Studio: Walt Disney Productions
Distributor: United Artists
Produced by: Walt Disney
Short Synopsis
A young mouse longs to fly, singing "I Would Like to Be a Bird". He makes wings from two leaves, to the amusement of his brothers, but the wind blows him backwards on to a thorn, and he falls into the washtub just as his mother finishes dressing his sister, soaking them both. Later he rescues a butterfly caught in a spider's web. The butterfly turns out to be a fairy, and to thank him she grants his wish and gives him wings. Delighted, he flies home, but his family are terrified: with wings he looks like a bat, and they shut him out. The birds won't accept him either, and the real bats in a dark cave mock him, chant that he is "nothing but a nothing", and chase him. Desperate, he tears at the wings, wishing he had never asked for them. The fairy returns, takes the wings back, and the little mouse runs home, where his family welcomes him with open arms.
Why It Matters
- The film's use of colour and light carries the story: it is set over the course of a single day, moving from sunny morning to the gloomy cave at night, and the bats' cavern is one of the eeriest scenes in the Silly Symphonies. The mouse's misery as he tries to rip off his wings is genuinely painful to watch.
- The studio set out to make a short with real feeling rather than just gags, at a time when it was trying to match the emotional pull of Three Little Pigs. The story, a wish that alienates its owner until he gives it up, is a template that Disney returned to for decades, and it marks the Silly Symphonies' move into sentimental storytelling.
Notes and Trivia
- Its production number was switched with The Wise Little Hen, Donald Duck's debut, during development in 1933.
- See also: The Goddess of Spring (1934), The Tortoise and the Hare (1935).