"Now I wanna remind everyone of the House of Mouse rules: No smoking, no villainous schemes, and no guests eating other guests." — Mickey Mouse
In 1998, the stars of the Classic Disney Shorts returned to starring in regular cartoon shorts. But rather than being made to play right before selected movies in theaters (although a few of them actually premiered there anyway), these new cartoons were going to be shown alongside other Disney cartoons like Recess and Pepper Ann. Mickey and the gang's new show, titled Mickey MouseWorks, made its debut on ABC's One Saturday Morning programming block on May 1, 1999. It followed a Three Shorts format, with each five-minute short starring one of Mickey's gang, and even mixing characters who rarely, if ever, interacted in the older cartoons (i.e. Mickey taking care of Donald's nephews or Mickey trying to impress Minnie when he thinks she's leaving him for José Carioca). Sometimes, the characters starred in newly-made installments of the Silly Symphonies, in which the stories were set entirely to music and without dialogue. Once an Episode, there would also be one or two 90-second gag shorts with the following umbrella titles:
Mickey to the Rescue: Mickey breaks into Pete's not-at-all-secret hideout to rescue Minnie from the traps within.
Maestro Minnie: Minnie conducts shortened musical pieces with a rather rebellious orchestra.
Donald's Dynamite: Someone apparently has it out for Donald Duck, because he keeps finding lit bombs in the middle of his activities.
Von Drake's House of Genius: Ludwig Von Drake shows off his latest invention, which then backfires in some way. Hilarity Ensues.
Pluto Gets the Paper: Pluto has humorous incidents while trying to fetch Mickey's newspaper.
In addition, MouseWorks also occasionally ran shorts that ran twice the usual length, dubbed Mouse Tales, in which the characters performed classic stories they hadn't already done adaptations for.Reception to Mickey MouseWorks was generally mixed among the fans of the characters. There were folks who believed the show was indeed a worthy Spiritual Successor to the theatrical shorts it was based on, but there were others who complained that maybe Mickey and friends' new adventures were trying too hard to be likethe competition, and that the good things that came up were just rehashed from the original shorts. It is generally agreed, though, that the series' finest episode was the double-length short "Mickey Foils the Phantom Blot", a loose adaptation of a Floyd Gottfredson storyline from the Mickey Mouse comic strip.Regardless of what everyone thought of MouseWorks, it received a major ReTooling in the middle of its third season. On January 13, 2001, Mickey MouseWorks was replaced with a new series titled Disney's House of Mouse, and this time, the cartoon shorts were being presented with a framing device.The concept of House of Mouse was that Mickey and his friends were now running an eponymous nightclub, whose entertainment consisted of special musical guests and showing the cartoon shorts produced for MouseWorks (some of which had not aired previously) to an audience of Disney characters. The guests consisted almost entirely of characters from all of the Disney Animated Canon films up to 2001's Atlantis: The Lost Empire (and none of the Pixar films, for obvious reasons), and sometimes characters from the Silly Symphonies shorts (mostly "Three Little Pigs", though). The series did feature cameo appearances by characters from other Disney TV cartoons (Pepper Ann and her mom are seen outside the House in the first episode), the comic books (Scrooge McDuck bought the House in one episode), theme park attractions (the Hitchhiking Ghosts, also in the first episode), and even live-action movies (Herbie from The Love Bug, Benny the Cab from Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the lightcycles from TRON in "Max's New Car"), but these were few and far between. Curiously, unlike the later Lilo & Stitch: The Series, House of Mouse also did not do any Crossovers with other currently-running Disney cartoons like Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and Lloyd in Space.A recurring plot thread to House of Mouse was the threat of the nasty landlord, Pete. He intends to close and tear the House down (what he intends to construct in its place is never mentioned), but this is a goal he cannot obtain because his contract states that he cannot tear the House down so long as Mickey and the gang have an audience to perform for. Thus, in almost every episode he's in, Pete hatches some Evil Scheme to drive the audience away, ranging from sabotaging the entertainment to contaminating the air conditioning with Pumbaa's fart-gas.52 episodes of House of Mouse were produced, but only half of them were aired on One Saturday Morning before it was revamped and replaced with ABC Kids in September 2002. As a result, House of Mouse was taken off of ABC and moved to the Disney Channel and Toon Disney, where the remaining 26 episodes aired alongside the previously aired ones as well. During the show's run, a few MouseWorks shorts were packaged with some of the classic shorts onto video compilations, but had their title cards cut out and replaced with newly-made framing animation, and were advertised as two direct-to-video movies - Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse and Mickey's House of Villains.
