Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime corporate icon and mascot of the Walt Disney Company and a figurehead of American animation, Mickey is an anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red shorts, large shoes, and white gloves. He is often depicted with a cast of characters including his girlfriend Minnie Mouse, his pet dog Pluto, his best friends Donald Duck and Goofy, and his nemesis Pete.
Mickey was created as a replacement for a prior character created by Disney, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. The character was originally to be named "Mortimer Mouse", until Disney's wife, Lillian, suggested "Mickey". Mickey first appeared in two 1928 shorts Plane Crazy and The Gallopin' Gaucho (which were not picked up for distribution) before his public debut in Steamboat Willie (1928). The character went on to appear in over 130 films, mostly short films. His relatively few feature films include Fantasia (1940). Since 1930, Mickey has been featured extensively in comic strips (including the Mickey Mouse comic strip, which ran for 45 years) and comic books (such as Mickey Mouse). The character has also been featured in television series such as The Mickey Mouse Club (1955–1996).
Inspired by such silent film personalities as Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks, Mickey is traditionally portrayed as a sympathetic underdog who gets by on pluck and ingenuity in the face of challenges bigger than himself. The character's depiction as a small mouse is personified through his diminutive stature and falsetto voice, the latter of which was originally provided by Walt Disney. Though originally characterized as a cheeky lovable rogue, Mickey was rebranded over time as a nice guy, usually seen as a spirited, yet impulsive hero.
A figurehead of American animation, Mickey is one of the world's most recognizable fictional characters, often described as a global cultural icon and one of the most famous cultural symbols of the 20th century. He also appears in media such as video games as well as merchandising and is a meetable character at the Disney parks. Ten of Mickey's cartoons were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, one of which, Lend a Paw, won the award in 1941. In 1978, Mickey became the first cartoon character to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Creation
Mickey Mouse was created as a replacement for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, an earlier cartoon character that was created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks for Universal Pictures during their time at Winkler Pictures. In an unsuccessful February 1928 meeting with Winkler producer Charles Mintz to negotiate a higher budget, he left in disappointment, only to find that Mintz secretly convinced his staff to move to an in-house studio. Among the few who refused and stayed with him were animator Ub Iwerks, apprentice artist Les Clark, and Wilfred Jackson.
A new character was workshopped out of necessity and in relative secret. Various myths exist of Walt Disney's inspiration for Mickey (including some which were likely ghostwritten), such as that the starving artist drew inspiration from a tame mouse (or pair of mice) at his desk at Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, Missouri, or that he undertook a romantic search for inspiration on the train ride home from his disappointing meeting with Mintz.Walt Disney: Conversations (Conversations With Comic Artists Series) by Kathy Merlock Jackson with Walt Disney " p. 120. At Disney's behest, Iwerks sketched new character ideas based on various animals such as dogs and cats, but none of these appealed to Disney. A female cow and male horse were rejected, as was a male frog. In 1925, Hugh Harman drew some sketches of mice around a photograph of Walt Disney, reputedly based on Disney's own designs (similar to those he included on family birthday cards). These inspired Iwerks to create a new mouse character for Disney.
"Mortimer Mouse" had been Disney's original name for the character before his wife, Lillian, convinced him to change it. It has been speculated that Disney saw the name on a similarly named Performo toy. Additionally, actor Mickey Rooney claimed that during his time performing as the title character of the Mickey McGuire film series (1927–1934), he met Walt Disney at the Warner Bros. studio, inspiring Disney to name the character after him; however, Disney Studios was located on Hyperion Avenue at the time, with Disney conducting no business at Warner Bros.
The first feature-length movie with dialogue sequences, The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson, was released on October 6, 1927. Several additional talkies followed, and movie theaters began installing the necessary equipment. Walt Disney reputedly discussed making sound cartoons in late May 1928. After composer Carl W. Stalling initially voiced Mickey for the 1929 talkie shorts The Karnival Kid and Wild Waves, Disney himself provided the often-shy falsetto voice—a large part of the character's onscreen persona.
Design
Mickey's original design strongly resembled Oswald the Rabbit, save for the ears, nose, and tail. Ub Iwerks designed Mickey's body out of circles (distinctly, the ears) to make the character easy to animate. Upon his creation, Mickey's features shared similarities to a number of his cartoon predecessors with large eyes and mouth on a black body (e.g. Oswald and Felix the Cat). From early 1929,The Opry House (1929) Mickey also wore white gloves (similar to those appearing on later characters, e.g. Bosko and Bimbo). Several sources state that this scheme evolved from blackface caricatures used in minstrel shows.Multiple sources:
Additionally, Mickey's original black hands could not be seen if they passed in front of his torso. This limitation encouraged animators to base their poses on silhouette, much in the manner of Charlie Chaplin films.
