Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse (also known as Mickey Mouse, Miguel Mouse, or Miki) is a fictional character American belonging to the Disney universe, which appears mainly in cartoons, comics and video games. A true ambassador for The Walt Disney Company, he is present in most of the company's business sectors, be it animation, television, amusement parks or consumer products. Mickey is used as a vector of communication and his qualities must respect the morality advocated by "Disney", either by Walt or by the company itself. Mickey Mouse is known and recognized throughout the world, his famous silhouette made up of three circles has become inseparable from the Disney brand.

Mickey was created in 1928, after Walt Disney had to leave his first character created with Ub Iwerks, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, to his producer. The first shorts featuring him were primarily animated by Ub Iwerks, Walt Disney's partner at Disney Studios (then based at the Hyperion Avenue studio). He later also becomes a character in comics, feature films, television series, and a wide variety of merchandise.

Mickey Mouse represents an anthropomorphic mouse. He was the first, before the first broadcast, called Mortimer Mouse; it was Lillian Marie Bounds, Walt's wife, who, finding this name unappealing, suggested Mickey. For the Walt Disney Company, the mouse's official birth date is November 18, 1928, the date of the first "public performance" of the cartoon Steamboat Willie.

The character is also famous for his falsetto voice. Walt Disney himself provided the original voice for the character Mickey, from the first cartoon until 1946, when Disney appointed Jim MacDonald to replace him, due to a chronic coughing problem from cigarette smoking. Jim MacDonald was later replaced by Wayne Allwine, from 1985 until 2009, when he died from complications of diabetes.

Mickey is often accompanied by his friends Goofy, Donald and his dog Pluto. He also forms an idyll with Minnie, another mouse who was born at the same time as him. Mickey did not stay on the screens for long. He appears in newspapers in the daily strip since January 13, 1930. This publication is distributed by King Features Syndicate , written by Walt Disney and drawn by Ub Iwerks. To emphasize Mickey's importance in the overall adventure of the Disney universe, Walt Disney said of Mickey's character, "All I hope is that we don't lose sight of anything: it all started with a mouse."

Cartoon

Origin

"I just hope we never lose sight of one thing: it all started with a mouse."

Walt Disney; October 27, 1954

Mickey Mouse was created as a replacement for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, an earlier cartoon character that was created by studio Disney but owned by Universal Pictures. Charles Mintz served as intermediary producer between Disney and Universal through his company, Winkler Pictures, for the animated series starring Oswald. Ongoing conflicts between Disney and Mintz and the revelation that several Disney studio animators would eventually leave to work for Mintz's company ultimately resulted in Disney cutting ties with Oswald. Among the few people who stayed at the Disney studio were animator Ub Iwerks, artist apprentice Les Clark, and Wilfred Jackson. On his train ride home from New York, Walt brainstormed ideas for a new cartoon character.

Mickey Mouse was conceived in secret while Disney was producing the last few Oswald cartoons it contractually owed to Mintz. Disney asked Ub Iwerks to start designing new character ideas. Iwerks tried sketches of various animals, such as dogs and cats, but none of these appealed to Disney. A female cow and a male horse were also rejected, although they would later appear as Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar (Clarabella and Horacio in Spanish America and occasionally in Spain). A male frog was also rejected, later appearing in Iwerks' own Flip the Frog series. Walt Disney drew inspiration for Mickey Mouse from a tame mouse on his desk at Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1925, Hugh Harman drew sketches of mice around a Walt Disney photograph. These inspired Ub Iwerks to create a new mouse character for Disney. "Mortimer Mouse" it had been Disney's original name for the character before his wife, Lillian, convinced him to change it, and eventually Mickey Mouse was born. Actor Mickey Rooney claimed that, during his Mickey McGuire days, he met cartoonist Walt Disney at the Warner Brothers studio, and that Disney was inspired to name Mickey Mouse after him. This claim, however, has been discredited by Disney historian Jim Korkis, as at the time of Mickey Mouse's development, Disney Studios had been located on Hyperion Avenue for several years, and Walt Disney never had an office or other space. working at Warner Brothers. have no professional relationship with Warner Brothers. Over the years, the name Mortimer Mouse was eventually given to several different characters in the Mickey Mouse universe: Minnie Mouse's uncle, who appears in various comic book stories, one of Mickey's antagonists who competes for the Minnie's affection in various cartoons and comics, and one of Mickey's nephews, named Morty.

Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse in 1935.

Debut (1928)

Mickey was first seen in a test showing of the cartoon short Plane Crazy on May 15, 1928, but failed to impress the audience and Walt was unable to find a distributor. for the short The Gallopin' Gaucho was the second short film starring Mickey to be produced by Walt Disney. The Walt Disney Company, however, was unable to find a distributor for the film, which was released after the success of the character's third short, Steamboat Willie, on December 30, 1927. For that reason, Although it was the second Mickey Mouse short film in terms of its production, it was the third to be released.

Both Mickey and his girlfriend, Minnie, had already appeared in the first short of the series, Plane Crazy, which premiered on May 15, 1928 and was not as successful as expected. Disney and Iwerks tried again to capture the audience's interest with a new film about the same characters, The Gallopin'; Gaucho. The animation of the film was carried out exclusively by Iwerks. The Gallopin' Gaucho was intended to be a parody of a film by Douglas Fairbanks, titled The Gaucho, released shortly before, on November 21, 1927. The action takes place in the Argentine Pampas, and Mickey is the gaucho himself.

The protagonist rides a rhea instead of a horse (although it is sometimes said to be an ostrich). He arrives at the bar-restaurant Cantina Argentina , apparently to relax with a drink and a smoke. In the restaurant is the waitress and dancer Minnie Mouse, and a customer, who is none other than Pete, presented as an outlaw. Pete's villainous role had already been established in the Alice Comedies series. This short, however, depicts his first meeting with Mickey and Minnie. The last two seem to not know each other, although both had already appeared together in Plane Crazy.

Minnie dances a tango and the two male characters fight over her. Pete tries to hasten the end of the fight by kidnapping Minnie and taking her off on her horse, but Mickey follows on her rhea and soon catches up with her. Mickey and Pete then engage in a sword duel, from which Mickey emerges victorious, rescuing the damsel in distress. The short ends with the image of Mickey and Minnie, on the back of the rhea, getting lost on the horizon.

In later interviews, Iwerks would comment that in The Gallopin' Gaucho intended to present Mickey as an adventurous swordsman, similar to the characters he used to portray in Douglas Fairbanks movies. The personalities of both Mickey and Minnie are, however, very different from how they would become in later years.

As a result of these works, the following Mickey short film was created, the second to be released and the first to really attract the attention of the public: Steamboat Willie.

The arrival of sound

Steamboat Willie premiered on November 18, 1928, at the Colony Theather, and was directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. Iwerks again served as chief animator, assisted by Johnny Cannon, Les Clark, Wilfred Jackson and Dick Lundy. This short film was a parody of Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill Jr (The River Hero), released on May 12 of the same year. Despite being Mickey's third appearance, this feature film is considered the character's true debut.

This animated short was not the first to combine sound, music, and synchronized dialogue. Fleischer Studios had released a series of sound animations, using the De Forest system, in the mid-1920s. Despite this, the idea of making a sound short came to Walt Disney after seeing a short of the Aesop& #39;s Film Fables, titled Dinner Time. Steamboat Willie was, however, the first sound short to achieve major fame. To this day there is still a debate about who was the author of the original music of the short. It has been attributed to, among others, Wilfred Jackson, Carl Stalling or Bert Lewis, but there is no definitive conclusion. Walt himself provided the voice, both Mickey and Minnie, although there was no dialogue, just noises such as laughter, crying and screaming.

The story shows Mickey steering the Steamboat while whistling a catchy tune. At the moment the captain of the boat, Captain Pete, appears and kicks him out, to drive himself. He stops the ship to pick up the cargo, and as they are about to set sail again, Minnie appears, having missed the ship. Mickey helps her up with a crane. Once on the ship, a goat from the ship's cargo of animals eats Minnie's sheet music, which had the famous song Turkey in the Straw written on it. Then Mickey will use the animal's tail as a needle on a phonograph and the tune will play. Then he will start using different animals as musical instruments. Captain Pete, annoyed by the noise of the music, forces Mickey to work. The short ends with the image of Mickey peeling potatoes.

