Stars, Stripes, and a Pig With a Tuba

Farm animals play musical instruments in a stretch of The Delivery Boy, a 1931 Mickey Mouse cartoon. That’s the gag. A Fleischer cartoon would have something odd coming out of nowhere, but not Uncle Walt.

It starts with the old caterpillar-breaks-up-into-pieces-and-comes-back-together gag.



The animals are playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” which was royalty-free (Walt loved those public domain tunes, but let’s not have Mickey fall into the public domain!) and, as the cartoon was released on June 15th, it could have been patriotically playing around the 4th of July.