Mickey Mouse turns 80

Mickey Mouse first appeared on cinema screens in Steamboat Willie, released in 1928.

On Mickey’s 80th birthday the writer, broadcaster and Mickey Mouse expert Brian Sibley explains everything you need to know about the world-famous rodent.

Fans share their Mickey Mouse tales

If you go back to the origins of Mickey Mouse and look at the characters that appeared in those early films, there were all kinds of farmyard animals – pigs, cats, dogs, goats, horses, cows and mice, and they were all a realistic size.

As the characters became more rounded and more sophisticated over the years, their animal nature regressed and they became more like people.

Mickey is a character who wears shoes, shorts and strange white gloves, he lives in a house, drives in a car and has a pet dog called Pluto. In itself, it is rather strange that a mouse has a dog as a pet.

Even if it’s a small dog, it still means Mickey is enormous for a mouse.

MICKEY THE SYMBOL

Over the years Mickey Mouse has been a symbol of different things at different times.

In the 1930s, the time of the great depression, Mickey represented something very American to do with endurance and the ability to rise above defeat.

Alongside Charlie Chaplin, he was an icon of the little man. They symbolised hope, optimism and a kind of inbred spunkiness.

In the first film, Steamboat Willie, he is rude to the authority figure, blows raspberries, thumbs his nose and is generally a little scamp.

As life improved in the 1940s, Mickey became redundant.

Disney had become the doyen of family entertainment and Mickey could no longer be the impertinent, revolutionary character.

So as Disney became more respectable, so did Mickey.

He became the MC, the compere or the circus ringmaster for a whole galaxy of characters like the irascible Donald Duck and the inept Goofy.

He became the pole of normality around which this bizarre entourage flew like satellites.

Move into the 1950s and Walt Disney started opening the first of his theme parks.

Mickey took on another role as the genial, mute host, the friendly person in a suit, welcoming people to this fantasy wonderland.

Now, in 2008, children are watching Mickey’s Clubhouse on TV with a digital Mickey Mouse, and he is rejuvenated again.

MICKEY THE ICON

Andy Warhol said that Mickey was one of his favourite images. Even the Palestinian militant group Hamas used a Mickey-like image on their children’s TV programme, spreading the message of Islamic Jihad.

It is fascinating that a character who hasn’t made many movies in the last 20 years still has worldwide fame.

Maybe it is the fact that Walt Disney himself invested so much interest in the character.

He would often say to the animators in his studio, working on full length, big-budget films: “I hope you will never forget that this was all started by a mouse.”

American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson was supposed to have said that if you build a better mouse trap the world will beat a path to your door. Disney just made a better mouse.

Tags: Entertainment