The audience that attended the premiere of this short film was very impressed by the use of music for comedic purposes. Sound films still represented a great innovation, since the first sound film in history, The Jazz Singer, with Al Jolson, had been released on October 6, 1927, and, in less than Within a year, many theaters in the United States had already installed sound equipment for this type of film. Walt Disney was willing to take advantage of this new system, since many other studios were still producing silent animated shorts, which could hardly compete with Disney. Mickey Mouse quickly became one of the most popular animated characters of his day, allowing Walt to re-release the first two shorts about his mouse: Plane Crazy and The Gallopin&# 39; Gaucho (had not been released). Originally mute, sound was added to them and increased the popularity of drawing. The Barn Dance (March 14, 1929) would be the fourth appearance of him as a character, already very famous. But Mickey would not speak until The Karnival Kid (May 23, 1929), when he would utter his first words: Hot dogs, Hot dogs!.

Recent history

• In 1955, King Features Syndicate, the distributor of the strips, forced the authors to abandon the long adventures. This did not happen in Italy, where Romano Scarpa continued to realize them, starting from Topolino e il mistero di Tapioco VI (1956).
• On November 18, 1978, following the 50th anniversary, Mickey Mouse became the first cartoon character to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The star is located on the 6925 Hollywood Boulevard.
• For decades, Mickey Mouse has competed with the star of Warner Bros, Bugs Bunny, for being the most popular cartoon. But in 1988, at one of the historic moments of animation, both shared a scene in Robert Zemeckis' film, Who tricked Roger Rabbit? Warner and Disney signed an agreement specifying that each character would leave exactly the same time on screen.
• Your last short film to date has been Get A Horse!released in 2013. In 2004 he appeared in a premiered feature film directly on video Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeersand in the digital animation feature, Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas. Mickey has never appeared in a feature film that is not based on a classic work of universal literature.
• Although Mickey's press strips stopped appearing in 1999, the character still develops in the Italian magazine Topolino thanks to authors like Casty and in new series like MM Mickey Mouse Mystery Magazinepublished between 1999 and 2001.
• Many television programs focus on the Mickey figure, like the recent Mickey Mouse Works (1999-2000), House of Mouse (2001-2003), Mickey Mouse's house (2006-2016) and Mickey Mouse Mixed-Up Adventures (2017-2020), and Mickey Mouse Funhouse (2021—present).
• Mickey was named the Grand Marshal of the Tournament of Roses Parade, New Year’s Day 2005

Roles

Mickey Suitor

The Barn Dance (The Barn Dance), released on March 14, 1929, would be the first of twelve shorts released that year. Directed by Walt Disney, with Ub Iwerks as head of animation, the novelty of this production is seeing Mickey rejected by Minnie in favor of Pete. Pete, previously portrayed as a bandit, here behaves like a polite gentleman, while Mickey plays not the hero but rather a rather ineffective young suitor. His regrets and sadness at his failure show Mickey to be exceptionally sensitive and vulnerable. It was commented, however, that Disney was only looking for the public's empathy towards the character.

Appearance of the gloves

The Opry House, released on March 28, 1929, was the second short film of that year, and the first to introduce white gloves to the characters. Mickey Mouse would wear these gloves in most of his subsequent appearances. One of the most plausible reasons for the addition of the gloves would be to be able to tell the characters apart when their bodies were attached, since they were all black (Mickey didn't appear in color until The Band Concert, The concert of the band, in 1935).

Mickey as animal

When the Cat's Away, released on April 18, 1929, was essentially a version of Alice Rattled by Rats (January 15, 1929). 1926), one of Alice's Comedies. It marked the second appearance of the villain Kat Nipp (after The Opry House). Kat Nipp is an anthropomorphic cat who is always drunk. One day she leaves home to go hunting. At that moment, a band of mice invade the house in search of food. Among them are Mickey and Minnie. The unusual thing about this short is to see the two mice with the size and behavior of two real mice, while the productions before and after this short presented Mickey and Minnie as two anthropomorphic mice the size of small humans.

