When "Thru the Mirror" begins, Mickey has just fallen asleep after reading Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass". Then, like in the story, Mickey has a dream where he, too, is able to talk through the mirror into a strange parallel world. He finds that all the furnishings in the house are alive. Next, he eats a walnut and shrinks--and has all sorts of miniature adventures. He battles against some playing cards but my favorite portion is where he tap dances--in a manner highly reminiscent o Fred Astaire. All in all, there really isn't a lot in the way of plot but the cartoon is so much fun and the animation so nice that you really don't care! Clever and fun from start to finish.
16 Reviews
"Calling all cards, calling all cards..."
classicsoncall1 July 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Paramount Pictures came out with a theatrical version of "Alice in Wonderland" in 1933, an all black and white production featuring many of the principal players under contract to the studio. This cartoon followed by two years, Walt Disney's take on how Mickey Mouse might have reacted if he went through the proverbial looking glass. The animation, color and creativity are quite good, and I'm always astonished by how professional some of these offerings are considering the era in which they were made. Making the 'King' jealous, Mickey dances with the Queen of Hearts, resulting in a dueling match, while the dance of the cards is a visual treat! It's really a fun story, and bound to delight one and all today, even if it's eighty years old.
Very Imaginative
CuriosityKilledShawn17 June 2004
After falling asleep reading Alice Through the Looking Glass, Mickey dreams about walking through the mirror and entering and opposite world where almost everything is alive and has a personality. Sort of in the same way as all those annoying, singing teacups in the awful Beauty and the Beast movie.
There are many references to Alice in Wonderland of course, some subtle, some obvious and some intelligent. Though it's all great fun and wildly imaginative. It's these sort of cartoons that made Disney Studios and Mickey Mouse legendary.
In a way, it's the success of cartoon like this that are to blame for the existence of stuff like The Haunted Mansion.
But that's just the pessimist in me.
There are many references to Alice in Wonderland of course, some subtle, some obvious and some intelligent. Though it's all great fun and wildly imaginative. It's these sort of cartoons that made Disney Studios and Mickey Mouse legendary.
In a way, it's the success of cartoon like this that are to blame for the existence of stuff like The Haunted Mansion.
But that's just the pessimist in me.
a classic mickey mouse cartoon
baz-158 February 2001
This was made in the golden age of Disney animation (1935-1940). It involves mickey's adventures as he goes 'thru' the mirror and enters a world where inanimate objects are alive. there are many impressive bits. for example the scene where mickey eats a nut and is transformed in size is brilliantly done. there is a lot of dancing in the cartoon, mickey dances with a top hat and a pair of gloves and does a dance routine with some playing cards, and then there is a busby berkley type dance thing involving the cards. the climax involves mickey being chased by hundreds of cards and it is fantastic. you have to hand it to the artists who worked on this, it is a great cartoon. other superior mickey mouse cartoons include: the band concert(1935); mickey's garden(1935); clock cleaners(1937); moving day(1936); the sorcerer's apprentice (from fantasia (1940) ).
Mickey's adventure with astral projection
utgard1410 July 2016
Fun Disney take on Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass." Here Mickey Mouse falls asleep reading that book, then his spirit leaves his body and goes through a mirror. On the other side of the mirror is a wacky version of Mickey's house where the inanimate objects have come to life. A lot of really cool trippy stuff follows that I don't want to spoil for you. Needless to say it's awesome to watch, especially for the time in which it was made. The animation is top-notch (it was Disney, after all). The characters and backgrounds are all well-drawn and the action is excitingly realized. Love the music, too. Fine voice work from Walt Disney. This is as wacky and creative as it gets for 1936 and I can't imagine anyone not having a good time with it. Just a fun cartoon from start to finish.
"And now here's another side for the plausible impossible..."
TheLittleSongbird12 February 2010
"Thru the Mirror" is a fun literary take on the Lewis Caroll classic "Through the Looking Class". While not especially faithful, it is tremendously entertaining for a number of reasons. Whether it is the lovely Technicolour animation, with the colourful backgrounds and interesting character features. Whether it is the wonderful music, it is rousing on the most part, with a little snippet of Schubert's "Marche Millitaire". Whether it is the great scene with the cards chasing Mickey. Whether it is Mickey in the role of Alice, and doing it with gusto I must say. I will say though I do think Mickey has done better cartoons namely "Sorceror's Apprentice", "The Band Concert" and "Symphony Hour". But this is great fun as a cartoon, and works on multiple viewings. 10/10 Bethany Cox
A riff on the greatest hits of Alice, and it's one of the color-sound 30's Mickey Mouse greats
Quinoa19842 September 2015
In full Technicolor, and with music by Frank Churchill, Leight Harline, and Paul J Smith (all uncredited), Thru the Mirror is one of the masterworks of the era when Walt Disney studios could have a lot of fun while keeping toes from the silent era. A lot of what happens in this story could have been one of the black and white silent/early sound-era Mickey Mouse movies, where Mickey finds himself in some bizarre situations with cartoon things that have come to life in ways that make him dance, fight and run in chase-mode. Only here the animation has become sophisticated, due to years of practice and trial and (minimal) error, with moments like Mickey eating the walnut (aka the mushroom) that makes him grow really big and then really small.
