Michael_Elliott Three Blind Mouseketeers (1936) *** (out of 4)The title characters - three blind mice - are hated by a large cat who plans to capture them no matter what it takes. The cat comes up with some very clever traps but will the mice be able to avoid them while at the same time taking the cheese? The traps used in this Disney short were decades ahead of the SAW series that's for certain. With that said, this here is certainly an entertaining short but I think it falls well short of being a classic. Still, there is some great stuff here including the music score, which really pumps you up as you watch the film. Another major plus are the four characters as the three mice are certainly likable and the cat is such a good villain that you love to hate him. I think the first portion of the short works best as we see the mice trying to steal the cheese.

MartinHafer Not surprisingly, "Three Blind Mouseketeers" finds three blind mice dressed up like Musketeers. Now this begs the question 'Who would want blind musketeers in the first place?!' as well as 'What qualifications did these mice think they needed to be expert swordsmen?!'. Perhaps they'd listened to a few Zatoichi films--all I know is that the premise is bizarre to say the least.Eventually, a nasty cat arrives and plans on eating the Mouseketeers. Now this SHOULD have been incredibly easy. Yet, somehow, these little guys manage to outsmart the cat--mostly because the cat is an idiot. After all, blind rodents shouldn't pose much of a challenge.Like any Disney short of this era, the animation is superb. The story is decent but not a lot more. Worth seeing but certainly not among Disney's best at the time.

Neil Doyle THE THREE MOUSKETEERS gives a cartoon spin to the Alexander Dumas tale of "all for one" as they have to use their combative skills with sword and derring-do to defeat a fat cat bent on their destruction. "My traps are set in every room, those cats are munchin' to their doom." Predictably, the mousketeers outmaneuver the traps either by remarkable luck or skill (or both) and the sleeping cat (who dreams about victory) is soon awakened by the rather boisterous musketeers as they congratulate each other on escaping his booby traps.The rest of the cartoon is strictly a series of cat-and-mouse chases with the mice winning at every turn. The scene where one of them is hiding under a teacup is reminiscent of the later gag used for Lucifer in Disney's full-length "Cinderella".Nothing really extraordinary here, although it's clear to see that the animation techniques were undergoing vast improvement by 1936.

Robert Reynolds This cartoon, with a very basic and not very significant plot, is loads of fun and very nice to look at. Because I do want to touch on the short to some degree, there are mild spoilers: The title basically says it all-the protagonists are the Three Blind Mouseketeers and they are "all for one and one for all" when it comes to finding cheese. Captain Katt (think of "Pegleg" Pete done up as a cat) has sworn that, tonight, he's finally going to trap and destroy the Three Blind Mouseketeers, so he sets traps everywhere, hides inside a split barrel-and promptly falls asleep.The Mouseketeers, in the meantime, through fortuitous circumstances, manage to repeatedly slip through and around the traps with nary a scratch on them, many of the gags being excellently timed animation, frequently timed to the beat. There's one particularly nice bit of animation, where one of the mice becomes isolated from the others and Captain Katt is coming toward him when he starts yelling to his comrades as though he's surrounded by an army, which in a sense, he is-he's standing in front of a great many pieces of reflective glass, each of which has a tiny mouse dressed astonishingly like him and brandishing a sword. Captain Katt is overwhelmed and turns to run. Add in a large quantity of exploding corks from bottles and Captain Katt is once again routed by the Three Blind Mouseketeers.This short is available on the Disney Treasures More Silly Symphonies DVD release and it and the set are recommended.