The Magic Hat
It was Mickey's birthday party. All of his friends were throwing him a huge birthday party at the park and all of their friends and family were invited. Everything was ready, Walt would be bringing Mickey any second but there was only one problem.
"Where's the cake?" Minnie asked.
"Goofy was supposed to be bringing it," Horace said. "I called him a few minutes ago and he said he was on his way."
"Hopefully he gets here soon. Mickey will be here any minute," Minnie said worriedly. She wanted everything to be perfect for his party.
The phone rang and Horace answered it. "Hello?...What?!...Alright, just hurry up…bye." He went over to Minnie. "There's been a slight problem," he said.
"What happened?" Minnie asked anxiously.
"Well, when Goofy left the bakery, he put the cake on top of his car to unlock the door and he drove off with it still there. So now the cake it scattered all over the highway."
"Oh no! This is horrible. When is he going to have another cake?"
"Soon hopefully."
Ten minutes later Walt arrived with Mickey. "HAPPY BRTHDAY!" they all said.
Mickey was very surprised by all of this. "Wow, thanks guys."
Minnie went over and hugged him and kissed him.
"How about we have some cake?" Walt said.
"Well um, about that," Minnie said. "There won't be any cake for at least another 15 minutes."
"Why?" Mickey asked.
She explained to him what happened with Goofy.
Mickey laughed. "I should have known."
"Well in the mean time, how about you start open your presents?" Walt said.
Mickey started on all the gifts he'd gotten and in the middle of it Goofy arrived with the cake. They sang happy birthday to him and he cut the cake. Later he started to open the rest of his presents. Currently he'd opened half of them and was surrounded by tons of gifts.
"You guys are the best. What have I done to deserve all this?" Mickey said looking out at the decorations and all of his friends.
Goofy slapped his shoulder. "You do so deserve it Mickey."
"A guy as great as you deserves this and more," Donald said.
Daisy handed him his next present. "This one's from Walt."
Mickey held it up to his ear and shook it. "What is it?"
Walt chuckled. "You've got to open it to find out Mickey."
Mickey tore the wrapping paper off and opened the box to find a blue hat with stars and a crescent moon on it. He looked at Walt. "A hat?"
"Not just any hat, it's a magic hat," Walt said putting it on his head between his big mouse ears.
Once he put it one it began to sparkle and Mickey could feel the magic tingling in him. "Whoa cool. But how does it work?"
"There are many ways it can work," Walt said. "You'll discover them."
Walt was always speaking in riddles. Mickey turned to Donald and Goofy and with a wave of his hand, he switched their clothes. They all laughed, even Goofy, but Donald was unamused. "Hey!"
"Wow, that was exactly what I wanted to happen!" Mickey said excitedly. He turned to Minnie and Daisy and waved his fingers at them and put them in princess dresses.
Daisy twirled around. "Ooh, pretty."
Minnie turned to Walt. "Where in the world did you get a hat like that Walt?"
"I made it myself specially for Mickey Mouse."
Mickey gave Walt a hug. "Thanks dad."
Walt put his hand on Mickey's shoulder. "There are a countless amount of things you can do with that hat Mickey. It can make you extremely powerful when you wear it. But with great power comes great danger. There's something you need to know. You cannot let it fall into the wrong hands. If it were to ever fall into the hands of a villain, there will be terrible consequences."
Mickey saluted. "I won't let you down."
Mickey quickly discovered everything he could do with the hat. It was now his prized possession. And he was the only one who could use it properly. Everyone else found it either incredibly hard or they couldn't make anything happen at all. But to him it came easily. It was like a sixth sense.
One day he came into Walt's office wearing the hat. He opened the door without using his hands and drifted over to his father who was working diligently on a script. "What are you writing?" Mickey asked.
Walt looked up and laughed when he saw Mickey floating in circles around the room sitting in a chair. "It's a new script. I think I'll call this one Fantasia." He sighed. "I wish your brother could have been in this one. I had the most incredible ideas for him.
Mickey lowered the chair in front of Walt's desk. Oswald hadn't been home in almost a year. He wouldn't answer any calls or anything and Mickey knew how bad Walt felt about it. "He won't stay away forever dad. You know Oswald. In no time he'll be home and everything will be forgotten and you can write epic scripts for him just like you've always wanted to." At the time he didn't know how wrong he was.
