Disney A to G(#) Part Three — Mister Mouse Escapes the Studio!
A brief exploration of alternate Mickeys.
Disney A to G(#) — Part Three: Mister Mouse Escapes the Studio!
The Prelude — The Importance of Pigs
The most famous Disney song attached to the Great Depression is Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf by Frank Churchill and Ann Ronell. Churchill’s musical significance to the Disney Brothers’ studio from the point at which the Silly Symphonies began to incorporate sung lyrics — Mother Goose Melodies (1931) all the way through Bambi (1942) — is matched only by his often partner, Leigh Harline. Until Harline’s When You Wish Upon a Star appeared in Pinocchio (1940), Big Bad Wolf was the most popular song that the Disney company had produced.
Some of this popularity came from the endearing and technically sophisticated short it first appeared in, The Three Little Pigs (1933), but, even more so, much of its fame came from its role as a rallying cry of those struggling during The Great Depression: Americans proudly insisting that they wouldn’t succumb to the wolf at their door. This wasn’t the first Disney-related song to take The Great Depression on, however. Another song arose out of the Disney mythos, without the actual involvement of the Disney studio, which did it in a much odder way, What! No Mickey Mouse? (What Kind of Party Is This?) (1932).
For a brief, strange, period of time, Disney seemed willing to let other companies have their way with the Mouse, musically at least. The songs that were produced during this period speak to a time in popular culture where a lot of new ideas were just beginning to solidify into the things they would remain but were yet still forming and collapsing alternate versions of those realities with a chaotic grin.
Join me in a few of these songs where Mickey runs down a few unfamiliar paths.
The First Movement — A Mickey of a Very Different Time
Written by Irving Caesar, lyricist of Tea for Two and Swanee, amongst many hundreds more, What! No Mickey Mouse? (What Kind of Party Is This?) was intended as a novelty during an election year. It made some minor waves as a hit for Ben Bernie and His Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra (ironically named as Franklin Roosevelt was about to win this election) and even made a minor comeback in the ’70s as sung by famed bandleader, and voice of Baloo the Bear from Disney’s The Jungle Book (1967), Phil Harris. (This version altered some of the lyrics that hadn’t worn well with time and was a B-side to a new recording of Minnie’s Yoo-Hoo. Take a look at the previous entry in this series for a LOT about Minnie’s Yoo-Hoo.)
A few things make this song a really interesting example of this niche genre of non-Disney Disney songs. While it was licensed by Walt and Roy Disney, it upends the generally accepted narrative of early Disney music, which is usually played out thusly: The Three Little Pigs made a splash when it was released and veteran music promoter Saul Bourne — often associated with the success of Irving Berlin’s music publishing company — saw it with his wife and realized that the film’s theme song was a potential hit. He quickly licensed the rights for Irving Berlin’s publishing house and recordings were scheduled for several popular big bands after which the money started rolling in. This is credited as launching Disney into the music publishing and recording industry.
But, What! No Mickey Mouse? (What Kind of Party Is This?) had come out the year before The Three Little Pigs and was something of a hit. It also represented a lightning strike of cross-promotion. The song’s title was a saying that had become popular at the time, originally referencing moviegoers not caring about anything else on the bill that evening other than there being a Mickey Mouse cartoon; a sentiment Walt must’ve adored. Eventually the saying “What no Mickey Mouse?” began to be used in a much broader way, referring to parties, public events, and pretty much anything where the outcome might be disappointing. If Mickey hadn’t been in the public lexicon before this, he was now! Given that the song is also a mock campaign song for an extraordinarily important election (The country had been suffering under The Great Depression for almost three years at that point and, incumbent, Herbert Hoover was insisting that the federal government should stay out of it.) the publicity couldn’t be beaten!
It seems clear that Walt and Roy had some idea about song publishing before Saul Bourne brought them into the Irving Berlin fold. They knew a marketing opportunity when they saw it.
The next interesting piece of this puzzle — and this was what got removed in Phil Harris’ later version — was its last couplet:
So, let’s give the good ol’ White House
To that tricky, wacki, wicki, bolsheviki Mickey Mouse.
Now, if, in 2023, a song licensed by Disney was to call Mickey Mouse a Bolshevik — a Communist — the implications and uproar would be staggering. In 1932, however, some interesting things were happening.
First and foremost is The Great Depression, which had been grinding away at the American public for several years. Its impact was devastating and almost unbearable for those not in the highest caste of society. The President had, however, surrounded himself with advisors of exactly that elevated level of fortune and it took several years of the Depression before he would even admit it was going on. The anger at Herbert Hoover was so palpable that at campaign stops the train would often pull into town with a chant of “Hang Hoover!” echoing across the station. Hoover was to lose this election to Franklin Roosevelt in one of the most lopsided votes in presidential history: 472 Electoral College votes to 59. Anger at the working class level was growing palpably.
