The Barn Dance was an animated short starring Mickey Mouse. It was released in 1929 by Celebrity Productions. It was the fourth cartoon in the Mickey Mouse series.
Mickey and Pete arrive at Minnie's house to pick her and go to the barn dance in their vehicles, Mickey driving a horse-cart while Pete drives a newly purchased automobile. Impressed with the novelty of Pete's vehicle, Minnie chooses him over Mickey, but she changes quickly her mind after Pete's car immediately hits a nearby tree and gets destroyed in the accident, forcing her to choose Mickey.
As they travel to the barn dance, both mice try to get an intimate moment between them but become annoyed by the donkey's tail hitting them while kissing, which Mickey tries to fix by adding a weight onto the donkey's tail, and once this fails, he stretches the donkey's neck to make his tail short, fixing the problem
At the Barn Dance, Mickey proves to be a clumsy dancer, repeatedly crushing Minnie's feet and legs with his poor dancing skills. Unimpressed with Mickey's performance, Minnie rejects him and picks up Pete for the second dance, who proves himself to be a better dancer as both have a great time. Desperate to regain Minnie's attention, Mickey places a balloon on his shorts to improve his dancing skills and deceive her, which he initially succeeds, but Pete quickly discovers his trick, and points it out to Minnie after he destroys Mickey's balloon with a nail. Disgusted with Mickey's deception, Minnie knocks him with her rear and finally dumps Mickey for Pete. The short ends with Mickey turning to the camera and whimpers while tearing up.
This short is notable for featuring Mickey turned down by Minnie in favor of Pete.
This short saw an unusual change of Pete's personality in this short; he is usually depicted as a menacing villain, but here he is portrayed as a well-mannered gentleman.
In addition, Mickey was not depicted as a hero but as a rather ineffective young suitor. In his sadness and crying over his failure, Mickey appears unusually emotional and vulnerable.
When Mickey's feet grow bigger as he dances with Minnie, it serves as a metaphor for Mickey as a terrible dancer.
This short is the fourth produced but third released.
This was the final short to be made in a similar manner to the later entries of the previous Oswald the Lucky Rabbit series. In the next short, the character designs would be slightly updated with rubber gloves (Mickey himself in the piano scene of said next short).
The look of Pete's car would later be used for Get a Horse!.
Mickey's hat is very similar to that he wore in the opening card of the cartoons from 1928 to 1930.
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