Mickey Mouse is always in the news, but in recent weeks that truth has stepped up a notch in light of a timely development: as of today, the earliest versions of Mickey have lapsed into the public domain.
As it had happens, nearly all of the headlines, and consequently all of the chatter have been misleading. Most of it has implied, or outright claimed, that the famous character (so jealously and imperiously protected by its parent corporation) has lapsed entirely. But that's inaccurate. What is now in the public domain is Mickey's design from his first three shorts, which were produced in 1928. Mickey's "look" has changed numerous times over the decades; uses for exploiting those antique, original versions could only be pretty niche, I should think. Still, I am delighted that it gives me an occasion to do a dedicated post on the Mouse, as I had imagined that I was going to need to wait until 2028, that is, provided that I, WordPress, the internet, and the world will be around that long. And I am especially delighted by the occasion this news provides me to make my first post of the New Year be one about Mickey Mouse.
As you may or may not know, the creation of Mickey was somewhat calculated. Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks cooked him up on the sly as a replacement for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit while they were in the midst of some disagreements with their business partners. Mickey and Minnie made their debut in Plane Crazy, a kind of riff on the Charles Lindbergh craze. It was followed up by The Gallopin' Gaucho, which was set in the Pampas of Argentina. Both of these shorts were silents.
The big splash came with Steamboat Willie, which was Disney's first sound cartoon. Many erroneously believe it to have been the first Mickey Mouse short (I did for a long time), since this is the one that's usually screened, no doubt because the other two are silent. Many also believe Steamboat Willie to be the first synch sound cartoon, also wrong (the Fleischer Brothers had released some prior to this). Nor is Mickey Mouse even the oldest continuously circulating animated cartoon character (Felix the Cat beats him by nearly a decade). Instead, much like certain films such as The Birth of a Nation and The Jazz Singer, Mickey and Steamboat Willie represent a kind of benchmark, a turning pointing in pop culture history where a new form and standard come into being. From now on, and for decades to come, the animated comedy short would look and sound kind of like this.
Just as important is the extent to which the public embraced the character. As a pop culture phenomenon, Mickey Mouse can only be compared to Charlie Chaplin. Mickey's not just a cartoon character, he is a movie star. Disney (who provided the voice himself in the early years) literally studied the movies of the top stars of his day such as Chaplin and Fairbanks, and gave his hero the same kind of adventures. (We also note that Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill Jr came out the same year as Steamboat Willie). I've always associated Mickey's "aw, shucks" persona with that of Jimmy Stewart, through Stewart came several years later. He's plucky, American, and always beating the odds to lick bigger antagonists. Later, when Donald Duck and Goofy joined him to form a loose comedy trio, he becomes the straight man, the leader.
And of course, Mickey became more than a star even, he became the avatar of the Disney brand. From the original toys and other merch of the '30s, this expanded. In the '50s with the advent of the Mickey Mouse Club television show, and the beginnings of the theme park operations, there emerged such variations as those "mouse-ears" hats for kids, and costumed mascots.
Inevitably, as the biggest kid on the block, Mickey came in for the knocks of haters. "Mickey Mouse" became for some, an idiom meaning "basic", or "small time". And many now use it as shorthand for the corporation itself, which isn't aways a benign actor on the world stage, or to everyone's liking. As with all creatures, Mickey was at his most adorable in his infancy. But there's no reason we can't cherish the baby pictures.
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