And of course there's everything with the cards, which at first are like dancers from a Busby Berkley musical (I'm sure the animators had influences from those movies, in full formation they do it up), and then the way that Disney and his writers bring in the Queen of Hearts and the King (the latter on both bottom and top levels with swords). It's also wonderful to see all the cards chasing after Mickey; I have to wonder if the animators (or just Disney himself) knew the potential to have mass figures overpowering the flagship character, and brought it over when doing something like Fantasia, as the cards have that unstoppable-holy-crap quality of the ravenous brooms.
The imagination here is boundless, and when there are gags (the chair and its baby, the umbrella, the radio that shouts out "Calling All Cards") they work well, but ever since I saw this as a kid - and through some repeat, partly from the first Mickey Mouse VHS and play from back when the Disney channel actually played these old-time cartoons I've seen it many times - I knew it had a special quality. The pacing is electrifying, the comic timing excellent, and the music combines Big-Band Jazz, musical and adventure/chase music. In a way this is one of the great Alice adaptations, distilled to just a few points like a song, and the notes played by some smart people. Did I mention in that bright, excellent early cartoon-Technicolor to boot?
And of course there's everything with the cards, which at first are like dancers from a Busby Berkley musical (I'm sure the animators had influences from those movies, in full formation they do it up), and then the way that Disney and his writers bring in the Queen of Hearts and the King (the latter on both bottom and top levels with swords). It's also wonderful to see all the cards chasing after Mickey; I have to wonder if the animators (or just Disney himself) knew the potential to have mass figures overpowering the flagship character, and brought it over when doing something like Fantasia, as the cards have that unstoppable-holy-crap quality of the ravenous brooms.
The imagination here is boundless, and when there are gags (the chair and its baby, the umbrella, the radio that shouts out "Calling All Cards") they work well, but ever since I saw this as a kid - and through some repeat, partly from the first Mickey Mouse VHS and play from back when the Disney channel actually played these old-time cartoons I've seen it many times - I knew it had a special quality. The pacing is electrifying, the comic timing excellent, and the music combines Big-Band Jazz, musical and adventure/chase music. In a way this is one of the great Alice adaptations, distilled to just a few points like a song, and the notes played by some smart people. Did I mention in that bright, excellent early cartoon-Technicolor to boot?
Excellent Mickey Mouse Cartooon
Hitchcoc17 July 2019
Mickey has been reading Lewis Carrol and has dozed off. This is a combination of mouse antics and the Alice story. He does battle with numerous fictional entities and seems to have a great time. Very well animated and imaginative. Mickey is at his improvisational best.
Literary Classic Gets The Mickey Mouse Treatment
Ron Oliver16 February 2003
A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.
Like the famous literary Alice, Mickey goes THRU THE MIRROR to find himself in a very strange room where almost anything can happen...and probably will.
Here is one of the classic Mouse films - an exercise in sheer exuberant delight. Taking Lewis Carroll as the departure point, the Disney artists crafted a tale of visual excitement & great good fun. Music propels the action and Mickey's joyous dance - backed up by matches, white gloves & a whole pack of cards - proves to be a salute to both Fred Astaire & Busby Berkeley. The Queen of Hearts card - the Mouse's soulful dancing partner at one point - is a spoof of Greta Garbo. Look fast near the end for a quick cameo by King Neptune, who starred in his own SILLY SYMPHONY back in 1932. Walt Disney provides Mickey with his squeaky voice.
Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by 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 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 simplicity of message and lots of hard work will always pay off.
Like the famous literary Alice, Mickey goes THRU THE MIRROR to find himself in a very strange room where almost anything can happen...and probably will.
Here is one of the classic Mouse films - an exercise in sheer exuberant delight. Taking Lewis Carroll as the departure point, the Disney artists crafted a tale of visual excitement & great good fun. Music propels the action and Mickey's joyous dance - backed up by matches, white gloves & a whole pack of cards - proves to be a salute to both Fred Astaire & Busby Berkeley. The Queen of Hearts card - the Mouse's soulful dancing partner at one point - is a spoof of Greta Garbo. Look fast near the end for a quick cameo by King Neptune, who starred in his own SILLY SYMPHONY back in 1932. Walt Disney provides Mickey with his squeaky voice.
Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by 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 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 simplicity of message and lots of hard work will always pay off.
Through the looking mouse
Horst_In_Translation20 July 2016
Warning: Spoilers
"Thru the Mirror" is an American cartoon from 1936, so to put this one into perspective it was made 80 years ago when the Nazis hosted the Olympia Games in Berlin. And Mickey Mouse had turned into one of the biggest rising stars from the world of cartoon at this point already. This one here runs for almost 9 minutes, so it's a bit longer than they usually are and thanks to the repeated "Alice in Wonderland" references, it is also among the more known cartoons from back in the day, especially if we exclude Warner Bros. I personally did not find it too great though. I may be a bit biased as I have never been a Lewis Carroll fan, but I have seen many better Mickey Mouse cartoons from back in the day. This one here is just wild, all over the place and the music seems to try to make up for the lack of content. It shows that style over substance existed back then already too. I did not find it too funny or creative and would only recommend it to the biggest Disney or Alice fans. Thumbs down from me.
Mickey in Wonderland!
OllieSuave-00717 October 2015
This is a magical and fun cartoon short featuring Mickey Mouse as he falls asleep while reading Alice Through the Looking Glass and dreams about his adventures in Wonderland himself.
In his dream, Mickey goes through a host of adventures, from playing jump rope with a live phone, watching a nutcracker crack nuts, leading a march with a deck of cards, dancing with the Queen of Hearts and fencing with the King of Spades. My favorite scene is when the playing cards take on the role of soldiers and go after poor Mickey, under the King of Spades' orders after catching him dancing with his Queen. There were cards everywhere, coming from the row of poker chips and from inside a desk drawer.
It's great fun, and a great reference to Alice in Wonderland. Truly magical.
Grade A
In his dream, Mickey goes through a host of adventures, from playing jump rope with a live phone, watching a nutcracker crack nuts, leading a march with a deck of cards, dancing with the Queen of Hearts and fencing with the King of Spades. My favorite scene is when the playing cards take on the role of soldiers and go after poor Mickey, under the King of Spades' orders after catching him dancing with his Queen. There were cards everywhere, coming from the row of poker chips and from inside a desk drawer.
It's great fun, and a great reference to Alice in Wonderland. Truly magical.
Grade A
Mickey in Wonderland.
afonsobritofalves5 April 2019
Hilarious!!
Ref654 March 2008
Warning: Spoilers
Thru the mirror is a very creative animated short of Mickey Mouse.In this short Mickey has fallen asleep after reading "Alice in wonderland",during his sleep he dreams that he has just after walking through his mirror.There, the furniture is alive(e.g a foot stool acts like a dog).Thru the mirror has some very funny moments like the part where the king of cards is trying to kill Mickey when Mickey is caught dancing with the queen of cards and when an army of cards are chasing Mickey,Mickey grabs a pen,jumps into a clothes basket and squirts ink at the cards, also a dance Mickey starts doing lasts for half the short.This Mickey Mouse short is very creative and if you want to see it get a copy of "Everybody loves Mickey".Recommended to Mickey Mouse fans all over the world.
"Calling all cards!"
Foreverisacastironmess12327 December 2013
Warning: Spoilers
A little imagination goes a long way, and what a wonderfully vivid one the collective Disney animators had at this time... This is one of my all-time favourites, it's hands-down one of those timelessly special Disney shorts that seem to only get better with age, and that have the rare ability to make you feel like a little kid again for a moment while you're watching them. And this one, clearly inspired by Lewis Caroll's "Through the Looking Glass", is a real strange and entertaining little ride from beginning to end! Mickey falls asleep and enters a topsy-turvy dream mirrorland wherein many enchanting sight gags abound. Almost everything is alive and has a personality. Soon to be mean! Mickey shrinks down to the size of an actual mouse, but doesn't seem too troubled by it, and engages in a little dance with a pair of magician's gloves in one fabulously charming sequence... That's the part I always remembered about this short. Everything's just swell until Mickey also dances with the Queen of Hearts and makes the king jealous - at which point the fun 'trip' turns into a perilous flight for freedom! Ha, I love how he just tosses the alarm clock back in the drawer without a second thought and goes straight back to sleep! This is my favourite incarnation of Mickey with the iconic little red pants and yellow shoes and the adorable black dot eyes! At the start he's just kind of an observer, than a musical star in the middle, and an action hero by the end. I love the ink-pen machine gun! It's the playful innocence and heroic spirit of Mickey that made him such a lovable and endearing character. The lasting nature of this short and in particular the elaborate scene with the gloves had apparently not been lost on the Disney company because the gag with the gloves would later be imitated by the genie during the "Friend like Me" sequence of 1992's "Aladdin". Also there's a dog-like foot stool that's a little precursor to the one that appeared way down the line in "Beauty and the Beast", and then of course, there are those beautiful cards which make the short feel somewhat like a testing ground for "Alice in Wonderland" which came 15 years later. The entire deck of cards is especially well detailed and fascinating to look at. Undoubtedly, it must have been a gruelling nightmare animating, inking and painting all the cards featured here, but it was well worth it for the effect they achieved. The way they fold and scatter and leap in a coordinated line looks just amazing. The gloves and the cards are the short's strongest points in my opinion. The madcap structure is slightly reminiscent of the surrealism of the most fantastic Fleisher animations, only a lot less dark and threatening, and a whole lot easier on the eye. Practically every richly detailed and gorgeously animated moment of this looks excellent. I especially like the strange membranous effect when Mickey passes through the mirror. Still so utterly magical, even now. Not crude, not bland, nor dull but perfect. A little treasure!
