Steamboat Willie (1928) *****

A milestone in the history of animation, "Steamboat Willie" was the first sound cartoon and the first vehicle for a certain mischievious rodent named Mickey Mouse. Its success (comparable to 1927's "The Jazz Singer") paved the way for the complete sonorization of all American cartoons. Mickey is a sailor on a cargo ship transporting livestock. Playing hookey with his girlfriend Minnie, he organizes a concert, using the animals as musical instruments: cow's teeth are transformed into a xylophone, while a cat's tail turns into a stringed instrument. It's a marvelously inventive sequence, well representative of Disney's ability to create a surrealistic fantasy universe, where living creatures are turned into objects and vice versa.