Minnie Mouse was designed similarly to Mickey, with only superficial details being different. In the 1930s, animator Fred Moore tried giving Mickey's body more of a pear shape to increase his acting range; Walt Disney liked this adaptation and declared, "that's the way I want Mickey to be drawn from now on." Moore maintained that the character should always be drawn from a pleasing angle, ears included, as opposed to depicting Mickey as a realistic 3D character.
Mickey's eyes were originally large and white with black outlines, with the tops able to deform like eyebrows; the pupil was circular (with a triangle cut out in poster to simulate reflected light). Starting with Steamboat Willie, the bottom portion of the black outlines was removed, often making the pupil placement look strange. The pupils began to be treated as stationary, dotlike eyes, requiring the entire head to be moved to make Mickey look around. During the production of Fantasia in the late 1930s, Fred Moore redesigned Mickey with small white pupilled eyes, with the redefined facial area being given a light skin color. Distinct, lined eyebrows were later added and are currently used occasionally.e.g., The Simple Things (1953)
Besides Mickey's gloves and shoes, he typically wears only a pair of shorts with two large buttons in the front. Before Mickey was seen regularly in color animation, Mickey's shorts were either red or a dull blue-green. With the advent of Mickey's color films, they were always red. When Mickey is not wearing his shorts, he is often still wearing red clothing. Due to budgetary limits imposed by World War II, Mickey temporarily lost his tail, e.g. in The Little Whirlwind (1941).
Appearances
Film
Debut (1928)
Mickey was first seen in a test screening of the cartoon short Plane Crazy, on May 15, 1928, but it failed to impress the audience and Disney could not find a distributor. Disney went on to produce a second Mickey short, The Gallopin' Gaucho, which also could not find a distributor.
Steamboat Willie was first released on November 18, 1928, in New York. It was by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. Iwerks again served as the head animator, assisted by Les Clark, Johnny Cannon, Wilfred Jackson and Dick Lundy. This short was a nod to Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill, Jr., released earlier that year. Although it was the third Mickey cartoon produced, it was the first to find a distributor, and thus is considered by The Disney Company as Mickey's debut. It also featured some design refinements, and included the use of a bouncing ball on the film print to allow conductors and musicians to match the tempo of their music with the film.
The cartoon was not the first cartoon to feature a soundtrack connected to the action. Fleischer Studios, headed by brothers Dave and Max Fleischer, had already released a number of sound cartoons using the DeForest system in the mid-1920s. However, these cartoons did not keep the sound synchronized throughout the film. For Willie, Disney had the sound recorded with a click track that kept the musicians on the beat. This precise timing is apparent during the "Turkey in the Straw" sequence when Mickey's actions exactly match the accompanying instruments. Animation historians have long debated who had served as the composer for the film's original music. This role has been variously attributed to Wilfred Jackson, Carl Stalling and Bert Lewis, but identification remains uncertain. Walt Disney himself was voice actor for both Mickey and Minnie and would remain the source of Mickey's voice through 1946 for theatrical cartoons. Jimmy MacDonald took over the role in 1946, but Walt provided Mickey's voice again from 1955 to 1959 for The Mickey Mouse Club television series on ABC.
Audiences at the time of Steamboat Willies release were reportedly impressed by the use of sound for comedic purposes. Sound films or "talkies" were still considered innovative. Most other cartoon studios were still producing silent products and so were unable to effectively act as competition to Disney. As a result, Mickey would soon become the most prominent animated character of the time. Walt Disney then worked on adding sound to both Plane Crazy and The Gallopin' Gaucho (which were originally silent releases) and their new releases added to Mickey's success and popularity. A fourth Mickey short, The Barn Dance, was also put into production; however, Mickey does not actually speak until The Karnival Kid (1929). After Steamboat Willie was released, Mickey became a close competitor to Felix the Cat, and his popularity would grow as he was continuously featured in sound cartoons. By 1929, Felix would lose popularity among theater audiences, and Pat Sullivan decided to produce all future Felix cartoons in sound as a result. Audiences did not respond well to Felix's transition to sound and by 1930, Felix had faded from the screen.
Black and white films (1929–1935)
In Mickey's early films he was often characterized not as a hero, but as an ineffective young suitor to Minnie Mouse. The Barn Dance (March 14, 1929) is the first time in which Mickey is turned down by Minnie in favor of Pete. The Opry House (March 28, 1929) was the first time in which Mickey wore his white gloves. Mickey wears them in almost all of his subsequent appearances and many other characters followed suit. The three lines on the back of Mickey's gloves represent darts in the gloves' fabric extending from between the digits of the hand, typical of glove design of the era.