March 20th marked the first day of Spring and Disney+ wasted no time with the release of the second seasonal special from The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse, appropriately titled The Wonderful Spring of Mickey Mouse. Like The Wonderful Winter of Mickey Mouse before it, the half-hour special is three shorts strung together, with narration provided this time by Keith David. In this recap, I will point out all of the Easter Eggs I found and there sure were a lot, fitting for springtime.
The special opens with a spinning globe, reminiscent of Walt Disney’s True-Life Adventures.
Following a string of establishing shots of nature coming alive in spring, including flamingos wearing high heels, we come to a shot of The Old Mill from the Oscar-winning Silly Symphonies short, which plays a prominent role in the first short.
Mickey and his friends are all flowers (well, Goofy is a caterpillar and Donald is a bushel of grapes, to be specific) and they all sprouted near the mill, which doesn’t get as much sunshine as the top of the hill. Mickey can’t stand to see his pals so down, especially when he sees Clarabelle Cow, Horace Horsecollar, and Pete having so much fun in a conga line, joined by some other Silly Symphonies friends.
Mickey creates musical instruments and they become a band, marching their way to the top of the hill. Goofy even gives them a ride part of the way as he enjoys some snacks, bitten in unique shapes.
The sun, by the way, is played by Dopey from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. As Mickey and his pals reach the top of the hill, he hears the music and begins to dance along to it. He gets inspired to join in, pulling together some clouds and turning them into a drum set. But as he plays the drums, it starts to rain, followed by lightning and thunder, which sends Mickey and the gang sliding down the hill, back to the Old Mill.
Saddened, Mickey looks up and gets an idea to use the mill to blow the clouds away. They go inside and jump on a gear to get it to move, needing to break a rope that blocks its way first. Once the wheel spins, it blows the clouds away from the sun.
The gang races to the top and jump through the spinning fan, catapulting them back up the hill. They resume playing their music and the sun shines bright on them as everyone looks on.
In the bright light, Mickey and his pals all bloom into full flowers. In the case of Donald, his grapes become swole.
It doesn’t last long…
Even Goofy goes through a metamorphosis, becoming a butterfly by the final shot of the band playing, surrounded by a few floral friends from Alice in Wonderland.
The second short takes place in backyards across Mickey’s neighborhood. All of the hibernating animals wake up from their winter naps, including Chip n’ Dale, plus Humphrey the Bear. It turns out that Goofy hibernates with him in a cave, which is in his backyard. “See you next winter,” Goofy bids Humphrey farewell.
Donald Duck sets up his backyard hammock as soon as his trees turn leafy. On the other side of his fence is Mickey’s house and Minnie is over to plant his garden. They start by blowing a blossom of dandelion seeds as Mickey makes a wish for his garden to blossom with love. A dandelion instantly blooms where the seeds landed.
This kicks off a love-infused planting spree, with flowers rapidly popping up all over Mickey’s yard. Soon, a cloud of pollen wafts into Goofy’s yard and we find out he’s allergic to it as he begins to sneeze. A vine plant from Mickey’s yard also goes berserk, climbing over Donald’s fence and tying the unlucky duck to his tree. He gets hit in the face with a bunch of flowers Mickey and Minnie are throwing and finds himself trapped, swarmed by bees (all of whom look like Spike).
Mickey and Minnie are oblivious to the chaos ensuing around Mickey’s yard as they carve topiaries in their likeness.
Goofy’s problems get worse as seeds fall into his yard, sprouting flowers that release bursts of pollen. Desperate for help, Goofy looks over his fence into Donald’s yard, the duck covered in bee stings, and asks for help. Donald puts a clothespin on Goofy’s nose just before the bees return for another round of attacks. Daisy steps outside with a tray of pink lemonade, but turns right back around when she sees the trouble Donald is in.
In Goofy’s yard, Chip n’ Dale suffer the same allergies he does and he decides to help them out, breaking his clothespin in two and putting it on their noses. In their hurry to leave, they kick up a fresh cloud of pollen and Goofy has an epic sneeze that spreads pollen all over the neighborhood.
We see pollen landing in the yards of Horace and Clarabelle, Pete, and Alice, who was playing croquet.
The explosion alerts Mickey and Minnie to the chaos surrounding them. Minnie gets an idea for how to make things right, pulling out a giant packet of “Giant Seeds” (Willie from the Mickey and the Beanstalk segment of Fun and Fancy Free is on it, but green like the Jolly Green Giant).
A giant sunflower grows and planet Earth comes alive, sneezing it off and all of the pollen along with it.
As the backyards go back to normal, Goofy finds his backyard full of “hyperallergeneric” succulents. Mickey and Minnie’s love garden is now a more modest affair.
The third short relocates to the big city, the Dopey sun shining bright and Tigger bouncing by in the transition.
It’s time for spring cleaning in Mickey’s apartment, with Minnie coming over and hollering “Yoo Hoo” as she joins him. She has called Jiminy’s Jiffy Removal (as in cricket) to help Mickey get rid of some of his stuff, which he is reluctant to do, referring to it all as “memories.”
Just inside the door, we get a peek at Mickey’s hoarding habits, the nearest item being a doll that bears a creepy resemblance to Shirley Temple, wearing a pair of mouse ears. This may be a nod to The Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror, which features a classic Shirley Temple doll in its queue, the little girl in the story modeled after the tiny tot, carrying a Mickey Mouse doll.
Mickey’s house is so cluttered that he has tunnels marked with where they lead. As Mickey tries to defend his lifestyle, we see an old animation desk, a Luxo lamp, and the Pixar ball.
