"Feed the Birds" is the 12th episode of Season 4 of the new Mickey Mouse (2013) series created by Paul Rudish for the Disney Channel and Disney.com. It's the 70th in the series.
Mickey attempts to feed a smaller bird but is constantly thwarted by a flock of pigeons. Now he must find a way to turn the tables on the bigger birds.
Tropes:
- Asshole Victim: The pigeons in send to the outer space at the end. Consider that they bully Tuppence to no end and then takeover Mickey's house, no sympathetic is granted for them.
- Beak Attack: An unintentional example. When the pigeons kick Tuppence out of his new bird feeder, he ends up hitting a bullseye on a dartboard beak-first, getting his beak stuck. Mickey pulls him free before shooing the pigeons away (though not for long).
- Bookends: Mickey begins and ends the short singing "Feed the Birds."
- The Cameo: Donald Duck appears briefly, partying among the pigeons in Mickey's house.
- For more brief appearances, when the pigeons start flipping through the channels on Mickey's TV, there's a brief appearance of Jafar and the man himself, Walt Disney.
- Determinator: Mickey. The pigeons can bully poor Tuppence, burn his new bird feeder, and kick Mickey out of his own house, but nothing is stopping him to give Tuppence food.
- Feathered Fiend: The pigeons keep stealing Tuppence's food just to be dicks and later end up invading Mickey's house and raiding the food therein.
- Mythology Gag:
- Tuppence, the little bird, is based on the baby bird Snow White befriends in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
- The pigeons' laughter sounds similar to that of Max Hare from the Silly Symphonies short The Tortoise and the Hare.
- A pigeon flips through Mickey's TV channels, showing stills of two scenes from the Disneyland episode "Mars and Beyond," an image of Walt Disney and an image of Jafar from Aladdin.
- Mickey's welcome to the pigeons as they flock to "Birdland" is based directly on Walt Disney's dedication to the opening of Disneyland.
- Oh, Crap!: The pigeons let out a Gasp! of terror as Tuppence launches them to space in the bird-feeder rocket.
- Pesky Pigeons: A flock of pigeons bully Tuppence, a small bird, by denying him any and all food that Mickey tries to feed him. They later fly into Mickey's house, kick him out, and wreck it. Mickey and Tuppence soon get back at the pigeons by trapping them in a rocket disguised as a giant bird feeder and launching them into space.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The entire short is based on the "Feed the Birds" song from Mary Poppins.
