Home & People Mickey Mouse towards his 50th birthday

Press, 4 January 1978, Page 12

Home & People

Mickey Mouse towards his 50th birthday

By

ARN SARA,

“Montreal Star”

When Walt Disney was 26 an<l a fledgling cartoonist his most successful cartoon character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, was stolen by a sihrewd New York distributor. On the way back to Hollywood by train he dreamt up Oswald’s successor.

He later loved to tell how the character was based on a pet mouse he had once had that did tricks. Disney called his new character Mortimer, but Disney’s wife Lillian said the name was “too pompous.” Mortimer was renamed Mickey and a star was born.

On November 18, 1928, Mickey Mouse made his debut as a short subject on the bill of the Colony.

Theatre in New York. The film was the world’s first talking animated cartoon, Steamboat Willie.

By his first birthday Mickey had one million members in his fan club. By his second birthday it was possible to dress from head to toe in items bearing Mickey’s picture. You could go to the movies anywhere in the world and see Mickey. Now, as Mickey enters middle age, his star status is undiminished. It has been said that the ‘wo most universally recognized shapes in the world are the Coke bottle and Mickey Mouse. Disney had stopped drawing cartoons four years before Steamboat Willie; the famous shape was actually designed by Ub Iwerks, Disney’s boyhood friend and collaborator.

With his richness of design, fluidity of style and speed of execution, Iwerks was the master animator of his day. It was Disney, however, who first realized that animated characters could and should have distinct personalities.

How a small black squiggle on paper or film can have an independent existence is one of the mysteries of our age. Disney himself had an almost mystical affection for Mickey and in the first days

of production the animators often took their cue for his behavior from Disney’s own mannerisms. For many years Mickey’s famous falsetto was supplied by Disney and Mickey’s naive but highspirited style was a close reflection of the Disney persona.

Mickey has had friends in high places. The English novelist E. M. Forster praised Mickey for being “energetic without being elevated,” and said he had “a scandalous element in him which I find most restful.” Mackenzie King was a reported fan, as were Franklin D. Roosevelt, Benito Mussolini and the Nizam of Hyderabad.

King George V and Queen Mary were once late for tea because they

wanted to finish watching a Mickey film. The Disney organization soon found they had trouble dealing with Mickey’s popularity — not from a commercial standpoint, but from a creative one. With increasing fame he became more vulnerable to criticism for engaging in rough or irresponsible behavior.

In his earliest pictures he pulled a cow’s udders to produce music and wound up a dachshund like an elastic band. Later, to keep him interesting, it was necessary for the story men to come up with endless new occupations and locations.

While this phase lasted, roughly up to the Second World War, some classic films were produced. Mickey also starred in comic strips, the best of them created by Floyd Gottfredson, who did the newspaper strip from 1931 until 1975.

Over the years Mickey has undergone many physical overhauls, almost never for the better in the opinion of dyed-in-the-mouse-fur fans; Refinements on Iwerks’s inspired conception produced the classic Mickey, who reached his perfected state by 1930. The first major change came in 1938 when Mickey’s all-black eyes with pie-shaped pupils were replaced by more

normal-looking white eyes with black pupils. For a brief period around 1941 he had three-di-mensional ears, probably the ugliest innovation of all. In 1944 he took to wearing middle-class pleated pants and a white shirt, giving up the famous red shorts with yellow buttons. Face and body proportions went through numerous streamlinings. By 1955 we had the thoroughly modern Mickey, a suburban character with bulging waistline and pedestrian pastimes. What is peculiar is that few people noticed these changes. As the first flush of Mickey’s popularity waned uisney made periodic nostalgic attempts to revive it. The most successful was television’s Mickey Mouse Club. Disney need not have feared, however. Mickey has entered our culture and consciousness ineradicably. Since the mid-1960s col-

lecting Disneyana has become a serious hobby. With the plethora of items that have over the years borne the Disney imprint — the number is impossible to catalogue — the hobby is an endless one. It is also becoming expensive. Early editions of Mickey books now go for at least $5O and in any collectors’ journal one finds such items listed as a Mickey Mouse pencil box (1934) for $25, a Mickey Mouse Bosco glass for $l5, and a Mickey Mouse recipe booklet (with 27 or the original give-away colored stickers) for $2O. If you have a passion for Mickey but are not among the moneyed elite, do not despair. In 1973, after an absence of 35 years, the original Mickey appeared back on the market.

Today the classic insouciant Mickey is once again on the market as a telephone, on radios, jewellery, watches,

stationery, bedsheets, wallpaper, badges, games and even a toilet seat. A word to the cautious antiquarian: watch the eyes. If the Mickey you contemplate adding to . your collection has white eyes, think twice. If he has long pants, you would be foolish to buv. To the i cognoscenti anything other ' than the original Mickey is a debased currency. | Mickey will be 50 next; year. His biography is ■ being published — Mickey, ] Mouse: Fifty Happy Years — by David Bain and Bruce Harris. At Dis- I neyland in Anaheim, Cali- | fomia, and at Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida, a! daily birthday parade will I take place throughout 1978. A Mickey Mouse television special is also I in the works. Perhaps that middle-age spread is understandable,! and the harking back to his youth. But when he is 100, or 200, there will ( always be someone who loves him.