Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse is one of the world's best known cartoon characters, created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks in 1928 as Disney's new star, following the loss of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit to Charles Mintz and Universal Studios. Though his first produced film was the silent short Plane Crazy, Mickey made his theatrical debut in Steamboat Willie, which has the distinction of being the first sound cartoon short. In 2006, The Walt Disney Company regained the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

Background
Mickey Mouse (voiced primarily by Walt Disney, until sound effects artist James MacDonald took over in 1946) went on to star in dozens of theatrical cartoons, and in 1932, Disney received an Honorary Special Academy Award for the creation of Mickey Mouse. Four of Mickey's starring shorts also received Academy Award nominations for Best Animated Short Subject. Fred Moore, one of the key animators on Mickey, described the character in a 1930s analysis sheet for studio artists: "Mickey seems to be the average young boy of no particular age; living in a small town, clean living, fun loving, bashful around girls, polite, and as clever as he must be for the particular story. In some pictures he has a touch of Fred Astaire; in others of Charlie Chaplin, and some of Douglas Fairbanks, but in all of these there should be some of the young boy."

The character's fame soon extended into merchandise, his own comic strip (launched in 1930, and featuring a more intrepid Mickey), and a short-lived radio series, The Mickey Mouse Theatre of the Air (1938). Gradually, Mickey was overshadowed by the more volatile Donald Duck as the studio's main star and by the 1950s, Mickey was reduced to playing foil to his own dog, Pluto. One of his most notable later appearances was his star turn as "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" in Fantasia (1940).

As his cinematic star declined, Mickey gained a new lease as the mascot and host of TV's The Mickey Mouse Club, the title song to which sings the Mouse's praises. The series in many ways marks the early stages of the mouse's transition from movie star to corporate symbol of The Walt Disney Company. Wayne Allwine, MacDonald's former apprentice, took over as the voice of Mickey in the 1970s, vocalizing the mouse's sporadic theatrical comebacks (such as Mickey's Christmas Carol in 1984 and The Prince and the Pauper in 1990) as well as various TV appearances. Bret Iwan took over as the voice of Mickey in 2009.

Mickey continues to appear in walk-around form in countless shows and parades at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, returned to TV in Mickey Mouse Works, House of the Mouse, and most recently, CG animation form as the star of Disney Channel's Disney Junior series Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Jim and Mickey
Jim Henson was a known admirer of the works of Walt Disney and occasionally spoke of Mickey when discussing or even developing his own characters. Caroll Spinney recalled that when he asked Henson how Big Bird should sound, the latter said "maybe like Mickey Mouse's pal Goofy." Designer Kermit Love later compared the bird and the mouse, claiming that "Like Mickey Mouse, he never gives in to violence."

Kermit the Frog, as the most iconic Muppet and the leader and "straight man" of his troupe, has often been likened to Mickey, and Henson himself compared the two, not as personalities, but as similar abstractions. He discussed how Kermit became "a bit rounder, a bit more froglike. As a parallel, Mickey Mouse looks nothing like a mouse, but he fits into that category. I mean, if nobody ever said Mickey Mouse was a mouse, we wouldn't know what he was, would we?" Henson even kept a Mickey figurine on the fireplace mantel in his office

During the first aborted Disney sale in 1989, Michael Eisner discussed the company's expected ownership of Kermit by saying "Mickey Mouse has a new sibling, and he's going to have to get used to it."

Appearances

 * Mickey (voiced by Allwine) met Kermit the Frog and the Muppets in the 1990 special, The Muppets at Walt Disney World. Kermit remarked that he and the mouse already knew each other from an organization called FASA: Fictional Animal Stars of America.


 * "Kermit's Christmas Diary" from Jim Henson's Muppets Annual 1982 establishes that Mickey and Kermit are also members of another club for fictional characters called POPCORNS: People Other People Consider to be Other than Real Normal Specimens.


 * Walk-around versions of Mickey and Minnie appear in a sequence with Miss Piggy in The Disney Christmas Special. Piggy sings "Some Day My Prince Will Come," and fails to notice the royal mice among the human dancers.


 * Mickey and Kermit spoke via picture phone in the "Here Come the Muppets" stage show at Walt Disney World.


 * In the theme park film Muppet*Vision 3D, the character Waldo C. Graphic morphs into Mickey Mouse at the end. Wayne Allwine again provides Mickey's voice.


 * Walk-around versions of Mickey and Minne appeared in a promo for the 2011 Country Music Association Awards, which also featured Miss Piggy.

Parodies

 * A parody of Mickey, Mickey Moose, appears in episode 220 of The Muppet Show.


 * The Mickey Mouse Club has occasionally been spoofed, through the likes of The Kermit the Frog Club on Muppets Tonight and such Sesame Street groups as the Grouchketeers, the Birdketeers and several other variations.


 * When The Walt Disney Company purchased the Muppets and Bear in the Big Blue House characters from The Jim Henson Company, the event found its way into satire by way of political cartoons, such as this one by Anthony Diberardo.


 * Saturday Night Live parodied Mickey during an April 2006 episode, in an animated "TV Funhouse" segment. Mickey is revealed to have kept Jim Henson locked away in the Disney Vault because he wouldn't sell the company to Disney.

Trivia

 * When Kevin Clash was 10 years old, the first puppet he built was a Mickey Mouse puppet.