Plight of the Bumblebee

Plight of the Bumblebee is an unfinished, and lost Disney animated Mickey Mouse short produced by the Walt Disney Studios in 1951. It was directed by Jack Kinney.
==Synopsis==
Mickey grooms a talented bee, Hector to be an opera star, but the bee gets drunk on nectar from the flowers on stage and ruins the show at the Opera House.
==Plot==
Mickey stumbles in the big city, where he finds a bee named Hector singing "bebop" (a bee who is jazz bopping), but notices that the bee occasionally hits a beautiful operatic note. Mickey decides the bee is destined for bigger things, and becomes his manager by signing him to a contract. However, he soon discovers that the reason Hector is singing in a malt shop is that he has a weakness for the flower's nectar.
In fact, whenever he has been drinking nectar, he becomes a sloppy "drunk". So, Mickey tries to keep Hector away from temptation. Unfortunately, for his operatic debut at the Opera House, the stage set is decorated with flowers and he overindulges, causing a female opera diva to faint in a fit causing chaos and ruining the show. After the performance, a defeated and heartbroken Mickey runs across a musical grasshopper outside and decides to try again.
==History==
In 1981, cartoonist Daan Jippes casually browsed through some index cards at the Disney Archives, and found some information about Production 2428 ("Plight of the Bumblebee"), including the location of three dusty boxes filled with stacks of animation by animators, Fred Moore, Hal King, John Sibley, and Cliff Nordberg, layouts, photographed storyboards, and exposure sheets. Also found, was the recorded soundtrack (with the final voices) on a transcription disc.
===Legacy===
In 2009, the unfinished short was shown at the Disney Rarities panel at the D23 Expo in Anaheim, California.
==Gallery==
Peopleinplightofthebumb.jpg|The crowd cheering for Mickey and Hector the Bumblebee from a pencil and animation test.
Plight of the Bumble bee.jpg|Plight of the Bumblebee - Production #2428 Model Sheet of Mickey Mouse
Plight-OTBMickey01.jpg|Mickey meeting Hector when he's sitting on the top of a piano at the opera.
plightbumblebee.jpg|Storyboard
Category:Unused concepts
Category:Mickey Mouse shorts
Category:1951 shorts
Category:Animated shorts
Category:Cancelled projects