Another, dovetailing, effect was to influence this era’s take on communism as well; disillusioned by the U.S. involvement in the First World War and convinced that the country was culturally far behind Europe, large numbers of artists had fled overseas in the 1920s after the war had ended. However, a grim force was rising in Europe by the 1930s, Hitler’s Nazi party and many of these ex-pats decided to return in some haste before what they saw as a very bad situation had gotten much worse. These artists had experienced a large cross-section of different social/political ideas while in Europe, with socialism and communism being discussed much more openly than they would have been in the United States. That, and the severe anti-communist stance of the Nazis, combined to bring an idea onto American shores that meshed firmly with the struggling American working class’ anger at the governmental elite and, for a brief few years, socialism and communism were ideas that were thrown about freely, with some popularity.
Mickey being a Bolshevik was not, in 1932, an insult at all.
The Second Movement — What’s a Little Licensing Between Friends?
What? No Mickey Mouse? is not actually the earliest example we can find of this use of Mickey in a song outside of studio control. An unremarkable fox trot called Mickey Mouse (1930) by Harry Carlton seems to hold that honor.
Carlton was a prolific songwriter with a few songs picked up by bands as popular as Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra, but very little has stood the test of time. What’s interesting about this song is that it seems to have been completely isolated to Europe and, while the cover of the sheet music proclaims it “Official ‘Mickey Mouse’ Song,” it was licensed not by Walt Disney Productions, but rather by Ideal Films, the British distributor of the Mickey Mouse shorts.
Notably, the sheet music states, “This edition not for export outside the British Isles,” begging the question, is there another edition? It seems unlikely.
Also prior to the Big Bad Wolf bombshell, was the first in a strange trend in early Mickey songs: the assumption that Mickey and Minnie were, inevitably, going to get married. That song, The Wedding Party of Mickey Mouse (1931), is a charming piece about the consequences of a wedding party filled with a menagerie of different animals: chaos. Very much modeling itself on the kind of action in a typical early Mickey short, this is a neat little Tin Pan Alley ditty that launched the alternate timeline in which Mickey and Minnie tie the knot. (An idea which we will visit in more detail in a moment.)
One notable thing about this song is that the tune, credited as having lyrics by James Cavanaugh and Milt Coleman with music by Robert Bagar, actually appears as incidental music in the Mickey short The Mad Dog (1932). Given that we can find sheet music for the song as early as 1931 and that The Mad Dog came out in 1932, it seems that Bert Lewis, taking over Carl Stalling’s duties after Stalling abruptly quit in 1930, continued the patchwork nature of composing music for the shorts by pasting the music from this song, which the company had officially licensed — and thus probably didn’t have to pay for — though had not composed or produced, into it.
Here are the restored Columbia Pictures titles for The Mad Dog and you can hear the song clearly at the beginning after Minnie’s Yoo-Hoo fades.
Interestingly, The Wedding Party of Mickey Mouse is the only song on our list that was not written and recorded originally in England.
The Third Movement — Mickey and Minnie, Married?
As mentioned earlier, after the release of The Three Little Pigs and the resultant success of its theme song, the Disney brothers embraced the recording industry wholeheartedly. They began licensing Mickey as a property for songwriters to mine and for recordings to be made. Two of the most prominent examples further the interesting contrast between the songs and Disney’s own connection to their characters by not only marrying Mickey and Minnie but also by consummating the marriage!
Today, there are strict mythologies about the Disney pantheon: Pluto is Mickey’s dog; Goofy is a friend, not a pet; the characters are actors playing characters like themselves in the shorts; Donald has an elaborate and large family; Mickey and Minnie are NOT married — they live in separate houses, etc. In the 1930s, however, this was all less well established and these two songs, Mickey’s Son and Daughter (1935) and The Wedding of Mister Mickey Mouse (1933) — much like The Wedding Party of Mickey Mouse — showed our two stars’ route to the altar and after.
The Wedding of Mister Mickey Mouse (1933) has Mickey and Minnie about to march down the aisle and describes how lovely of an affair it will be. Peg-Leg Pete will be “declaring a truce!” (Astonishing! Even Pete is respectful?) Clarabelle Cow will jump over the moon. Pluto’s going to sing. And, to enforce that this is yet another Britain-centric piece, the song points out that “The whole affair will be broadcast by the BBC.”
Austrian composer Franz Vienna (a.k.a. Franz Steininger) and American lyricist Eddie Pola put together a pleasant enough novelty fox trot which evidently had some legs across Western Europe, though never seemed to escape the continent or the ’30s, and is rarely heard again after.