Though it lacks Bogart, Cagney or Robinson . . .
cricket3015 January 2022
Warning: Spoilers
. . . THRU THE MIRROR is essentially a gangster film, from that genre's heyday in the 1930's. For any viewer slow on the uptake, this characterization becomes inescapable when Mickey is firing a constant stream of Tommy Gun-like fire at a mob of Wonderland's G-people while the radio\dispatcher is desperately "Calling all cards, calling all cards!" Mickey has brought this trouble upon himself in the standard fashion, dallying with the local crime lord's moll on the dance floor. Though a fan allows him to be saved by the bell of his alarm clock, this animated short should serve to remind viewers that ink cartridges are no substitute for the Real Thing. Therefore, after enjoying THRU THE MIRROR, please remember to support your local chapter of BANGS: Broke Americans Need Gun Stamps.
Alice in the House of Mouse
Cineanalyst4 August 2020
No borrowed source was more important to the success of Disney than Lewis Carroll's Alice books--from the silent Alice comedies to the beginning of its modern-day live-action remakes with Tim Burton's CGI trash--and here the parody of an adaptation is coupled with the studio's most iconic original creation, Mickey Mouse. The result arguably is more in the spirit, at least on a per-minute basis within the short cartoon, of Carroll's nonsense fairy tales than Disney's later, feature-length "Alice in Wonderland" (1951). Although it's in such a hurry to cram as many references to the books, spoofs of popular movies and other silliness into its nine minutes that it can't even be bothered to spell out the word "through," at least, of more importance, Disney spelled Carroll's name correctly this time.
The title and the book-within-the-book explicitly cite Carroll's sequel "Through the Looking Glass," but all of the deck of cards business is from the original "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Specific references to the Alice books include the narrative being framed as a dream, Mickey going through the mirror, his growing bigger and smaller from eating, anthropomorphic creatures (although often quite different ones here than in the books), clock and spiral motifs and the cards, as well as Mickey's and the proceeding's generally playful demeanor. There are even a couple puns made of Mickey's exclamations of "nuts" and "skip it," as well as the "calling all cards." There's some tap dancing, including on a top hat, as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers had recently starred in "Top Hat" (1935), I guess, to compliment the parodying of Busby Berkeley musicals, swashbucklers and war films. The Queen of Hearts somewhat looks like Greta Garbo, perhaps from "Queen Christina" (1933), while the King bears a passing resemblance to Charles Laughton from "The Private Life of Henry VIII" (1933). The Technicolor looks good, too, and there's a nice sound bridge made of the anthropomorphic phone ringing within the mirror dream and the alarm clock going off on the other side. It's a clever and well-constructed cartoon.
The title and the book-within-the-book explicitly cite Carroll's sequel "Through the Looking Glass," but all of the deck of cards business is from the original "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Specific references to the Alice books include the narrative being framed as a dream, Mickey going through the mirror, his growing bigger and smaller from eating, anthropomorphic creatures (although often quite different ones here than in the books), clock and spiral motifs and the cards, as well as Mickey's and the proceeding's generally playful demeanor. There are even a couple puns made of Mickey's exclamations of "nuts" and "skip it," as well as the "calling all cards." There's some tap dancing, including on a top hat, as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers had recently starred in "Top Hat" (1935), I guess, to compliment the parodying of Busby Berkeley musicals, swashbucklers and war films. The Queen of Hearts somewhat looks like Greta Garbo, perhaps from "Queen Christina" (1933), while the King bears a passing resemblance to Charles Laughton from "The Private Life of Henry VIII" (1933). The Technicolor looks good, too, and there's a nice sound bridge made of the anthropomorphic phone ringing within the mirror dream and the alarm clock going off on the other side. It's a clever and well-constructed cartoon.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