Mickey as a soldier

Mickey's fourth short is also considered unusual. It was The Barnyard Battle, released on April 25, 1929, and Mickey is seen as a soldier, ready on the front lines for war.

Transition

The Great Depression Years

Mickey's Albanian Seal (1999).

Mickey's twelfth and final short of 1929 was Jungle Rhythm. Released on November 15, it tells the story of Mickey on safari somewhere in Africa. Riding an elephant and armed with a shotgun, his troubles begin when a lion and a bear cross his path. Mickey has the idea to start playing music to calm them down, and the rest of the short consists of various jungle animals dancing to Mickey's music. Tunes range from Yankee Doodle and Turkey in the Straw to Auld Lang Syne, The Blue Danube and Aloha `Oe.

Early Comic Strips

To date, Mickey had appeared in fifteen successful short films and had become one of the most popular animated characters. King Features Syndicate applied to Disney for a license to use Mickey and his co-stars in a series of comic strips. Walt accepted and the first strip would come out on January 13, 1930, with a script by Walt Disney himself, drawings by Ub Iwerks and inking by Win Smith. The first week the strips were a partial adaptation of Plane Crazy, and Minnie was the first character to join the cast alongside Mickey.

Strips published between January 13 and May 31, 1930 have regularly been compiled into a complete album under the generic title Lost on a Desert Island (Lost on a Desert Island).

Classical music

At the same time the strips were being published, Disney produced two new Mickey shorts. The first of these was The Barnyard Concert (The Barnyard Concert), released on March 3, 1930. We see Mickey as conductor. The only recognizable characters from previous shorts are Clarabelle playing the flute, and Horace on the drum. Both perform a comical adaptation of Franz von Suppé's Poet and Countryman, although many of the gags used in this short had already been seen in previous productions.

The second was released on March 14, 1930, under the title Fiddlin' Around, although he is better known as Just Mickey. Both titles accurately describe the development of the short, which is nothing more than Mickey doing a violin solo. Notable for the mouse's moving rendition of the finale of the opera William Tell, Robert Schumann's Träumerei (Dream), and Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Franz Liszt.

Iwerks' goodbye

Mickey's next short film was Cactus Kid, released on April 11, 1930. Although the title might suggest that it is a parody of Westerns, it was actually about of a new version of The Gallopin' Gaucho, although this time the action moved from Argentina to Mexico. Mickey is once again a lone traveler who enters a tavern and flirts with a dancer, again Minnie. The rival is Pete again, called here Peg-Leg Pete , in which it is the first appearance of him with a peg leg, something that would be common in later years. The original rhea is here replaced by Horace, in his last appearance as a non-anthropomorphic animal. The relevance of this short film comes from the fact that it would be the last one that Ub Iwerks would animate.

Shortly before the release of Cactus Kid, Ub Iwerks had left Disney to open his own studio. The result was the series known as Flip the Frog (Flip the Frog), with the first color animated short film titled Fiddlesticks. He also created two other series: Willie Whopper and Comicolor . His success threatened the dominance that Disney had achieved in the cartoon film industry.

This separation is considered a turning point, both in the careers of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse. The first lost the person who had been his friend and confidant since 1919. The second lost the person responsible for its original design and the director or animator of most of the shorts released up to that time. And, for many, that was the true creator of Mickey Mouse. Walt is credited as the inspiration for the character, but Iwerks created the original design and early Mickey drawings were the work, in whole or in part, of Iwerks. It is for this reason that some historians consider that Iwerks should be recognized today as the creator of Mickey. They point out that Mickey's first drawings were accredited as "A Walt Disney Comic, drawn by Ub Iwerks" (drawn by Ub Iwerks). But the latest reissues of those early drawings tend to credit Walt Disney solely.

In any case, Disney and his team continued production of the Mickey series. The mouse continued to appear regularly in animated shorts until 1942, and again from 1946 to 1952.