Animated Actors: Implied; the characters don't exactly act the same way in the House of Mouse as they do in their films, especially the villains. (The worst thing Jafar does is turn Donald into a literalLarge Ham).
Carnivore Confusion: Mickey states that one of the rules is "No guests eating other guests". Pumbaa then makes Timon spit out Jiminy Cricket.
Casting Gag: Mike, the sentient microphone announcer for the show, was voiced by the late Rod Roddy, who was well known as an announcer, specifically on The Price Is Right.
Catch Phrase: Black-and-white character Dennis the Duck's catchphrase is "Have a sandwich!" In-universe it's famous enough that Daisy asked him to write it in her autograph book.
Chain of Deals: Subverted in "Rent Day" — Mickey wants a book to give to Belle, in return for the Beast's enchanted rose for Aladdin to give to Jasmine, in return for a carpet ride home for Cinderella, in return for a pumpkin for the Headless Horseman to use as a head, in return for a sword for Arthur, in return for Merlin's 50 bucks so Mickey can pay off the rent, but Yen Sid refuses.
Christmas Episode: "Pete's Christmas Caper" and "Clarabelle's Christmas List", plus the aforementioned Christmas "movie".
Clark Kenting: Just like in the comic books that the episode was based on, no one figures out that Super Goof is Goofy.
Mickey eventually figures it out. Clarabelle thinks she worked out who he was, but wrongly guesses he's Dumbo based solely on the fact that they both fly and eat peanuts.
Couch Gag: Before the show's opening starts, Mike the Microphone usually says something that may relate to the episode about to be shown. For example, he said "It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Disney's House of Mouse!" before the episode that featured Super Goof.
Deadpan Snarker: The magic mirror, but everyone gains a sharp tongue in this show.
Also, the opening conversation of "Dining Goofy".
Mickey: Today's show is about technology.(his cell phone starts to make electronic beeping noises) Wilhelmina Packard: (while in front of a WWII radio) And this isn't hi tech, honey?.
Deus ex Machina: How Jafar is defeated in House of Villains.
Does He Have A Sister?: Lumiere asks this of Daisy when she says she's dating Donald, whom she describes as "the third candelabra" (her mispronunciation of "caballero").
Flanderization: Quite a bit for several of the movie characters (the most obvious one being Gaston, who's basically turned into a living Running Gag), mostly thanks to the many Shout Outs to their original movies.
Go Karting with Bowser: Both the heroes and villains from the various Disney movies wine and dine at the House of Mouse. Hades even single-handedly prevents it from going under at one point by staying during a heatwave, ensuring they have an audience.
Jafar also gets a chance to save it. When Daisy fails epically at magic and makes it disappear, Jafar shows up (he was late, which is why Daisy tried to do magic in the first place to replace his act) and sings a nearly disturbing cover of Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo.
Gossip Evolution: A compliment to Minnie uttered by Mickey, which he says he can be quoted on, turns into an insult to Minnie after this trope is through with it.
The Grinch: Donald acts like one of these in the Christmas 'movie'.
Held Gaze: In the episode Max's Embarrassing Date, Max and Roxanne stare into each other's eyes before they Almost Kiss, wherein Minnie interrupts them.
There's actually a main reason why she had to be shown in her queen dress at the end of the film: her princess outfit is actually too "adult" to be shown in a child-friendly show by Disney. Too bad Cree Summer's not there to voice her.
Pete has a Hostile Show Takeover at one point as well, and in another episode Scrooge McDuck buys the club and nearly drives everyone away by being so stingy.
Ho Yay: At the start of the Valentine's Day episode, Pumbaa, taking Mickey's "grab your sweetie and give 'em a smooch" line seriously, puckers his lips, but Timon tells him, "Don't even think about it!"
Hades comments on it in one episode. His attitude on the subject clearly hasn't changed since he and Jafar teamed up.
Hypocritical Humor: Max has a hard time driving a car and narrowly avoids crashing into another car, whose occupant screams "Watch it, you maniac!" The other driver? Cruella de Vil.
In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It: Almost every Disney cartoon show has had "Disney's" prefacing the title, but House of Mouse is always referred to as Disney's House of Mouse on Wikipedia.
Jail Bake: One cartoon has Mickey ask Goofy to do this after Mickey is locked in jail. The guard notices; and he and Goofy end up having a long discussion on how this wouldn't really work and what tools should have been used, ending with the guard concluding that the easiest way to escape would be to knock him out. The guard then proceeds to do so to himself.
Jerkass: Mrs. Turtle and Baby Shelby towards Mickey.
