Symphony Hour

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Symphony Hour was a cartoon made by Walt Disney starring Mickey Mouse in 1942.

Mickey leads a radio orchestra who performs the overture to Light Cavalry (by Franz von Suppé). The sponsor (Pegleg Pete as Mr. Sylvester Macaroni) loves the rehearsal, but come the actual performance, Goofy drops all the instruments under an elevator, and they sound like toys. Sylvester Macaroni hates it, but the audience loves it anyway.

Clara Cluck is in the orchestra in the beginning "rehearsal" sequences but not in the actual performance at the end. Other characters appearing in this short are Donald Duck, Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar.

In some versions of this short, the scene in which Mickey points a gun at the head of Donald to get him back to playing after the elevator incident is missing.

Mickey would go into a 5-year retirement from animation after this short, not having another starring role until 1947's Mickey's Delayed Date (although he does appear in two Pluto cartoons released between these years). This was also the last appearance of Clarabelle Cow, Horace Horsecollar and Clara Cluck in animation for decades. They were not seen again until 1983 in Mickey's Christmas Carol.

Leonard Maltin has called this short a "Spike Jones version of The Band Concert". The animation is by:

Kenneth Muse
Les Clark
Bernie Wolf
Ed Love
John Elliote
George DeBeeson
Jack Campbell
Jack Manning
Marvin Woodward
Jim Moore