The adventure newspaper strips

But, going back to 1930, Walt had another problem: the continuation of the comic strips after Iwerks left. At first, Walt continued to write the scripts and Win Smith drew them. However, Walt's interests turned more and more towards animation, and Smith also had to take charge of scripting the strips. Smith apparently didn't feel like doing all the work; Script, drawing and inking. This is evident after his sudden resignation. Another reason could be that Walt Disney was a man with a very difficult character, and Smith could not stand the total lack of creative freedom that Walt imposed on him.

Walt Disney had to find a replacement for Smith among the rest of his team, and for reasons unknown, he chose Floyd Gottfredson, a newcomer to the studio. Gottfredson was a young man who was impatient to enter the world of animation, and he was not very amused by his new job as a creator of comic strips. Walt promised him that he would only be temporary and that he would be back in the animation division soon. Gottfredson agreed, and his "temporary" job was released. it lasted from May 5, 1930 to November 15, 1975.

Floyd Gottfredson began his work on the newspaper strips by continuing the story his predecessors had developed since April 1, 1930. This story was completed on September 20, 1930, and was later collected in album form, with the title of Mickey Mouse in Death Valley (Mickey Mouse in the Valley of Death). This first adventure expanded the cast of characters that until then only included Mickey and Minnie. They were the first comic book appearances for Clarabelle, Horace, and Pete. It was also the introduction of corrupt lawyer, Sylvester Shyster, and Minnie's uncle, Mortimer Mouse. The next story was Mr. Slicker and the Egg Robbers , published between September 22 and December 16, 1930, featuring Minnie's parents: Marcus Mouse and his wife.

These two stories started what would become a split between comics and animation. While animated shorts continued in their traditional vein of comedy, comic strips combined comedy and adventure well into the 1950s.

These comics began to be published in Europe through the magazines "Topolino" (Italy, 1932), "Le Journal de Mickey" (France, 1934) and "Mickey" (Spain, 1935). 3

Color cartoons

In 1935 Walt Disney released the short film The Band Concert, which was the first Technicolor Mickey Mouse short. The story introduces us to Mickey as the conductor of an orchestra in the open air, playing the overture to William Tell and then The Storm. The orchestra is made up of Donald Duck (in his third appearance in a Mickey short), who interrupts the concert by playing Turkey in the Straw on his flute. In 1994 he was ranked third on the 50 Greatest Cartoons list (the 50 best cartoons in history).

Mickey Mouse's success was so great that, that same year, the League of Nations awarded Disney a gold medal, declaring Mickey an "international symbol of goodwill". Numerous public figures declared their admiration for Mickey Mouse, including actress Mary Pickford, United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Benito Mussolini, and even the King of England, George V.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Giant model of the hat The apprentice of witchat Disney World.

At the end of the 1930s, Mickey Mouse had lost popularity, as public tastes increasingly turned towards feature films, a fact that worried Walt Disney. One of the characters created for one of the shorts in Mickey, Donald Duck (Donald Duck), had acquired his own series, and proved to be more popular than his companion the mouse, and, above all, more profitable. Walt, however, was not ready to part with his key character just yet, so he devised a special short film that would be conceived as the reappearance of Mickey Mouse: The Sorcerer's Apprentice, which would be completely silent. except for the music by Paul Dukas, on whom the short film was based. The writers suggested that the protagonist of the short could be Dopey (or Clumsy), the mute dwarf from Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938), but Walt insisted on using Mickey.

Production of the short film began in 1938, when Walt met famous bandleader Leopold Stokowski in a Hollywood restaurant, who offered to record the music for free, bringing together a team of about a hundred musicians from Los Angeles to play and record the soundtrack of the nine minutes of the short film.

The studio's animation department worked on what was the studio's most ambitious project yet. Animator Fred Moore redesigned Mickey Mouse, giving him more weight and bulk, in keeping with the technology of the time. He also had pupils added to give his face more expressiveness. Everything in the film was done with great attention to detail and creativity: colors, pacing, character animation and effects. The unnamed warlock in The Sorcerer's Apprentice was called "Yen Sid": Disney spelled backwards.