As Minnie connects a garbage chute to the window leading to the truck below, we see Mickey’s diving helmet from “Wonders of the Deep” (and the upcoming Disney Cruise Line AquaMouse waterslide attraction) and the green lucite elephant that has bounced around Disney Parks, currently residing in Adventureland at Disneyland.
Mickey’s most prized possession is a decaying churro behind glass. He explains to Minnie that it’s the first churro he ever had and in a flashback to a younger Mickey with all of his baby fat, we see him in the hub at Disneyland buying it from a vendor.
After riding the teacups with his churro, Mickey brought it home and encased it in glass to remember it forever. Minnie is adamant that Mickey get rid of it and she even gets him to dump it down the chute, but he quickly sneaks out a window onto the fire escape. He is greeted by chimney sweeps from Mary Poppins who sing “Chim-chim-cher-oo!” Mickey corrects them, repeating back “Chiim-chim-CHURRO!”
Mickey sneaks the churro back inside, hiding it in a room as Minnie throws away other items, including a t-shirt from America’s Potatoland, a Clopan doll from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Mickey’s helmet from “Croissant de Triomphe." Mickey apprehends them all and hides them in the room with the churro.
Goofy, Donald, and Daisy show up to help, Minnie answering the door holding two of Mickey’s most iconic hats (from Steamboat Willie and Fantasia) and a keyblade from Kingdom Hearts.
When they get upstairs, Mickey has turned into a Gollum-like creature, holding onto a Cheshire Cat snowglobe, a Mickey Waffle maker nearby.
The friends start to talk about items Mickey should keep and Minnie kicks them out, realizing they won’t be helpful.
Minnie takes a moment for herself, looking around at a pile of stuff. It includes the magic mirror from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (and what may be the backside of the storybook from the opening of that film), Jafar’s staff from Aladdin, the parrot umbrella and carpetbag from Mary Poppins, and the titular cauldron from The Black Cauldron, Taran’s magic sword sticking out of it.
Minnie grabs a shovel and starts scooping items into the chute. Mickey recalls memories for each one, which take the form of a spirit. His hat from “Yodelburg,” scissors from The Brave Little Tailor, crown from The Prince and the Pauper, and the album Mickey Mouse Splashdance. As these items get tossed away, Mickey dumpster dives down the chute to save them.
Mickey shoves them all in the room with the churro and Minnie catches him. She chains him up to one of his treasures, a red Disneyland Peoplemover vehicle. In the background, we also see the bumblebee float from the Main Street Electrical Parade and the old Clock of the World from Tomorrowland.
Minnie grabs a vacuum and begins sucking stuff up, including the magic lamp from Aladdin, a Mickey Mouse clock, another extinct Disneyland attraction (Phantom Boats), and Frank Walker’s jetpack from the film Tomorrowland.
As Minnie empties the contents of the vacuum down the chute, we see some popular Mickey merchandise items, including Pez dispensers, lunch boxes, snowglobes, and ear hats.
“Nooo!” Mickey screams as he breaks free from his chains and bursts through the wall, redirecting the chute from the ven through another window, flooding the room with the churro and other treasures. The room gets so full that the glass case around the churro breaks. It leaks a green glowing acid onto all of the items. Minnie comes to the door to ask if Mickey is okay, but when she opens it, she is greeted by a sentient trash monster and Mickey is trapped inside!
Mickey’s collecting habits know no bounds, so long as it’s all Disney IP. There’s a Kermit the Frog plush, a Baby Yoda doll, an R2-D2 droid, a Big Al plush from Country Bear Jamboree, a classic Mickey Mouse telephone, and a melting Mickey Premium Bar. Oh yeah, and one of those Disney Parks Donald Duck hats.
Running from the monster, Minnie goes through the dining room, scooping up Mrs. Potts, Chip, and Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast. She begins throwing them at the monster, with Lumiere hitting Mickey in the face and exclaiming “Sacrebleu!” Minnie trips over an unlucky dime, which couldn’t belong to Scrooge McDuck, right?
With the fall, the trash monster catches up to Minnie and picks her up to throw her away down the garbage chute. From inside the monster, Mickey sees that his old churro is the power source and starts to climb towards its head. The ghosts of his past items try to stop him, but Mickey overpowers them, grabbing the churro and throwing it down the chute to save them all.
As the dust settles, Mickey stands in a pile of stuff holding up a snowglobe and a figurine of him and Minnie in his red car, a merchandise item sold outside of Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway.
Minnie is proud of Mickey and tells him that getting rid of old memories allows other people to make new ones. Inspired, he sets up a stand outside his apartment advertising “Free Memories.” Among the first takers is the yeti from the Matterhorn Bobsleds, who inspects a pair of Mickey and Minnie Charlotte Clark dolls (and an Oswald, too!).
The Peoplemover gets driven away as some hats find a good home. Is that an enchanted rose?
Even the Dopey sun shows up, pulling one of Mickey’s old EPCOT suits out of a box marked A113. Do you know anyone who wants V.I.N.CENT from The Black Hole?
Lots of treasures walk away, including Mickey’s hat from The Band Concert.
Mickey realizes that he will always have his memories, even though he got rid of some of his stuff. Wishing to pay it forward, he says to Minnie “Let’s do your place next!” Minnie is nervous as we see her building in the distance, stuff spewing from the windows.
“All is good, thanks to the power of spring,” the narrator concludes as the special comes to an end. We’ll be back with another recap/Easter Egg hunt when The Wonderful Summer of Mickey Mouse premieres sometime this summer. See ya real soon!