver. I guess you cannot expect the moon from the Dizzy dolts.
"On with the show"
Clintborari14 January 2021
Warning: Spoilers
This is a classic mickey mouse short. It involves Donald trying to sabotage Mickey's magic act with an appearance from Goofy as the stagehand.
The cleverest moment for me was when Mickey uses his hands to turn Donald small like an insect, he then pops him into a pistol and shoots him into an egg. He then changes him back to his normal size by scrambling him with his wand and pouring him out of his top hat.
7/10.
The cleverest moment for me was when Mickey uses his hands to turn Donald small like an insect, he then pops him into a pistol and shoots him into an egg. He then changes him back to his normal size by scrambling him with his wand and pouring him out of his top hat.
7/10.
Mickey seems to have god-like powers in this one!
planktonrules1 January 2020
In "Magician Mickey", the mouse is trying to put on a magic show and inexplicably, Donald does everything he can to be a nuisance and destroy the act. However, Mickey seems to have god-like powers and again and again, he uses them to thwart Donald....yet Donald keeps coming back for more!
Like all the Mickey and friends cartoons of the 1930s, this one is gorgeously animated and is head and shoulders better looking than the competition, such as MGM and Warner Brothers. Beautiful backgrounds, smooth animation AND no cutesy songs (a problem in many 30s cartoon shorts) make this well worth seeing....and it's among the better shorts by Disney. A delight.
Like all the Mickey and friends cartoons of the 1930s, this one is gorgeously animated and is head and shoulders better looking than the competition, such as MGM and Warner Brothers. Beautiful backgrounds, smooth animation AND no cutesy songs (a problem in many 30s cartoon shorts) make this well worth seeing....and it's among the better shorts by Disney. A delight.
Magician Mickey
CinemaSerf21 July 2023
"Mickey" is doing his best to entertain an audience with his magical trickery but "Donald" is sitting in his front row box determined to expose him as a shyster! He continually attempts to disrupt the act - but each time he is bettered by the increasingly irritated entertainer who eventually resorts to filling "Donald" with decks of playing cards so as to stifle his constant haranguing. This is an enjoyable comedy that has a duelling nature to it. The comedy is end-to-end for eight minutes of combative fun that uses magic (well conjuring and illusionism, really) as a conduit for the action that leads to a suitably messy ending that wouldn't have looked out of place in the "Sorcerer's Apprentice". Good fun!
Evidence of why I love Mickey, Donald and Goofy so much
TheLittleSongbird14 October 2009
I completely agree with anyone who says Magician Mickey is one of the better Mickey Mouse shorts, if not the best. It is funny, enormously entertaining, and even after multiple viewings you can never grow tired of it. I do think the pace is a tad too fast, but other than that, it is all a delight to watch. Pinto Colvig, Walt Disney and Clarence Nash voice Goofy, Mickey and Donald(who is absolutely hilarious here) to perfection. The Technicolour animation is very fine, and the music score is lively. The plot is brisk and simply told, about Mickey performing magic tricks, Donald starts interrupting the proceedings and Mickey decides to humiliate him. This is clear evidence why I love this lovable trio of Toons so much. 9/10 Bethany Cox
The Three Stars in a hilarious cartoon!
OllieSuave-0071 June 2015
This is a Disney cartoon that features three of its biggest stars: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy. Mickey is a stage magician, performing all sorts of tricks from cards to rabbits, while Goofy is his stagehand. Sitting in the box in the audience is Donald, heckling at Mickey for what he thinks are childish tricks until Mickey uses his magic on him.
This is a hilarious cartoon short from start to finish and it is funny to see all three characters interact, especially how Mickey tries to counterattack the heckling Donald, resulting in endless funny scenes from Donald spitting our cards to shrinking to a size smaller than an egg. Goofy is his usual goofy self, trying to work all the gadgets without getting entangled in the stage ropes. You'll probably be roaring with laughter in how it all ends.
It's a show full of magic and misadventures - comical, delightful and fun for the entire family!
Grade A
This is a hilarious cartoon short from start to finish and it is funny to see all three characters interact, especially how Mickey tries to counterattack the heckling Donald, resulting in endless funny scenes from Donald spitting our cards to shrinking to a size smaller than an egg. Goofy is his usual goofy self, trying to work all the gadgets without getting entangled in the stage ropes. You'll probably be roaring with laughter in how it all ends.
It's a show full of magic and misadventures - comical, delightful and fun for the entire family!
Grade A
The many marvels of magician Mickey Mouse's masterful magnificent magics!!!