All these efforts were going to be very expensive, around $125,000, a price that Walt and, above all, his brother and partner, Roy, knew would not be worth it at the box office. Most of Disney's short films had It cost about $40,000, which was about $10,000 more than the average budget for any short made outside of Disney Studios. The studio's most profitable short, The Three Little Pigs, had grossed $60,000 at the box office. Following Stokowski's advice, Walt decided to expand the short film in the style of his Silly Symphonies short series, but conceived as a feature film, made up of several scenes where animation was combined with classical music, and where The Sorcerer's Apprentice would be one of them. To provide the film with continuity, Walt enlisted composer and music critic Deems Taylor as emcee who introduced and explained each of the segments. Stokowski suggested the title of Fantasia (which in the field of classical music means "A mixture of themes with variations and interludes"), which eventually became the final title (the initial title was The Concert Feature).

With The Sorcerer's Apprentice almost complete, the rest of the production of Fantasia began in early 1939, paying the same attention to detail and careful animation in all other segments of the film. movie.

Although the film could be considered a Walt Disney flop, it established Mickey Mouse as one of the studio's definitive icons, and the image of Mickey in the witch costume has been the hallmark of Walt Disney for decades.

Mickey's voice

Much of Mickey's character comes from his shy falsetto voice. From his first words in The Karnival Kid, Walt Disney himself lent his voice to Mickey, a task of which he was very proud (Carl Stalling and Clarence Nash are said to have served as uncredited voice actors in some of the short ones). However, by 1947, Walt Disney was too busy to personally voice Mickey (it was speculated that his tobacco addiction had impaired his voice for years), and during the recording of Mickey and the Beanstalk (an excerpt from Fun and Fancy Free), Mickey's voice was transferred to Disney musician and actor Jim MacDonald (both voices can be heard in the final original music). MacDonald provided the voice of Mickey for the following short films, and for advertising and television projects, until his retirement in the mid-1970s. Meanwhile, Walt returned to using his voice with Mickey for the introductions of the Mickey Mouse Club original, between 1954 and 1959, and for the episode Fourth Anniversary Show of the Disneyland television series, broadcast on September 11, 1958. In 1977, with The All New Mickey Mouse Club, saw the premiere of Wayne Allwine as the voice of Mickey, until his death on May 20, 2009. Interestingly, Allwine's wife is Russi Taylor, voice of Minnie Mouse from 1986 until her death in 2019. Les Perkins provided the voice of Mickey in the television specials DTV Valentine and Down and out with Donald Duck in 1986 and 1987 respectively. Bret Iwan was chosen to play the fourth and current voice of Mickey Mouse. His first portrayal of his character was for Mickey toys and later for Disney Cruise Line promotionals. He also voiced him in the show Disney on Ice: Celebrations!. The first official portrayal of him was in the Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep video game which was released in September 2010.

In Spanish

The neutral Spanish voice of the character Mickey Mouse in America is the most chaotic of all the Disney company characters. While Minnie Mouse for example, she was almost always played by Diana Santos (who continues to voice Minnie to this day). The actors who dubbed it were the following:

• Edmundo Santos: First short films and Fun and Fancy Free.
• Francisco Colmenero: Short Films and Mickey's Christmas Carol.
• Raúl Aldana: Short films, the Prince and the Beggar.
• Juan Alfonso Carralero: Who deceived Roger Rabbit?.
• Victor Mares Jr.: Short filming, Mickey and his brain in trouble and A Goofy Movie.
• Rubén Cerda: Fantasy 2000, Mickey discovers Christmas, Mickey Mouse Works, House of Mouse and Mickey Magic Christmas.
• César Alvarado: Club de los Villanos with Mickey and his Friends.
• Arturo Mercado Jr: Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers, Mickey and Friends Together Another Christmas, Mickey Mouse's House, Mickey Mouse: Wheel Adventures, Mickey Mouse Funhouse, 2013 Series, The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse, Epic Mickey 2, Disney Infinity, Get a Horse! and Minnie's Bow-Toons

In Spain, dubbing into neutral Spanish was initially maintained until 1992. In that year, all Walt Disney productions began to be dubbed in Spain and since then actor José Padilla has been in charge of dubbing the character Mickey Mouse. In the movie Who framed Roger Rabbit? , prior to 1992, he was dubbed for Spain by Rafael Alonso Naranjo Jr.

Copyright

Mickey's star on Hollywood Fame Walk.