"I hope you're right," Walt said with a sigh. "Well enough of that now. I wrote part of this called 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice'."
Mickey nodded and unwrapped a lollipop that was in a candy dish on the desk. "Go on."
"You are the sorcerer's apprentice and you, with your curious nature, steals the hat from the sorcerer and become a sorcerer yourself."
"That's pretty awesome," Mickey said. "Can I control the weather in it?"
"You can control the weather?" Walt said not very surprised by it though.
"Watch." With a wave of his hand he made it rain outside and a few seconds later turned it off.
Walt chuckled. "Well, I didn't write in any weather controlling but there will definitely be a lot of cool stuff."
"That works for me."
Fantasia was a huge success and turned out to be their most popular movie ever (even though they only had three movies to date, but it was still an accomplishment).
One day, not long after Fantasia, he and Minnie were in the park one afternoon having a picnic by the lake.
"Hey Minnie, check this out." His waved his hand at the many flowers surrounding them and made them wave back and forth and sing a sweet love song to her.
Minnie giggled and stroked their petals as they sang.
Then he pointed to the butterflies and directed them to her so that they landed on her ears and pink bow and shoulders. He pointed to the lake and one by one the fish jumped out.
"La, la, la, la…" they said.
He made the still lake move in high waves. And he made the leaves blow in the wind. Suddenly he moved the wrong way and one of the waves got out of control and collapsed on Minnie's head. Now she was all wet, her bow drooped in her eyes, and there was a fish on her head.
"Whoops, sorry Minnie…" He stopped paying attention to what he had been doing and everything got out of control.
"Mickey!" Minnie exclaimed pointing.
With a wave of his hands everything stopped in mid air where it was and froze. Minnie's eyes widened in surprise as it happened. Then he lowered his hands and everything returned to normal.
He bent down next to her and lifted her bow out of her eyes but it drooped back down. She giggled and took it off, squeezed it out, and put it back to normal.
"Hey Mickey, can I try it?" Minnie asked. She'd never put on the hat before and was curious about how it worked.
"Sure." He took it off and put it on her head.
She felt the rush of magic energy and it surprised her. "Whoa."
Mickey chuckled. "Feels weird, doesn't it?"
Minnie nodded in agreement. She waved her hands not sure what she wanted to happen, she just wanted to make anything happen. But when she did a tree caught on fire. "Ah!" She tried to put the lake water on it to put it out but she ended up lifting the fish out of the water and dumping them into the fire. "Oh no!"
Mickey took the hat off of her and put it on himself. Then he dumped the lake water onto the burning tree as she had been trying to do, and put it out.
"Sorry," Minnie said.
Mickey hugged her. "It's okay sweet heart. Do you wanna try again?"
"Okay." She put the hat back on her he got behind her and held her hands.
"You can't just go swinging your hands around like that. You have to think about what you want to happen," he explained.
Minnie thought about what she wanted to do. "I wanna try to lift that picnic basket."
"Alright, now slowly point to it and lift your hands like this." He guided her through it and she smiled when it rose into the air.
"I'm doing it!" she said.
"Good job." He let go of her to do it herself but when he did it became a lot more difficult.
She concentrated hard but the picnic basket wobbled in the air. Finally she couldn't hold it anymore and it fell. "You make it look so easy."
Mickey put the hat back on his own head and made the basket levitate ten feet away from them and come back. "I'm not sure why. Strange isn't it?"
Minnie sat down on the blanket with her legs crossed. "Well, Walt did make it especially for you."
He sat down next to her and twirled his finger in a circle making pink and white flower petals spiral around her face. "That might be it."
Minnie giggled. "Mickey Mouse, you never seize to amaze me."
I love the hat and I've wanted one ever since I was a little kid and I went to Disney World for the first time.
Fantasia came out in 1940. They really did only have 3 movies at this point. The other two were Snow White and I'm pretty sure Pinocchio.
Walt probably would have made one for Oswald too if he hadn't left. I don't know how he made it. But Walt Disney was amazing. He could do anything!