Foreverisacastironmess12322 December 2013
Warning: Spoilers
I've always dearly loved this one. The animation is rustic yet gorgeous, and the grand theatre setting is highly charming. It's one of the shorts that have the added bonus of featuring all three of the big Disney stars, and I've always found that the trio effect of them alone sets a strong tone as well as a lot of fun. Goofy kinda sits this one out as a stagehand, but Mickey and Donald are equally used and the characters play off each other beautifully. The action of this one is just nonstop, with a veritable plethora of mesmerising and well, magical sight gags! They're simple, but some of them are quite clever and colourfully creative. Mickey looks really cool in that classic magician getup! And I don't think he's playing, I think that mouse is packing some *real* magic! And Donald really asks for it. I just love him as a totally hilarious heckler! It makes me laugh when he gets hosed with the pink ice cream! There's such wonderful sight gags, I love the intricacy in the animation of the birds as Mickey directs them back into the cage, I love the repeated gag of Donald barfing up the cards, which makes him madder and madder every time it happens, and whenever he does so the last card to come out is the ace of hearts! And that's my favourite animation, of the cards, they're all so finely detailed. I also particularly enjoy the fluid animation of the egg trick, where Donald is poured out of the top hat and is topped-off with his beret and a satisfying "pop" sound! There is also the impressive scenes where Donald is shrunk and then turned into a string of paper Donald figures, Donald fighting a cactus, Donald being transformed into a kangaroo, walrus - monkey!!! And for me, the absolute coup de grace is fortunately the big climax where Donald gets even by firing dazzlingly bright swirls of colour out of a flare gun that send Mickey spinning up into the air, where he ends up bringing the house down on all three of them! The animation effect of the magic 'bullets' looks simply amazing. I thought it looked like coloured sand or chalk or something. Whatever the technique was, they worked a visual wonder. So many brilliantly done little gems to take in that all help to make this one such a joy to watch! Not to mention the soundtrack which subtly drives the story, which was also very nice and complemented the action perfectly. This Mickey short is as terrific as it ever was. I love it, I think it's a near perfect gem of a Disney short.
Dumb Duck Versus Magical Mouse
Ron Oliver22 July 2003
A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.
Donald Duck will live to regret the evening he decided to heckle the performance of MAGICIAN MICKEY.
This is a wonderful little film from Disney's Golden Age, full of excellent animation and truly hilarious legerdemain. The pyrotechnic prestidigitation at the conclusion, involving stagehand Goofy, makes a spectacular use of Technicolor. Walt Disney provides Mickey with his squeaky voice; Clarence Nash does the honors for Donald.
Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by pictures & drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew comic figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.
Donald Duck will live to regret the evening he decided to heckle the performance of MAGICIAN MICKEY.
This is a wonderful little film from Disney's Golden Age, full of excellent animation and truly hilarious legerdemain. The pyrotechnic prestidigitation at the conclusion, involving stagehand Goofy, makes a spectacular use of Technicolor. Walt Disney provides Mickey with his squeaky voice; Clarence Nash does the honors for Donald.
Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by pictures & drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew comic figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.
Lots of Fun/Lots of Action
Hitchcoc4 February 2019
Mickey is a master magician. He is utterly amazing. The problem is a heckler in the audience, Donald Duck. Mr. Duck is abusive and confrontational (really?). He begins to try to sabotage the act, but it only leads to greater and greater tricks where Donald becomes the victim. In true cartoon tradition, Donald will not let it go. It soon becomes a color extravaganza, with Goofy, the stage hand, getting his two cents worth in.
Mickey, Goofy, Donald trio at its earliest and finest
CihanVercan26 November 2023
STORY- Same story structure formula used with the hilarious Boat Builders.
Beginning: Join 3 opposite characters in same adventure.
Progress: Let them build a moving sensitive action-packed construction.
Ending: Destroy the construction as a sum of all 3 heroes' faults.
SETTINGS - My favorite. Proscenium Arch.
HEROES - Mickey Mouse on the stage facing his fans and audience applausing him for his mind and hand tricks.
Goofy on the backstage working as a light technician reference to Nikola Tesla.
Donald Duck as a nasty prank-maker who confronts Mickey's tricks by his own brutal force pranks.
MOTIVE - Donald does not enjoy Mickey's magician tricks. So he jumps off to the stage mockering and making a fool out of Mickey. But Mickey has enough magician tools to cause Donald bigger troubles than he can ever imagine. Goofy in the meantime does not interfere with the duo, yet he cannot run the show focusing the light and effects on more than one host. By the final prank Donald does it to Mickey, Goofy totally fails to maintain the backstage and the entire theatre falls apart nail to nail.
Beginning: Join 3 opposite characters in same adventure.
Progress: Let them build a moving sensitive action-packed construction.
Ending: Destroy the construction as a sum of all 3 heroes' faults.
SETTINGS - My favorite. Proscenium Arch.
HEROES - Mickey Mouse on the stage facing his fans and audience applausing him for his mind and hand tricks.
Goofy on the backstage working as a light technician reference to Nikola Tesla.
Donald Duck as a nasty prank-maker who confronts Mickey's tricks by his own brutal force pranks.
MOTIVE - Donald does not enjoy Mickey's magician tricks. So he jumps off to the stage mockering and making a fool out of Mickey. But Mickey has enough magician tools to cause Donald bigger troubles than he can ever imagine. Goofy in the meantime does not interfere with the duo, yet he cannot run the show focusing the light and effects on more than one host. By the final prank Donald does it to Mickey, Goofy totally fails to maintain the backstage and the entire theatre falls apart nail to nail.
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