Many versions of this song are available online and they all seem to have ham-fisted attempts at doing character voices which, almost uniformly, fall flat. And yet there’s certainly some charm here.
Of all the early non-Disney Mickey songs, the one that has most endured is Mickey’s Son and Daughter; its popularity having been given a boost by one of the strangest, and most wonderful, bands to emerge from Britain in the swingin’ ’60s, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
The Bonzos were an odd conglomeration of musicians, songwriters, and inventors. Formed initially as part of the “New Vaudeville” musical movement they quickly expanded beyond their vintage repertoire in order to embrace parody, rock, psychedelia, and sheer noise experiments. Linked to groups as disparate as The Beatles and Monty Python, the Bonzos seemed to encompass every musical trend all at once without ever letting go of the odd nostalgia pieces with which they had started; and, of these pieces, none was more well-known than their version of Mickey’s Son and Daughter.
While the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band’s version gave the song a lift through the ’60s, it was no slouch before that. Written by incredibly prolific songwriters Eddie Lisbona (aka Eddie “Piano” Miller, Gently) and Tommie Conner (Lili Marlene, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus) it was recorded a number of times in the 1930s; finding itself on the programs of yearly Christmas concerts across England and Scotland. Even with the more than passing similarity to Noel Gay’s massively popular 1932 hit The Sun Has Got His Hat On, this tune does stand out as one of the more clever of the early Mickey Mouse novelties.
The first, and most famous, early version comes from Henry Hall and the BBC Dance Orchestra. It’s worth noting that Hall’s version contains an extra verse, not included in the published sheet music, that is done with strange animal voices which reference characters distinctly not part of the Disney pantheon. (“I’m Bertie Bleat the donkey, I am a silly ass.”) Assumedly, Hall or someone in his band added this bizarre addendum.
It wouldn’t be long before Disney pulled all of its music composition back in-house and, short of political commentaries and satires, we rarely hear music based around Disney properties that the company itself didn’t control outside of the ’30s. This was a wilder and less strict time for the Mickey mythology and it was doomed not to last, for better or for worse.
Hopefully, this small sampler of Mickey having gone rogue from the Disney studio in song is intriguing. I, for one, can imagine a multiverse of Mickeys where he and Minnie are in wedded domestic bliss, perhaps with kids, or not; and maybe a world where, instead of Donald, Bertie Bleat becomes an international star… and Mickey remains a Bolshevik.
Once upon a turntable, it was all possible.
Interested in the first two parts of this series? Part One. Part Two.
Stay tuned for Part Four of Disney Music A to G(#). Coming soon!
Exit Music
What! No Mickey Mouse? (What Kind of Party Is This?) actually has a presence in the Disney parks today. Within the hotel lobby of The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, the decaying sheet music sits on a counter under a dusty trumpet.
While not precisely the kind of thing I am trying to cover here, an oddity worth investigating is Ann (Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?) Ronell’s Mickey Mouse and Minnie’s in Town (1934). As part of the same deal with Irving Berlin’s music company, this was recorded by Frank Luther’s band and released as a B-side of her original composition, In a Silly Symphony.
The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band also recorded Hunting Tigers out in Indiah [sic] and Jollity Farm which were hits for ’30s bandleader Hal Swain. Swain recorded the most successful version of Harry Carlton’s Mickey Mouse Foxtrot.
Even though the sheet music specified no export outside of Britain, a version of Mickey Mouse was also a minor hit in Germany,
Credit where credit is due, the information about President Herbert Hoover and The Great Depression comes primarily through The Path to Power, the first volume of Robert Caro’s epic biography of Lyndon Johnson, The Years of Lyndon Johnson.
Sometimes when working on something like this article my research leads me to some work that has gone so much further than I could have on the subject that I’m almost chagrinned. That was the case when I discovered James Parten’s Needle Drop Notes on the Cartoon Research site, https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/category/needle-drop-notes. I had intended for this to be a lighter, breezier, piece on what I looked at as novelty spin-offs of the main through-line of Disney music, but it turns out that there is so much more to be said. Read Parten’s work for a deeply in-depth take on music based on cartoons issued as vinyl recordings.
It’s absolutely fascinating.
Be sure to follow Boardwalk Times for more coverage of The Walt Disney Company.
Support Boardwalk Times on Ko-Fi.
Support Boardwalk Times by shopping on Boardwalk Store:
If you like this article. Subscribe to our free newsletter Boardwalk Times: Stories from the Seashore, a monthly dose of Disney and its businesses.
Kelly McCubbin is a columnist for Boardwalk Times