The Telephone is a character featured in the 1936 Mickey Mouse animated short Thru the Mirror. It is an anthropomorphic candlestick telephone that Mickey encounters when he travels via mirror.
Background[]
Physical appearance[]
The telephone, hence its name, is a black candlestick telephone. It is shown to have a mouthpiece (transmitter) mounted on top of the stand which it uses as a head with a vertical cylindrical neck. It is shown to have two slender arms, being an anthropomorphic telephone and also shown to use a black receiver to talk to someone.
Appearances[]
Thru the Mirror[]
Amongst the various objects Mickey Mouse encounters is a talking telephone talking to someone. As it sees Mickey below, it tosses the receiver so that he can get the Telephone's attention. Just as Mickey encounters it on the desk, he plays jump rope with the Telephone together on the desk as it uses a cord for Mickey to play jump rope, just before a radio tunes itself. Furthermore during the climax of the short when Mickey is chased by cards, he hears the Telephone calling for the police, as its bell continues to ring just before Mickey escapes from the rushing cards.
Video game appearances[]
Epic Mickey/Epic Mickey: Rebrushed[]
Despite its minor role in Thru the Mirror, the Telephone played a major part in the first Epic Mickey video game and its 2024 HD remake Epic Mickey: Rebrushed. The Telephone is encountered in OsTown where Mickey meets it inside. Prior to the events of the game, it argued with Gremlin Prescott, resulting the latter to be caught in a safe at the Gag Factory and the Telephone taking his wrench.
In order for Mickey to obtain the wrench from the Telephone, the player must activate all four power boxes that generate the power all across OsTown by painting all of them, which follows the good path. The power boxes found across OsTown include:
- One located on the side of Mickey's house, which is already filled in.
- Another one found under Clarabelle's garden. The player must use Paint Thinner to reveal an alcove below and then find the outline of it.
- Another one on the roof of the Gag Factory.
- Another one that is hidden behind a painted wall near the Gag Factory.
Once Mickey has done so, he will receive a wrench from the Telephone, which he can give to Prescott. The Telephone later gives Mickey another quest, telling him to look for another telephone on Mickeyjunk Mountain by helping it extend its communication in Wasteland. Upon completing this quest, the player will receive E-Tickets as well as a bronze pin from the Telephone.
The bad path is when Mickey allows Prescott to enter the house to dismantle the Telephone, leaving only its remains behind, which is a spare gear. Picking up the Telephone's gear causes the player to start the quest, "Found: One Gear", which Mickey can trade it to Laralee at the Museum so Mickey can obtain a Power Spark being on display within.
Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two[]
The Telephone reappears in the sequel to the original game, still inside Mickey's house at OsTown. Like in the predecessor, it gives the player a quest where they must paint the telephone boxes. However, unlike in the first game, there are five hub worlds - Mean Street South, Mean Street North, OsTown, Bog Easy, and Ventureland which each have five boxes that the player must paint to complete the quest.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- When Thru the Mirror was featured in Have a Laugh!, all the scenes where the Telephone appears were deleted from the short due to time constraints.
- In Epic Mickey, the Telephone states that it can reach farther than Mean Street if the player extend its communication. Once the player extended the communication, it gives Mickey a call and one of them is, "Mickey? Pick up! It's me. I know you're there! Get your dog off my lawn!". This is a possible reference to Mickey's dog Pluto, which could most likely extend out of Wasteland into Mickey's universe - although it is unknown who is actually using this call for Mickey.
- In the first Epic Mickey game, the Telephone was referred to with male pronouns while in the second game, it was inserted with a female voice, which Practical Pig refers to it with female pronouns.
- According to the game files for Epic Mickey 2, it could be implied that Gremlin Prescott was the one who scattered the pieces of the Telephone, while Gus replied that Prescott found its remains all over OsTown. This could imply that the phone being dismantled in the first game might not be canon, as Gus would have seen Prescott performing this action at Mickey's House.
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