The Mickey Mouse character, like most Disney characters, in addition to enjoying copyright protection, is protected as a registered trademark (™ or ®), which establishes that its rights are perpetual as long as the owner uses it commercially. In the event that a drawing from the Disney factory was in the public domain, the characters themselves would remain as a trademark and their use would be considered "unauthorized". However, within the United States, the Copyright Term Extension Act (also derogatorily called the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, following persistent pressure from The Walt Disney Company) ensures that works such as early Mickey Mouse drawings will cease to be protected by copyright at some point.

The Walt Disney Company has taken special care to protect Mickey Mouse as a registered trademark, as it is one of the main emblems of this animation company.

In 1989, Disney sued three day care centers in Hallandale, Florida, for having pictures of Mickey and other Disney characters on their walls. The drawings had to be withdrawn, and a rival company, Universal Studios, allowed some of its own characters to be painted.

Farfur

In 2007, a fake Mickey Mouse named Farfur appeared on the television program Tomorrow's Pioneers, broadcast on the official channel of the Hamas group (the ruling party of the Gaza Strip), Al -Aqsa TV. The program attempts to indoctrinate children with dialogues such as: We are laying with you the first stone for world domination under Islamic power. [...] You must be careful with your prayers and go to the mosque for your five daily prayers [...] until we rule the world. The minister The Palestinian Information Office withdrew the program to review its content on May 11, but despite this, it continued to air. Finally, on June 29, Farfur's character was "killed" by an actor disguised as an Israeli soldier., whom Farfur calls a "terrorist," while Sara, the girl hosting the show, declaims: Farfur has been martyred while defending his land [...] he has been killed by the assassins of children.

Walt Disney's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, called Hamas "pure evil" for using Mickey Mouse to indoctrinate children into Islamic radicalism.

Mickey Mouse in other languages

Filmography

Short Films

Feature and medium-length films

• Fantasy (1940) - segment The Wicked Learning
• Fun and Fancy Free (1947) - segment Mickey and the Beanstalk
• Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983) - First cinematographic appearance since 1953.
• The prince and the beggar (1990) - Second cinematographic appearance with greater duration.
• Fantasy 2000 (1999) - segment The Wicked Learning
• Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas (1999)
• Mickey Magic Christmas (2001)
• Club de los Villanos (2002)
• Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers (2004)
• Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas (2004) - Last feature to date.
• Mickey's Tale of Two Witches (2021) - special television.
• The Christmas Wish of Mickey and Minnie (2021) - special television.
• Mickey saves Christmas (2022) - special television

Series

• Mickey Mouse Works (1999-2000)
• House of Mouse (2001-2003)
• The House of Mickey Mouse (2006-2016)
• Mickey Mouse (2013-2019)
• Mickey Mouse Mixed-Up Adventures (2017-2021)
• Mickey Go Local (2019)
• The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse (2020-present)
• Mickey Mouse Funhouse (2021-present)

Cameo

In movies

• Who tricked Roger Rabbit? (1988), appearing parachuting next to Bugs Bunny when Eddie falls from a building, then appearing again at the final scene
• The Sirenite (1989), when the Triton King moves to the concert, Mickey and Goofy are seen among the audience.
• A Goofy Movie (1995), his figure appears on Max's phone, then he is seen in person during the song "On the Open Road", and appears again among the audience during the Powerline concert
• Toy Story (1995), when Buzz Lightyear is going to test in front of everyone who can fly (here is a watch with Mickey)
• Toy Story 2 (1999), when Woody is in Andy's room playing with Buster (here's a watch with Mickey)
• Chicken Little (2005), on the Melvin wristwatch
• Frozen (2013), when Anna enters the Oaken store, a little Mickey Mouse doll is observed behind the books
• Frozen II (2019), when the protagonists are playing to guess Olaf gets into the shape of the famous mouse

In series

• Bonkers (1993-1994), appears in the episode "You Oughta Be In Toons"
• LEGO Frozen Northern Lights (2016), Elsa creates Mickey-shaped ice sculptures
• Patoaventuras (2021), made a cameo at the end of the second season as a watermelon shaped by his head

Marketing

A bretzel with the shape of Mickey's head and ears.

