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alt title(s): Soundtrack Synchronization; Music Punctuates Action
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Scoring a segment such that the music punctuates the physical motions occurring. This is a technical term coined in the early days of animation, though the practice of synchronizing actions to the rhythm of the music goes back much earlier.
This is not the same as a Leitmotif, which is a particular theme tied to a character, object, or idea. It is also not the same as the use of music to express emotions. It only counts as Mickey Mousing if the music is timed to - and usually similar in contour to - the actions on screen. (The confusion is understandable. First of all, the concepts are not exclusive: there's no reason why a leitmotif couldn't be timed to Mickey Mouse a particular scene, and the classic bass-pizzicato-timed-to-sneaky-footsteps Mickey Mousing cue expresses the emotion of sneakiness as well as it matches the physical action. Second, almost any well-written piece of film music will "catch" a few of the actions taking place onscreen — in fact, even a randomly selected piece of music will do this somewhat. To really count as Mickey Mousing, it needs to be very tightly synchronized.)
In a slapstick cartoon, this can be used as a complete substitute for the normal sound effects. In live action this is more commonly used alongside the normal sound effects, making it seem like a choreographed dance. In either case the effect is usually comedic, whether this was intentional or not, which is why the term is often used as a pejorative in film scoring circles.
For videogames where the player can cause Mickey Mousing, see Musical Gameplay.
See also Musical Chores, Standard Snippet, Theme Music Power Up. Compare Variable Mix. May be used in conjunction with Sorry I Left The BGM On.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- This is very glaringly obvious (and audibly jarring) in anime that's given an entirely new music track when it's dubbed, especially those handled by 4Kids. Then end result gives the show a Tom-and-Jerry-trapped-in-the-eighties feel. This is usually done to save money, but also to remove potential gaps in the original music caused by cuts and edits.
- Justified with the "Both Of You Dance Like You Want To Win" attack in Neon Genesis Evangelion. Shinji and Asuka must fight an Angel that splits in two and can only be killed by destroying both pieces simultaneously. It's decided the best way to do this is to have them perform an attack choreographed to the rhythm of a piece of music.
- Blue Submarine Number Six does this. Repeat with me: naval battles punctuated with bossanova.
Film
Live Action TV
- Spoofed a bit in Scrubs, episode 2: "My Mentor". The episode starts off with JD sitting in a chair listening to music, and all of a sudden the actions of the people around him seem to be synchronized with it — Elliot tapping an IV, nurses making beds. Finally he is interrupted by Dr Kelso yelling "ARE YOU HAVING A GOOD TIME?!", the exact words of the lyrics at that point.
- Done very often in Latin American soap operas, where, for example, in a scene with dialogue against music with lyrics, speech and singing will alternate, resulting in a pretty neat scene.
- In a rare live action example, The Dick Van Dyke Show used it to great effect — but then, Dick Van Dyke is something of a walking cartoon when he wants to be.
- The '60s Batman TV series, along with many other cheesy movies of the decade, tended to feature obnoxious, brass-heavy music during fight scenes, which would provide a stinger chord for every punch that landed.
- In the Firefly episode "Safe," the semi-Celtic-style folk music River dances to in one scene happens to synch up beautifully to the fight scene occurring over with Mal and the crew.
- Malcolm In The Middle plays with this trope in the episode "Kicked Out," where the nephew of Francis' employers does this to Francis with a keyboard, which drives him crazy.
- Done during the Buffy The Vampire Slayer's silent episode, Hush, despite also having sound effects.
- Unusual example from Your Show of Shows: Sid Caesar and Nanette Fabray playing a married couple arguing to the tune of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Watch it here.
- Done once in Two And A Half Men, with Charlie behind the piano, slowly but surely driving poor Allen insane.
- The absolutely classic Morecambe And Wise Breakfast sketch.
- Often the music in Jeeves And Wooster, particularly during Bertie's schemes, would complement the action quite well.
- Complement the action well? Or cause the action to seem like a dance choreographed to the music? If it's the former, it's not Mickey Mousing.
- Spoofed in The Facts Of Life: The episode, a parody of slasher/horror films, features Tootie sneaking through the house, with pizzicato strings accompanying her every step. Finally she gets fed up and yells at the music conductor: "Do you MIND? I'm TRYING TO SNEAK UP ON SOMEONE!"
- A favorite comedic device of Ernie Kovacs was having musical interludes in which mundane objects would move in time to the music. E.g. his "Kitchen Symphony".
Radio
Theatre
- In How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, the whine of electric razors is musically rendered as a chorus of kazoos, to the melody of "I Believe In You."
- Probably not really this trope, unless the choreographer has them somehow shaving in time to the melody.
- Cho Chang's introduction in A Very Potter Musical is timed to the music (especially the classic "Bitch, I ain't Cho Chang!"/"Racist sister!" exchange).
Video Games
Games should only be included if their case of Mickey Mousing isn't Musical Gameplay.
