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
Dippy (London) to be replaced by the long skeleton of a young blue whale, dubbed "Hope". The whale had been stranded on sandbanks at the mouth of Wexford Harbour, Ireland in March 1891. Its skeleton was acquired by the museum and had been displayed in the Large Mammals Hall (originally the New Whale Hall) since 1934. The work involved in removing Dippy and replacing it with the whale skeleton was documented in a BBC Television special, "Horizon: Dippy and the Whale", narrated by David Attenborough, which was first broadcast on BBC Two on 13 July 2017, the day before the whale skeleton