The Disney Corporation has decided to do something about Mickey Mouse’s image. It’s too nice, you see. In the edgy 21st century, where Hannah Montana does a pole dance, female tennis champs threaten to kill line judges for making a correct call, and Glenn Beck can become a hot commodity by calling the President of the United States a racist, Mickey Mouse is bland and boring. For more than fifty years, Mickey’s status as the symbol of Walt Disney’s empire (Walt did Mickey’s first voice) meant that he was polite, dignified, and always, always, child-appropriate. His typical role was as the MC, his job with the original Mickey Mouse Club, where Mickey often appeared in black tie and tails. With his characteristic nervous laugh, he never did anything wrong, mean, or even annoying. The funny bits were reserved for Donald Duck, Goofy, and Chip and Dale. Mickey slowly evolved into more of a corporate symbol than a cartoon character, but when he went on screen, he was always a good mouse.
But Walt is long gone, and Disney’s company, often called “The House of Mouse,” thinks the nice and clean image conveyed by Mickey all these decades is starting to be a handicap, as the world, and kids, become more cynical along with their cartoons. Mickey is still one of the most recognized characters on the planet, so the scheme is to make him a player again in the cartoon wars by changing his character. It will be unveiled in an upcoming video game in which Mickey will star and show his “dark side.” If a dark Mickey can make Disney a big player in the exploding video game market—-they’ve spent over 180 million on development this year, according to the New York Times—it’s worth turning his innocent giggle into a mischievous chuckle.
Isn’t it?
I don’t think so—in fact, I think it’s misguided, short-sighted and wrong. Oh, I don’t disagree about the blandness of Mickey’s image at all, and I have no problem with edgy cartoon characters. Who causes more trouble than Bugs Bunny? Bugs, however, started appealing to me right about the time Mickey didn’t—around the same time I stopped believing in Santa Clause and automatic happy endings. For half a century, Mickey has been a character for young children: benign, happy, trustworthy. In essence he never grows up, even though they his child fans do; but they are replaced with new, young innocents. Mickey is a symbol of the innocent in childhood. Does Disney, of all companies, really have to destroy that symbol to make a few extra bucks?
Here’s a description of the planned video game:
“Epic Mickey, designed for Nintendo’s Wii console, is set in a “cartoon wasteland” where Disney’s forgotten and retired creations live. The chief inhabitant is Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a cartoon character Walt Disney created in 1927 as a precursor to Mickey but ultimately abandoned in a dispute with Universal Studios. In the game, Oswald has become bitter and envious of Mickey’s popularity. The game also features a disemboweled, robotic Donald Duck and a “twisted, broken, dangerous” version of Disneyland’s “It’s a Small World.” Using paint and thinner thrown from a magic paintbrush, Mickey must stop the Phantom Blot overlord, gain the trust of Oswald and save the day.”
Gosh, Disney, while you’re at it, trash “It’s a Small World,” too—another bland and decidedly un-edgy entertainment that small children love.
Disney argues that the new Mickey will really just be the old Mickey, since the original character in Walt’s and Ubi Iwerks’ black-and-white cartoons was a chaotic trouble-maker. That is dishonest, however. Those cartoons, like today’s “The Simpsons,” “The Family Guy,” and “South Park,” as well the Chuck Jones/Friz Freleng/Tex Avery/Bob Clampett Warner Brothers cartoons, were written and designed with adult audiences firmly in mind. Today’s Mickey is for children, exclusively.
Even though the Disney corporation long ago started marketing to adults, the innocence of childhood was its soul, or used to be. Once the mouse that is the company’s symbol and logo starts representing an ethically shady wise guy, Mickey Mouse the icon of kindness, gentleness and innocence will be gone forever. Then what? Snoopy transformed into a pit bull? Barney into a velociraptor? We know that the real world is more gray and complicated than Mickey Mouse, and so will our children, too soon, in fact. They deserve, however—they need—a time when the everything isn’t so edgy and confusing. Mickey Mouse time. A childhood treasure.
It is Disney’s cultural duty—one that the company accepted long ago—to protect that treasure. Destroying it will be a betrayal of childhood.
Ethics Alarms 
I’ve heard some things about this, and the only think I can think is the same thing I thought when the Loonatics came around: “this is lame.”
