Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers

**Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers** is a 2004 animated film directed by Donovan Cook. It based on the 1844 novel The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.

The film was released on August 17, 2004 as a direct-to-video.

## Plot

Troubadour, a French-accented turtle who loves songs, backstage of a show trying to remind the narrator that he promised to use one of Troubadour's songs. However, the narrator ignores the turtle and breaks his promise, but accidentally falls through a trapdoor just as the show is about to begin. Consequently, Troubadour is ushered in to tell the audience the story at the last minute. Panicking, Troubadour quickly picks up The Three Musketeers comic book and begins reading. He describes every single word and expressions of the characters as he is so into the comic.

In the beginning of the story, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto were lowly street urchins who were one day assaulted by masked bandits (played by the Beagle Boys), but were then saved by the Royal Musketeers, Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan. Mickey is gifted one of their hats, inspiring him and his friends to follow their example and become musketeers. In the present day, the trio had gotten jobs as janitors for the musketeers' headquarters as a step to accomplishing their dream. Unfortunately, they are very clumsy and constantly cause messes. After an incident disturbs the captain of the musketeers, portrayed by Pete, he scornfully tells the trio that they could never become musketeers, on account that Donald is too cowardly, Goofy is too idiotic, and Mickey is just too short for the job, leaving the three downhearted. Meanwhile, Minnie Mouse, the princess of France and her lady-in-waiting, Daisy Duck, are in a palace discussing Minnie's obsession with finding her "one true love". After Minnie takes a walk in the palace garden, she narrowly avoids a large safe being dropped on her by the Beagle Boys.

The boys run back to tell their boss, revealed to be Captain Pete, that they were unsuccessful in assassinating Minnie; to which Pete chastises them for even trying to kill her as he wants her kidnapped so that he can take over the kingdom by the time of the Opera recital. Pete's lieutenant, Clarabelle then sends them all into "Le Pit", which is just a short pit, for failing to understand his orders. In response to the attempt on her life, Minnie then summons Pete, demanding he produce musketeer bodyguards to protect her. Realizing that skilled musketeers will jeopardize his plan to overthrow the princess, Pete then decides to falsely recruit Mickey, Donald and Goofy as musketeers, believing that they will be easy to get rid of, making the trio elated. After meeting each other and attacking Daisy by mistake, Minnie falls in love with Mickey and feels safe at the hands of his bravery. Pete gives a chance to the Beagle Boys to kidnap Minnie and Daisy, so he can become King tomorrow when he is announced at the Opera.

While Minnie and Daisy are protected by Mickey and his friends, who all go on a journey in a carriage, they are all ambushed by the Beagle Boys who manage to defeat the trio easily due to their stated weaknesses. The musketeers are then stranded, but Mickey encourages his friends to not lose hope and they all hurry to rescue Minnie and Daisy from an abandoned tower. Goofy rushes in first, running up all the stairs and out a window into a series of events that catapults him back into the tower. The musketeers then engage the Beagle Boys in another fight while Minnie and Daisy are locked in a cage. Donald runs away from the fight and leave Mickey and Goofy to be cornered, but Goofy manages to come up with an idea to jump out the window with Mickey to engage the same events as before in order force the bandits out of the tower and into the river. Mickey and Minnie then fall in love and spend time alone with each other as they head home.

Pete realizes that the trio are more of a threat than he originally anticipated, so he then plans to get rid of them individually. While on night duty, Goofy is lured away from the palace by Clarabelle, who uses a shadow puppet of Mickey with her hands to lure him into an ambush. The Beagle Boys appear before Donald and attack him, scaring him into hiding in a barrel, which the boys use to deliver him to Pete, who reveals his true nature after trapping him a guillotine, though Donald manages to escape. Pluto notices that Goofy is missing and informs Mickey, who then finds Donald hiding in a suit of armour. Donald tells Mickey the whole situation, and while the mouse refuses to give up, Donald quits being a musketeer and runs off, leaving Mickey and Pluto alone. Pete then ambushes Mickey and then locks him up in the Mont Saint-Michel. Mickey assures to Pete that his friends will rescue him, only for Pete to remind him that Donald abandoned him and informs him of Goofy's upcoming death, disheartening him. Pete then leaves the mouse in his despair and to meet his end when the tide comes in to flood the place.