- Happens often in the Kirby series, most notably in 64: The Crystal Shard's cutscenes. Super Star Ultra attempted it in places, but in several occasions, most jarringly in the cutscene that occurs wherein you find Nova, the music is just baaaarely out of sync with the video.
- In the Sly Cooper series, sneaking up on an enemy would shift the music volume down and play a series of single notes in time with each step the player took.
- The "Record of the Graylands Incident" in Vagrant Story, which serves as the opening sequence of the game, punctuates dramatic events with musical cues, from Ashley's first appearance in the game to Sydney's wyvern D'Tok crashing through the chapel's ceiling.
- Odd World does this in games featuring Abe, with a dramatic drumbeat whenever he starts chanting.
- Banjo-Kazooie does it at the beginning of the game with the Nintendo 64 logo walking across the screen. For the X-Box Live Arcade version, however, it was removed for obvious reasons, so we just get Mickey Mousing without visual accompaniment. No, really.
- In the Touhou series, various events and bosses are partially scripted to coincide with the music:
- One of Kogasa Tatara's appearances coincides with the sound of Youkai giggling in Undefined Fantastic Object.
- Hina's first appearance in Mountain of Faith is timed to coincide with 0:20 of her stage theme, when the tone of the music changes,
- Some other boss spellcards are timed to match the tempo of their leitmotifs very well.
- Perfect Cherry Blossom stage 4 has shifts to coincide with Lily White's appearance (which is also when the background starts to turn white) and the pause at the end of the stage before the boss battle.
- Actually, it loops when stage scroll stops and Reimu/Marisa/Sakuya approaches the gate to Netherworld, just before the boss battle. The effect of music returning to the slow pace at that moment is epic, to say the least.
- In fact, many stages are scripted to exactly correspond to the music, to the extent where the game will throws out bonus enemies for you to destroy if you kill the midboss quickly, and sometimes skip midboss patterns if you kill them too slowly, all in attempts to perfectly synchronize the stages with their themes (assuming your game isn't running slowly for some reason, that is).
- Inverted in New Super Mario Bros: The Goombas and Koopa Troopas, as well as the powerups, interact to the music.
- In Sonic Unleashed, specifically in "The First Night" cutscene around 1:25. Please pay no mind to Dan Green crying.
- Ikaruga mickey-mouses its music to the scripted events of the levels.
Web Animation
- A fun Flash animation example: Shoo Fly.
- Reasonably common. Another good example would be The Nut Job. Word Of God confirms that a certain scene in Katan has arrows simply because the artist heard appropriate sounds in the music used.
- Sort of at the end of Meet the Spy; you can hear his stabs in time with the Team Fortress 2 theme music!
- Another example found in the Flash Tarboy. The titular hero is creeping along in a dark storage facility, tracked by an insect-like robot. Their footsteps and actions mesh with the song pefectly, and are even sound coded.
- An easter egg at the end of an episode of Teen Girl Squad syncs up dialogue in time with the background theme:
I miss video games.
I miss my mom.
I miss video games.
I—I—I miss my mom.
Western Animation
Other
- The album Suspended Animation by Fantomas could be described as "children's metal" and was written after Mike Patton realized that you can tell what's going on in a cartoon that's playing in another room simply by listening to the music.
- One very memorable piece of Demoscene music is an S3M file titled "Catch that goblin!!" by Skaven of the Future Crew. It's a perfect example of Mickey Mousing, even though there isn't any video footage to go with it. The piece sounds very cartoony, with the composer's selection of instruments and sound effects. It really does sound like it could have been taken from a cartoon, but it's actually all mixed in realtime by the computer.
- The Demoscene in general takes Mickey Mousing very seriously. Watch some of the better demos, and you can see that the team responsible went to a lot of effort to synchronise the graphics to the music. When you consider that some of the routines used could be either very slow or fast, depending on the computer running the demo, the synchronisation is even more impressive.
- One of the most common examples of mickey mousing are found in music players themselves where there's usually a set of bars which expand on every beat.
- Technically, that's a Fourier Transform of the last fraction of a second of audio data, with the bar lengths corresponding to intensity of sound frequencies present in the audio.
- Happens almost unnervingly well in this You Tube video. Who knew The War Of The Worlds synchronised so well with Yackety Sax?
- This advertisement hangs a lampshade on the idea, by combining it with Sorry I Left The BGM On.
- A stand-up routine by Bill Bailey explains how scoring childrens cartoons is a low point for a session xylophone player.
"What's the mouse doing now, going up a hill? Right," * deedlydeedlydeedlydeedlydeedlydeedly ding!* "Oh, now it's coming back down," * doodlydoodlydoodlydoodlydoodlydoodly dum!* * sighs*
- Happens a lot in trailers for films with lots of action sequences, normally with bits from lots of different scenes. For example, a trailer for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World has cuts from a few of the 'boss battles' to the beat of 'Invaders Must Die' by Prodigy.
- Used in this Goblins review.
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