Watch The Band Concert For Free

How sad is this?

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I try to picture myself as an audience member in the theater watching this for the very first time back in 1935. That had to be quite the experience, not only because it was Walt Disney's first Mickey Mouse cartoon in color, but the vibrancy and dynamic action make it a blast to watch even today. There's just so much going on when the picture first starts out that it's difficult to zero in on any one item, you just don't want to miss anything. As conductor Mickey gets the William Tell Overture under way, Donald Duck begins hawking ice cream, and then a busy bee starts to give Mickey fits. As a huge, black tornado breaks things up, the creativity of the cartoon artists really comes into play. As a fan, I found this to be a wonderful treat, certainly raising the bar for future Disney endeavors and other studios as well.

Brilliant color, wonderful animation, and tremendous characterization. Mickey is the leader of a kind of community band. Among the members are somewhat crude versions of very familiar Disney characters. Goofy, Donald, Horace Horsecollar, Clarabelle Cow and so on. Mickey is doing fine. The band is to play the "William Tell Overture." Donald Duck with his familiar sailor suit, but with a really long neck (sort of like a goose) has a flute and insists on playing "Turkey in the Straw." Mickey's rage get the better of him and he confronts the irritating duck, but has no success in squelching his awful sounds. Of course, the efforts lead to his conducting the orchestra with a sense of pandemonium. Also, when another piece called "The Storm" is to be played, an actual tornado appears and it's every animated character for himself. The result is pure joy along with an unforgettable visual memory of this piece (other than the Lone Ranger connection).

Mickey is conducting a band concert in the park. However, Donald manages to interrupt everything. Later, however, the problem isn't Donald but a freak wind storm that makes a mess of everything. All this is accompanied by very suitable music and actually would seem to be the inspiration for the Magic Kingdom's great 3-D movie "Fantasmic"--starring Mickey, Donald and a wind storm (or sorts).Technically speaking, this might be one of the best looking Mickey Mouse cartoons--as were so many during the mid-1930s when Disney started showing the Mouse in very vivid full-color. But, as it still bears much of the look of the early Disney characters, it's quite charming and nostalgic at the same time. Great fun for all ages--even if they are not great music fans.

In this, first color, Mickey Mouse short, he stars as a music conductor at a country fair. His band are playing, in the most average way, The William Tell overture. It gets worse though when Donald (playing a loudmouth ice-cream vendor) comes along and muscles in on the band with his flute, playing a bizarre alternate take on the music and causing the band to stray off course.Mickey gets mad (I like it when Mickey isn't always the clean-cut good guy) and tries his best to silence Donald. Once that's out the way a bee torments each and every band member, causing further collapse of Mickey's conducting. Once Mickey turns the page on his music script a rather difficult segment of music (called 'The Storm') is revealed. How appropriate, at that very moment a twister tears thru the countryside. The band are so lost in their performance that they don't even realize they're sucked up inside a tornado. It's the highlight of the cartoon, with some truly inventive animation and technically brilliant for it's day. Mickey doesn't actually say anything in this one but his facial expression do all the acting. Like I said, I like it when Mickey isn't always the opposite of Donald (IE not moody and easily frustrated) and this is their pairing here in this cartoon.