Baloo, Mushu and Captain Hook towards Goofy as well.
Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: King Larry, King Louie's twin brother, is used as Louis Prima's estate is entitled to royalties should King Louie make an animated appearance anywhere.
Least Common Pizza Topping: In the episode where Goofy had to teach Max how to be a waiter, he sings "Hold the anchovies!" about an order for Ariel.
Legion of Doom: Jafar banding the villains together in House of Villains.
Limited Wardrobe: The characters dress the same almost every single night (except in the Halloween episodes, of course).
Meat O Vision: When dinner is late, the guests start seeing their dining companions as roast chickens, save for the chicken character who appears like a bug when seen by Timon and Pumbaa.
Medium Awareness: All the cartoon characters know they're cartoons. Lampshaded by everything everywhere.
My Hair Came Out Green: In one short, Minnie Mouse accidentally dyes Pluto's fur purple after mistaking a bottle of purple dye for shampoo. She then tries to find ways to get the purple dye off, including painting the dog with a can of "Pluto-colored Paint" (which is the same shade of orange as Pluto's fur).
Mythology Gag: Many jokes with the guests are references to their respective movies. There are also several jokes that reference the past works of Mickey and the rest of the staff.
Negative Continuity: Guests at the House of Mouse aren't restricted to one specific form. Simba regularly flip-flops between his cub and adult forms, and Ariel makes appearances in both human and mermaid form. Not to mention all the many villain guests that died in their movies.
And Jafar can drive the Cave of Wonders, in spite of the original Cave of Wonders neither moving nor letting Jafar in.
Plus, for any Beauty and the Beast characters, they all appear as their enchanted selves — for example, the Beast is still a beast and Lumiere and Cogsworth are still a candelabra and a clock, respectively.
In the first episode after Minnie said "The crowd is turning ugly.", Beast in his human form turns back into a beast.
In one episode, Figaro is shown as Minnie's pet in the same show where his usual owner Geppetto is a regular.
Never My Fault: When Daisy finds out that Donald paid Mickey to put her act on stage, she quits because that's not how she wants to get her break; Donald responds to this by blaming Mickey for getting her mad at him.
Overly-Long Name: Panchito of The Three Caballeros sings a song about how he got his previously unmentioned full name of Panchito Romero Miguel Junipero Francisco Quintero González.
Parental Bonus: Many agree that Hades gets the wittiest and most mature dialogue.
The Chip 'n Dale Dancers.
Parody Commercial: Almost every episode ended with Mic performing one of these, announcing the fake product which had sponsored that particular episode. For example, there was "Disney Magic", a spritz which was guaranteed to make even the grouchiest person smile; the product was then demonstrated, transforming Grumpy the dwarf into Happy the dwarf.
Punch Clock Villain: Most of the Disney baddies appear to be these, at least in this show. When they're at the club, they're off the clock and — for the most part — are just relaxing.
And even when they do do something bad, it doesn't even compare to the attrocities they committed in their respective films (for example, Jafar in the Mickey's House of Villains film merely uniting the other villains to take over the House of Mouse when in Aladdin, he tried to have the title character drowned.
Puppy-Dog Eyes: Max uses these in order to finally get a car from Goofy.
Read The Fine Print: It is repeatedly stated that as long as Mickey and company put on a show, they get to keep the club.
Real Person Cameo: At one point, during a song by Ludwig Von Drake about the guests in the club, Roy E. Disney gets mentioned and even appears as an animated character.
Rebus Bubble: Mickey does this to figure out that Mortimer has played him for a sap.
Running Gag: Thomas O'Malley and the Alley Cats from The Aristocats are constantly invited to perform at the House, but something always happens that results in their act being cancelled.
Also "nobody (does X) like Gaston."
Scenery Censor: Goofy wrote the lyrics for a song he's singing on cards attached to various part of his body. He removes the clothes that hides these cards (including his Goofy Print Underwear) until the cards are the only thing hiding his dignity.
Screw Yourself: Averted when Prof. Von Drake makes an Opposite Sex Clone of himself as an example of his perfect mate who is "exactly like (him)".
Of all the films that were referenced in that show, Alice in Wonderland was referenced the most (33+ characters in all), while Tarzan was referenced the least (only one character, Tantor the elephant appeared).
There's actually a reason why the least characters featured here came from Tarzan: At the same time as this show's debut, there was another show that was based on this film called The Legend Of Tarzan.
Suicide As Comedy: Dennis the Duck, depressed that Donald dislikes him, attempts to rub himself out with an eraser. Donald finds him and re-draws him over and over as Dennis continues to erase himself.