Since his early years, Mickey Mouse has been licensed by Disney to appear on many different types of merchandise. Mickey was produced as plush toys and figurines, and Mickey's image has graced just about everything from T-shirts to lunch boxes. Kay Kamen, Disney's head of merchandise and licensing from 1932 until his death in 1949, was largely responsible for early marketing for Disney, who was called a "stickman for quality." Kamen was recognized by The Walt Disney Company for playing a significant role in Mickey's rise to stardom and was named a Disney Legend in 1998. At the time of his 80th anniversary celebration in 2008, Time declared Mickey Mouse one of the most recognizable characters, even in comparison to Santa Claus.

Theme Parks

Mickey's house in Mickey's Toontown.

As the official mascot of Walt Disney, Mickey has played a central role in the Disney parks since the opening of Disneyland in 1955. As with other characters, Mickey is often portrayed by a non-speaking costumed actor. In this way, he has participated in ceremonies and countless parades, and poses for photos with guests. Since the presidency of Barack Obama (who jokingly referred to him as "a world leader who has bigger ears than me") Mickey has met with every US president since Harry Truman, with the exception of Lyndon B. Johnson.

Mickey also appears on several specific attractions in the Disney parks. Mickey's Toontown (Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland) is a themed land that is a recreation of Mickey's neighborhood. The buildings are built in a cartoon style and guests can visit Mickey's or Minnie's houses, Donald Duck's boat or Goofy's garage. This is a common place to meet the characters. In addition to Mickey's overt presence in the parks, numerous images of him are also subtly included in sometimes unexpected places. This phenomenon is known as "Hidden Mickeys," which involves hidden images in Disney movies, theme parks and merchandise.

Video games

Like other famous characters, Mickey has starred in numerous video games, including Mickey Mousecapade for the Nintendo Entertainment System; Mickey Mania for Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis, Sega CD/Mega CD, Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sony PlayStation, the latter under the name Mickey's Wild Adventure; Mickey's Ultimate Challenge for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis, Sega Master System, and Sega Game Gear; Disney's Magical Quest for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System; Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse for Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis, Sega Master System, and Sega Game Gear; Land of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse for the Sega Master System and Sega Game Gear; World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck for Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis; Mickey Mouse: Magic Wands for the Game Boy, among others.

Starting in 2000, the Disney's Magical Quest series was ported to the Game Boy Advance, while Mickey ushered in the 128-bit era with Disney's Magical Mirror, a children's game for the Nintendo GameCube. Mickey is an important character in the video game saga Kingdom Hearts , where he is the king of Disney Castle and lends his help to the protagonist of the saga, Sora.

In 2010, Mickey goes on a dark adventure with Epic Mickey for Wii. In 2012, Mickey and Oswald star in a sequel to Epic Mickey called Epic Mickey: The Return of Two Heroes for Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows, Mac OS X and Wii U. It also had another sequel for Nintendo 3DS called Epic Mickey: Mysterious World.

In the Disney Infinity video games, Mickey is a playable character through figures that connect to the game, including one in his Sorcerer's Apprentice outfit, another similar one in see-through clothing, and another introduced for Disney Infinity 3.0 in his classic red pants look.

In popular culture

Spoofs

Because Mickey is considered an icon of American pop culture, he has been used in many parodies, the vast majority portraying him negatively.

• Mickey showed up. The house of the drawings In the episode "Engagement Ends", where his name is censored, Mickey in the show is portrayed as a leader similar to Darth Vader of an organization that seeks to exterminate racist and offensive stereotypes.
• He also appeared in some episodes of South Parkwhere he is portrayed as the rude and greedy leader of Disney, which only cares about money.
• Mickey also appeared in MAD in two sketches, one where he is seen as a doctor (Dr. Mouse m.d), and another one where he is (ironicly) a mice hunter.
• In the animated series The Simpsons There's an episode where Mickey Mouse appears along with Goofy abusing Homer Simpson. In the movie The Simpsons: The Film Bart mentions the character indirectly putting some black adjusters on his head as if they were the ears of the mouse and imitates the characteristic voice saying, "I am the pet of a wicked company."