Fiddlin' around AKA just Mickey (1930)

Fiddlin’ Around (alternately titled Just Mickey) is a 1930 animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by Columbia Pictures as part of the Mickey Mouse film series. It was the sixteenth Mickey Mouse short to be produced, the first of that year. The film is a one-person show with Mickey Mouse playing a violin on stage; Mickey is the only character to appear in the film, apart from the unseen audience including an equally unseen heckler. It was directed by Walt Disney and is the first Mickey cartoon not animated by Ub Iwerks. Along with other Mickey Mouse shorts produced the same year, Fiddlin Around entered the public domain on January 1, 2026. An issue concerning this cartoon is whether the title of the short is Fiddling Around, Fiddlin' Around or Just Mickey. Leonard Maltin writes that the cartoon was copyrighted as Fiddlin' Around, and this was seen on the original theatrical poster, while Just Mickey is its common title and was shown on the recreated title card seen on the 2004 Walt Disney Treasures DVD release Mickey Mouse In Black And White: Volume 2, as no original release print with the title had yet surfaced. In 2009, David Gerstein uncovered an original 1930 release print which shows Fiddling Around, implying that Just Mickey was a working title. In the 2018 book Mickey Mouse: The Ultimate History, Gerstein was more definitive: "Many latter-day reference sources have identified this film by its working title, Just Mickey, which was used in some pre-release Powers advertising. In fact, however, the final title -- under which the film was copyrighted, distributed by Columbia, advertised, and exhibited -- is Fiddling Around."