Meanwhile, Goofy is chained up and about to be thrown off a bridge to his watery grave by Clarabelle. However, Goofy falls in love with Clarabelle and sings of her beauty, causing the cow to fall in love back and have a change of heart. She then saves Goofy and reveals that his friend, Mickey is in danger. They both then fall on top of Donald, who was trying to escape France via boat. The tide then arrives, where Mickey is about to drown. Pluto leads Goofy to Mickey's location while Donald is dragged along. Goofy fails to convince Donald to help him save Mickey, but thanks to a song from Troubadour ridiculing Donald's cowardice, an infuriated and now confident Donald decides to resume his duties as a musketeer and join Goofy. The duo are just barely able to save Mickey before he drowns, but Mickey is still despairing over the fact that their promotion was all a lie. Goofy then encourages him by stating that despite their flaws, there isn't anything they can't accomplish while together. Reinvigorated, Mickey leads his friends to stop Pete and save the princess.

At the theatre, Pete and the Beagle Boys then capture Minnie and Daisy while they were alone and lock them in a chest. One of them impersonates Minnie and announces to the public that the throne is now being handed over to "King Pete the Magnificent". Pete celebrates his ascension to the throne and the opera begins. However, Pluto uses his nose to track down Minnie and Daisy. Mickey, Donald and Goofy arrive and battle Pete and the Beagle Boys onstage for the ladies, and Pete causes Donald and Goofy, along with his henchmen before challenging Mickey in a duel. Pete overpowers Mickey at first, but Donald and Goofy return and all three defeat Pete and knock him out unconscious, allowing them to rescue Minnie and Daisy, who profess their love for Mickey and Donald respectively. Clarabelle also arrives to show her affection for Goofy.

At the end, Minnie dubs Mickey, Donald and Goofy as official royal musketeers, and Troubadour announces that this was the day where the three heroes finally made their dream come true. Mickey, Donald, Goofy and the rest of the musketeers of France sing the final song "All For One and One For All" at the end of the film.

## Cast and Characters

* Wayne Allwine as Mickey Mouse
* Tony Anselmo as Donald Duck
* Bill Farmer as Goofy / Pluto
* Russi Taylor as Minnie Mouse
* Tress MacNeille as Donald Duck
* Jim Cummings as Captain Pete of the Royal Musketeers
* April Winchell as Clarabelle Cow
* Jeff Bennett and Maurice LaMarche as The Beagle Boys
* Rob Paulsen as Troubadour
* Jess Harnell as Major General
* Frank Welker as Additional Voices
* Trevor Devall as Pirate Crew

## Production

An adaptation of Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers, with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy as the Musketeers; was planned during the 1980s at Walt Disney Animation Studios. In 1983, storyboard artists Steve Hulett and Pete Young developed the project with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and José Carioca as the Musketeers, but it fell into development hell. In 2002–2003, in honour of Mickey Mouse's 75th anniversary, it was announced that a featurette entitled The Search of Mickey Mouse was in development. The project was about Mickey who gets kidnapped by unknown forces, forcing Minnie Mouse to enlist Basil of Baker Street to investigate his disappearance, and later encounters one character from Disney's animated film canon such as Alice, Peter Pan, Robin Hood, and Aladdin. However, the project suffered script problems with the multiple cameos being thought to be too gimmicky. After the cancellation of the latter project it was announced that a feature film based on The Three Musketeers with Mickey, Donald, and Goofy in the lead roles was in development, meaning that Hulett's and Young's project had been revived. However, the film did not include José Carioca as in the early development.

## Release

The film was first released on DVD and VHS on August 17, 2004. For the film's 10th anniversary, it was released on Blu-ray on August 12, 2014.

## Reception

As of October 2020, Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers had a rating of 36% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 11 reviews with an average score of 4.84 out of 10.