Fiddling Around
About Fiddling Around
The curtain opens and Mickey Mouse walks on with a violin. He plays Schumann's Träumerei and Brahms's Hungarian Dance No. 5, then is overcome and leaves the stage. The house calls him back. For the encore he plays the last of the William Tell overture, snaps the violin and the bow, and still finishes. The curtain comes down on him.
Cast & crew
More about Fiddling Around
Walt Disney directed it. Columbia Pictures released it in 1930 as a Mickey Mouse short, the sixteenth produced and the first of that year. It was the first Mickey cartoon not animated by Ub Iwerks, and the first Mickey short Columbia distributed. Mickey is the only figure on screen. Walt Disney speaks his voice. A timed copy runs 6 minutes 55 seconds. The copyright was renewed on 16 December 1957.
Themes
Making
Disney put Mickey alone on a stage after Iwerks left the animation. The act is three pieces and one broken fiddle.
Music
Mickey plays Träumerei, Hungarian Dance No. 5, and the close of the William Tell overture. The short reuses the theme from Wild Waves.
Preservation
A print survives. The short entered the public domain on 1 January 2026.
Notes
- The other title is Just Mickey. A 1930 release print found by David Gerstein in 2009 carries Fiddling Around. Just Mickey was the working title used on a later recreated card.
- An unseen heckler laughs at the William Tell encore.
- The short uses the theme from Wild Waves.
- It entered the public domain on 1 January 2026.
- Minnie and Pete are not in it.
Scenes
- Mickey stops in the middle of the sad piece and walks off.
- He finishes William Tell with the violin and bow snapped in half.
- The curtain drops on him.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (016 - Fiddling Around (Just Mickey).webm)
