"House of Tomorrow" is the second episode of The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse.
Mickey, Donald and Goofy experience tomorrow's technology today when they sneak into Professor Von Drake's latest invention.
Tropes:
- Actor Allusion: Alan Tudyk is no stranger to voicing A.I.s that turn evil. He’s also well-known amongst Disney aficionados for playing rather unsavory characters.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The A.I. turns evil, as Donald foretold.
- Call-Back: This marks the gang's fourth visit to Von Drake's Hall of Science after "Down the Hatch", "Split Decisions" and "Outta Time".
- Chekhov's Gag: Early on, Mickey advises Goofy not to overload the house A.I. with so many requests. Later, when the A.I. traps them in the house, Mickey gets the idea to overload it by giving Goofy permission to bombard it with needs.
- Dark Reprise: The A.I. sings a sinister version of "There's A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" when trapping Mickey.
- Foreshadowing: Donald initially doesn't want to enter the House of Tomorrow, as he worries (rightfully so, as it turns out) that technology always goes bad.
- Get Out!: When Mickey, Donald and Goofy flood the A.I. with needs, rather than exploding or shutting down, it simply tosses them out on their keisters.A.I.: I've got a need. I need you to GET OUT!
- It Was His Sled: Invoked and played for laughs; Mickey hasn't finished Bambi — a book with a plot point made infamous and ubiquitous by the Disney adaptation — yet, so the A.I. just does away with his desire to read anything by spoiling it for him.
- Mythology Gag:
- This cartoon uses "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" as its theme.
- The house's exterior is based on the Monsanto House of the Future, which operated at Disneyland from 1957 to 1967.
- Mickey tries to read Bambi, but the A.I. spoils it by saying "His mother dies."
- One of the creepy portraits of Minnie is a photo of a freaky-looking mascot costume from the 1930s.
- Mickey's request for "Dixieland Jazz" may seem offbeat, but the Walt Disney Animation department really did have its own dixieland jazz band
in the 1950s. They even played at Disneyland!
- Shout-Out: The A.I.'s idea of "laser acupuncture" is slamming Donald onto an operating table and slowly aiming a laser towards his crotch, a la Goldfinger.
- Spiteful Spoiler: Just as Mickey is getting engrossed in Bambi, the A.I. tells him that Bambi's mother dies just to make sure Mickey stops reading.
- Yandere: The house AI begins to act possessive as soon as Mickey mentions that Minnie is his girlfriend. Smacking her picture from his hands and even going so far as to draw distorted ugly paintings of her at one point.
