Mickey's Mellerdrammer Mellerdrammer", Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Goofy (known then as Dippy Dawg) and others present their own low budget light-hearted rendition of the 19th century Tom Shows for a crowd in a barn converted into a theater for the occasion. Horace Horsecollar plays the white slave owner Simon Legree. Minnie plays the young white girl, Eva. Mickey plays old Uncle Tom with cotton around his ears and chin, and the young slave girl Topsy. Clarabelle Cow plays the slave woman Eliza. Goofy plays the production stage hand. The cartoon opens with Mickey and Clarabelle Cow in their dressing rooms applying blackface
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio although both men eventually became employees of the studio. After a slow start, the studio began to take off in 1940 after its short "The Milky Way" became the first non-Disney cartoon to win the Academy Award for Best Short Subjects: Cartoons. The studio's roster of talent benefited from an exodus of animators from the Schlesinger and Disney studios, which were facing issues with union workers. Originally established and run by executive Fred Quimby, in 1955 William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the writer-directors of the "Tom and Jerry" cartoons, became the heads of the studio. The cartoon studio was closed