Thememobile: Several characters who didn't have a vehicle in their movie are given a thematic car in House of Mouse. When Jafar isn't utterly breaking canon by the aforementioned driving-the-Cave-of-Wonders, he has a snake car.
Took a Level in Badass: Mickey in House Of Villains. When his usual cheerful diplomatic nature is laughed off by the roster of villains, the mouse finds his old Fantasia wizard hat, and starts throwing fireballs in a Tennis Boss match against Jafar.
The Trope Formerly Known as X: The Duck Formerly Known As Donald. The whole incident inspired Mickey to close out the episode as "The Mouse Currently Known As Mickey".
Unholy Matrimony: There's a Hades/Maleficent episode. Hades wants to impress Maleficent and Mickey gives him advice that only makes the situation worse. But when Hades gets mad at Mickey and stops being nice, Maleficent likes him and the two of them leave together. It ends with Mickey giving the (rather broken) message "Even if you're a bad-tempered lord of the underworld, you should always be yourself!"
The same episode has a great Funny Moment, when Hades emerges from Mickey's dressing room dressed as Mickey, which comes down to a Mickey Mouse hat, a pair of big shoes, big while gloves, and Mickey's red pants. And nothing else!Here.Take a look◊.
Villain-Based Franchise: Because of the disastrous box office failure of The Black Cauldron, the Horned King and his henchmen are the only characters from that film to actually appear in this show.
Jafar gets his own one, too, and it must be seen to be believed. 5:01 onwards
The House of Villains Halloween Special has one for all the Disney villains: It's our house now!
The Villain Sucks Song: "Mortimer, Mortimer, Mortimer Mouse" in House Of Mouse — was originally a song penned by Mortimer to sing his own praises, but Daisy, Clarabelle and Minnie reworked the lyrics because as they were, the audience was not buying it.
Visual Pun: Happens quite a lot. For example, "The crowd is turning ugly!" (cue cut to Prince Adam turning back into a beast) and two line sketches saying that Mickey is lucky to be "overdrawn" because "We're not done yet!"
What Happened to the Mouse?: Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed In at The House Of Mouse ends with everyone still snowed in at the House Of Mouse, but at least Donald has "Christmas spirit" now.
Witch with a Capital B: Daisy tries to move some villains to different seats and Hades says "Witch" in this tone. It doubles as Insult Friendly Fire since he's sitting with Jafar, Ursula, and the queen from Snow White.
A Worldwide Punomenon: Aside from being anthropomorphic, the technology in the house seems to run entirely on this. One time, the battery for the main power went dead, until being startled awake by the Minnie and co charging it. Another time, Pete's evil plan revolved around taking money the thermostat owed him until it was broke.
There could probably be a whole page devoted to puns in House of Mouse. Here's another example:
Geppetto: I didn't get a wink of sleep last night.
Pinocchio: I slept like a log!
You Meddling Kids: Pete quotes the Scooby-Doo villains when Donald foils one of his plots to shut down the House.
Artistic License - Geography: In "Mickey's Rival Returns", Mickey is flung into the sky where you can see a few states which are labeled... completely wrong. For example, Nevada has New York written on it and New Mexico is labeled as Florida.
Art Shift: Donald briefly turns into a CGI when getting sucked into his computer in "computer.don".
Author Guest Spot: The nasty fax Mickey intended to send to Mortimer ends up going to Roy Disney.
Badly Battered Babysitter: Happens to Donald (and in one House storyline, Mickey) when he has to babysit Shelby the Turtle. Then we have the Mickey, Donald and Goofy cartoon "Babysitters"...
Cardboard Prison: In the short where Mortimer frames Mickey for theft, he easily escapes from prison because the prison guard stupidly demonstrates the easiest way for a person to bust out (which is to knock him out and take the keys).
Canis Latinicus: Goofy, in a biking cartoon, is introduced as "Goofilious Bike-Pedalous".
Couch Gag: Donald constantly tries to finish the Mickey MouseWorks title sequence with a display reading "Starring Donald Duck", which always backfires in some way.
Exact Words: In one Pluto Gets the Paper short, Mortimer tricks Pluto to get into a taxi to which he tells the driver to take Pluto "to the other side of town and step on it." The taxi moves...a few feet and then Pluto gets off. Mortimer soon realizes why; he sent Pluto to "The Other Side of Town" street and "Step on It" lane!
Foe Yay: Happens when Mickey accidentally sends Mortimer a sweet fax that was meant for Minnie.