Maybe it’ll be fun, but Mickey is going through the same nonsense that Sonic the Hedgehog went through; for some reason, the people who made Sonic thought we wanted an epic and dramatic storyline while we were running really fast and collecting rings.
Never even discussed the issue of whether the “make-over” would “work,” but you’re right. A couple of decades ago, these sorts of things were in the other direction: Popeye, for example, was made less violent. But that was the fun of Popeye—watching him beat the tar out of Bluto. Nobody watches Popeye amy more, unless it’s the old Fleischer version.
Before the 1950s, before Mickey donned that goddamn tux and tails, he didn’t have a truly “dark side”; he was just a classic scrapper. Not a *bad* guy at all—just a raffish, determined adventurer who won the world’s attention by being “Chaplin, Fairbanks, and Lindy rolled into one,” as a 1930s publicity release called him.
Here’s Mickey as a gun-toting western hero:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS_tgc2qheI
Here’s Mickey socking it to the Nazis during WWII:
http://disneycomics.free.fr/Mickey/show.php?num=30&loc=YM057
Here’s Mickey showing genuine grief at the thought that Minnie has been lost:
http://disneycomics.free.fr/Mickey/show.php?num=25&loc=YM014
And here’s Mickey battling wild pirates:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB9e0rDS6E4
This is one of the greatest fictional characters ever—and you know what? He wouldn’t have become great if he were dead boring from the start, regardless of how much you may value a “symbol of the innocent in childhood.”
That’s a role for Elmo, Barney, and Big Bird.
I’m a comics and animation fan who was lucky enough to grow up in the 1980s, when many of these classic Mickey cartoons and comics were first being reissued—even if the new Mickey material being made at the same time featured the boring character you claim to love.
As a grade school kid—supposedly the focus group for the dull, naively smiling Mickey you champion—I chose the gutsy, determined, heroic, fallible and mischievous version over that pasteboard naif, and so did my friends. When a later Mickey cartoon came on, even at eight we didn’t want to watch it.
New material reviving a more interesting Mickey? Whether this is just the game or something more, it’s long overdue.
I don’t entirely disagree, David. But for better or worsse, Mickey abandoned that niche and left it to others (like Bugs, Daffy and Woody Woodpecker). He has a role and a job now—it may be boring, but somebody’s got to do it. They aren’t going to fire Mickey as the symbol of Fantasyland and the Magic Kingdom, so we’ll have an edgy symbol. Well, an edgy Mickey won’t be qualified for that job.
I’d also say that Mild Mickey is for kids younger than 8, at least today.
Boy, thanks for the links—I remember all but one…never saw the Nazi fight. Fabulous.
OK….. Just putting this out there.
I have friends who are 15 and love the Mickey Mouse that is what you guys call boring. HE IS NOT BORING!!!!!!! and if Disney makes Mickey Mouse edgy – like Hannah Montana pole-dancing – it will make a lot of fans boycott Disney. They (Disney) do not enjoy making kids smile – they (Disney) want kids to be seeing shows for ADULTS!!!! For instance, the Disney Movie ‘Camp Nowhere’ is meant for 50 year olds, as kids would think it’s too scary.
Also, Barney does not act innocent, he acts idiotic.
I wouldn’t argue with that assessment, though to be fair, he’s pretty smart for a dinosaur.
So I receive a daily dose of the computer generated Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cartoons as the babies love it.
I’ve noticed of the main characters- Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, and Goofy, if you remove Mickey from the group as he HAS to be correct, good and flawless as Disney’s icon, we’re left with 2 girls and 2 guys.
Minnie and Daisy are consistently shown as level headed problem solvers full of wisdom and ideas. Socially acceptable and graceful. I haven’t seen an episode yet where they possess foibles.
Donald is consistently and irritable grouch who’s lack of patience causes more problems for himself and the group. His general lack of intelligence is constantly being rectified by the girls.
Goofy the ubiquitous klutz never fails in his overbearing nearsightedness. His ineptitude and self destruction is in constant need of rescue from the girls.
What a great message to be wiring into young boy’s minds.
But to be fair, who identified with ducks, dogs and mice? That was the great advantage of animal protagonists. No wonder they were jerks and so silly. They weren’t human.
2 and 3 year olds do. Humans do…when they are personified. If we didn’t identify with them, authors never would use anthropomorphization…