The Disney shorts also improved as films during this period. The direction becomes surer, with increasingly imaginative camerawork. If some cartoons look backward, recycling gags from "Steamboat Willie," "The Barnyard Concert" (1929) anticipates "The Band Concert" (1935). In both films, Mickey conducts a group of ragtag musicians in Zampa's "The Poet and the Peasant" Overture, and "Barnyard Concert" feels like a rough sketch for the brilliant "Band Concert," Mickey's first color short.

A few of these films include ethnic imagery that was considered good taste in the early '30s, but is no longer acceptable, as host Leonard Maltin cautions. (Unrated, suitable for ages 6 and older: cartoon violence, tobacco use, ethnic stereotypes) --Charles Solomon