Gilligan Cut: Donald says no to the idea of dressing up like Daisy in "Mickey's Big Break". One clockwise screen wipe later...
Goofy Print Underwear: Goofy tends to lose his pants quite a bit, and underneath it's always white boxers with red hearts.
I Lied: The narrator to a Nutcracker special goads Donald into playing the role of the mouse king by saying that he'll win in the end. When he doesn't, the narrator claims to have "made a mistake."
Jerkass: Donald, sometimes. Daisy, particularly in one short where she took over Minnie's house.
Mad Scientist: The customer in the short "Organ Donors".
Noodle Incident: In the cartoon "Pluto's Seal Deal", Mickey mentions to Pluto to not have another incident with him saying at the end "No firetrucks and no news crew."
Not What It Looks Like: Minnie and Daisy come home to see both Mickey and Donald cross dressing while Goofy (with his pants down) takes their photo in "Mickey's Big Break".
Sound Effect Bleep: Goofy shouting at an umpire uses his air horn to censor out (supposedly) foul language.
Split-Screen Phone Call: In "Mickey's Big Break", Mickey pushes the split screen off while Goofy shouts in surprise at being shoved off.
Totem Pole Trench: Huey, Duey and Louie want to get on a ride in a theme park that Donald is guarding and says they're too small for. In one scene Donald sees a very tall woman wobbling about and approaching the ride. Donald stops the "woman" and rips off her dress to find she's just a really tall now naked unbalanced woman. Donald then gets punched in the face.
Unmoving Plaid: When the Phantom Blot became the Phantom Rainbow.
Visual Pun: In "Organ Donors", the toy maker explains to Mickey that he needs an organ (aka innards) after he explains this, Mickey exclaims that he has a screw loose. Then we see that the machine has a screw loose, which is then screwed tight.
Wholesome Crossdresser: In "Mickey's Big Break", Mickey and Donald use the fact that they're only a few Tertiary Sexual Characteristics away from being Minnie and Daisy's twins in order to replace a picture that they ruined. Donald doesn't get it right the first time, though, because his first attempt at looking like Daisy has hair and breasts larger than Daisy's! Mickey doesn't fare as well either, having a floppy ribbon bow and the wrong kind of shoes. Their second attempts hit much closer to home.
You Say Tomato: The song "Me the Mouse and I'm the Duck".
Regardless of what everyone thought of MouseWorks, it received a major ReTooling in the middle of its third season. On January 13, 2001, Mickey MouseWorks was replaced with a new series titled Disney's House of Mouse, and this time, the cartoon shorts were being presented with a framing device.The concept of House of Mouse was that Mickey and his friends were now running an eponymous nightclub, whose entertainment consisted of special musical guests and showing the cartoon shorts produced for MouseWorks (some of which had not aired previously) to an audience of Disney characters. The guests consisted almost entirely of characters from all of the Disney Animated Canon films up to 2001's Atlantis: The Lost Empire (and none of the Pixar films, for obvious reasons), and sometimes characters from the Silly Symphonies shorts (mostly "Three Little Pigs", though). The series did feature cameo appearances by characters from other Disney TV cartoons (Pepper Ann and her mom are seen outside the House in the first episode), the comic books (Scrooge McDuck bought the House in one episode), theme park attractions (the Hitchhiking Ghosts, also in the first episode), and even live-action movies (Herbie from The Love Bug, Benny the Cab from Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the lightcycles from TRON in "Max's New Car"), but these were few and far between. Curiously, unlike the later Lilo & Stitch: The Series, House of Mouse also did not do any Crossovers with other currently-running Disney cartoons like Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and Lloyd in Space.A recurring plot thread to House of Mouse was the threat of the nasty landlord, Pete. He intends to close and tear the House down (what he intends to construct in its place is never mentioned), but this is a goal he cannot obtain because his contract states that he cannot tear the House down so long as Mickey and the gang have an audience to perform for. Thus, in almost every episode he's in, Pete hatches some Evil Scheme to drive the audience away, ranging from sabotaging the entertainment to contaminating the air conditioning with Pumbaa's fart-gas.52 episodes of House of Mouse were produced, but only half of them were aired on One Saturday Morning before it was revamped and replaced with ABC Kids in September 2002. As a result, House of Mouse was taken off of ABC and moved to the Disney Channel and Toon Disney, where the remaining 26 episodes aired alongside the previously aired ones as well. During the show's run, a few MouseWorks shorts were packaged with some of the classic shorts onto video compilations, but had their title cards cut out and replaced with newly-made framing animation, and were advertised as two direct-to-video movies - Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse and Mickey's House of Villains.
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