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Mickey Mouse Works

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Mickey Mouse Works

Mickey Mouse Works (also known as Disney's Mickey Mouse Works or simply Mouse Works) is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation featuring Mickey Mouse and his friends in a series of animated shorts. Roy Disney (chairman of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in that moment), working closely with Disney Television's Los Angeles-based senior vice president, Barry Blumberg, and executive producers Roberts Gannaway and Tony Craig, created an opening sequence in which music would be played by the characters, similar to the early Mickey Mouse cartoons. Production began in January 1998, and Mickey Mouse Works, a weekly half-hour series scheduled to premiere in January 1999, was produced by an animation team assigned exclusively to create new adventures for Disney's most famous characters.

The first Disney television animated series to be produced in widescreen high definition, it is formatted as a variety show, with skits starring Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Goofy, Pluto and Ludwig Von Drake while other characters from the Mickey Mouse universe appear as supporting or minor characters. Musical themes for each character were composed by Stephen James Taylor with a live 12-piece band and extensive use of the fretless guitar to which the music of the series was nominated for an Annie Award in both 1999 and 2001. Most of the shorts from the series were later used in House of Mouse.

As Mickey Mouse's first revival series, Mickey Mouse Works was produced to recreate the golden age of Disney's animated shorts featuring Disney's most popular characters. By using basic colors and the original sound effects, effort was put forth to capture the look and feel of "classic" Disney.

Each half-hour episode consisted of various short cartoons that fell into three general types: 90-second gag cartoons, 7-and-a-half-minute character cartoons, and 12-minute "Mouse Tales" based on famous stories. The character-based segments also included "Silly Symphonies", carrying on the tradition of that series of theatrical shorts.

The gag shorts, which lasted 90 seconds each, were shown with the following umbrella titles:

With no established schedule or routine, Mickey Mouse Works was designed to look like one spontaneous flow. Adding to that feeling were the show's opening credits which ended differently each week, the only constant being an elaborate interruption from a spotlight-stealing Donald Duck.

While most skits involved individual characters, some have Mickey, Donald and Goofy running a special service group. Most Goofy skits have him doing a "how-to" segment always accompanied by a narrator. Most Donald segments were about him trying to accomplish a certain task which never works out right, frustrating him. Some stories were set to a specific theme for a specific character, but with differing scenarios – for example, one set focused on Mickey seeking to rescue Minnie from Pete, against a different obstacle in each short, while another set focused on Pluto's efforts to get Mickey his paper while facing a different problem.

When the show was replaced by House of Mouse in January 2001, most of the Mouse Works segments were repeated there but the original Mickey Mouse Works format has never been seen again.

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