the adorable couple

Season 1, Episode 18: “The Adorable Couple” 3/7/14
Starring: Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Daisy Duck
Guest Appearances by: Goofy, Horace Horsecollar, Clarabelle Cow, Peter Pig and the rest of the band from “The Band Concert”
Cameos by: Belle and the Beast
Setting: Marceline, MI

Plot: Mickey and Minnie are engaged in a delightful, musical stroll down Main Street when the unhappiness and bickering between Donald and Daisy shake the happy couple to their very core.  The cheery mice aren’t about to take this ducky discontent lying down and decide to intervene. 

Despite Mickey and Minnie’s best efforts, their saccharine sunshine is no match for the dreary rain cloud following Donald and Daisy.  Not to be deterred, they turn up the heat and the sunshine is so hot it roasts the ducks beyond recognition.  Donald then chastises Mickey, telling him that he was “happy before” and that “the stupid sunshine ruined everything!”  The mice now realize the error of their ways and figure the only way to get the ducks’ rain back is to fight themselves.   

Ironically, it’s the mice’s comical inability to fight that cheers the ducks up and brings back their mojo.  In fact, they are so delighted with Mickey and Minnie’s squabbling that the sunshine and raincloud come together to make a rainbow and the four of them are left skipping away, happy as can be.  

Short Stuff:
This episode is primarily a musical with just a few lines of spoken dialogue.  

The idyllic setting looks like Disneyland’s Main Street, USA, but is more likely Walt Disney’s hometown of Marceline, MI, which was the inspiration for the aforementioned street.   

A few of Main Street, USA’s, shops are present along with Carnation Plaza Garden’s bandstand and dance floor (which has since been closed/repurposed as Fantasy Faire).  

Actually, while not meant to portray a theme park (notice, they are careful not to include any shots of the castle), I believe the episode was probably filmed at Disneyland.    

Strange choice to give Donald and Daisy German WWII bicycle helmets but it works nonetheless.   

The band is an homage to the famous Mickey Mouse short, “The Band Concert” (1935).  Here, though, Goofy takes the reigns as band leader in lieu of Mickey.  

Thanks to the Beast, we get the most active cameo yet from the Disney animated feature division.  

Mickey and Minnie’s inability to fight (along with Donald’s reaction to it) is one this series finest and most hilarious moments.   

Final Grade: A+
The Season 1 finale contains all of my favourite things: high-concept storytelling (an olde-timey musical), a detailed setting (Marceline, MI), a Disneyland reference (Main Street, USA), a classic Disney film cameo (Belle and Beast), a classic Disney short reference (The Band Concert) and a fantastic ensemble (the Mickey, Minnie/Donald Daisy quartet has quickly become my favourite grouping; even surpassing the Mickey, Donald, Goofy triumvirate).  And, Mickey’s performance here is nothing short of gangbusters!  Oh, and this episode even has a moral to its story: DON’T BE A BUTTINSKI!