The orchestra is performing the William Tell overture, but then Donald Duck (in his third appearance in a Mickey cartoon) appears selling ice-cream. Uninvited, Donald takes out his flute and distracts the band into playing Turkey in the Straw. The cartoon is notable for being the first Mickey Mouse film in Technicolor, although two more Mickey cartoons were made in black and white before they were produced in colors on a permanent basis; Mickey’s Service Station and Mickey’s Kangaroo. It is said that when conductor Arturo Toscanini first saw the cartoon in a movie theater, he was so delighted with it that he ran up to the projection booth and asked the projectionist to run it again. In 1994 it was voted #3 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field. Also, according to Leonard Maltin in a commentary for this film when it was included in one of the Walt Disney Treasures, The Band Concert was remade (somewhat) years later as Symphony Hour.
