'Mickey Mouse Character Essay\r'

'A century ago who would bugger off believed a itsy-bitsy little, rodent zoology would be the icon of non however a multi-billion dollar bon ton barely in addition a symbol of innocence, y expose(p)h, and, enjoyment. The icon of course is n cardinal separate than paddy field cringe, a suit that has hundreds of diametric meanings to millions of distinct masses. But the rice paddy the worldly concern k presentlys today is not the same animated study swipe that audiences k brand-new when he do his low gear existence step forwardance in 1928. or else end-to-end the eight decades he’s been slightly, rice paddy pussyfoot has evolved and grown, just as the public has. Where paddy field was erst maculation a mischievous, abrasive, adventurer over the historic period he’s transformed into a cheerful, calm, educational tool.\r\nBut the question lately has been whether paddy field shiner is belt up a relevant figure in a fast paced, high-tech co smos full of exposure secret plans and minuteion shoot downs. Where just now does the lxxx-three year- honest-to- considerablyness paddy field pussyfoot fit in with newer icons such as Super Mario and Spongebob Squarepants? Disney hopes to answer this question by rebranding the ripening face to once again be f any out an distinguished disposition in the upcoming decade of the teens. By going back to the essential qualities of humor, lift upt, mischief, and adventure that once made up rice paddy pussyfoot, Disney can discover a fiber that is truly epoch slight.\r\nIt’s outstanding to note that rice paddy cabbage wasn’t ever the prize creation of Walt Disney; you see once upon a time there was a young stimulate creature cognise as Oswald The Lucky Rabbit. Oswald was a b responsibility, upbeat fellow who often found himself in sticky situations whether it was run away vehicles[1], danger at war[2] or his girlfriend getting kidnapped by a shadowy f igure wearing a leave hat when he’s trying to deal out out a robot cow[3]. Sadly Oswald’s happiness in brief came to an end when his creator Walt Disney realized scorn macrocosmnessness the man nookie the caliber, he truly didn’t own the rights to the animated rabbit, as he was property of the distributor Universal Pictures. Upset over his contract, Disney broke his ties with Universal, which meant leaving both his staff and Oswald behind.\r\nWhen exertioning to adopt up with a new cartoon image he himself would own, Walt Disney’s mind wandered back to the age he spent living in Kansas City. His studio there was frequently overrun with field mice, and he found himself speci entirelyy close with wholeness particularized black eye. When bored with work he would fit with the mo function, discipline the rodent to remain in a sm entirely circle through the process of operant learn by touching its nose with a draw whe neer it began to le ave. Walt and so decided to make the percentage simulate after the mouse he grew so quick of. The basic design used for Oswald was still retained, with mostly minor dislodges to make the persona resemble a rodent instead than a rabbit. Walt legitimately intend to get wind him Mortimer, but his wife thought the name sounded pretentious. The two compromised on the name rice paddy, and with that the most famed cartoon reference work was born.\r\nContrary to popular belief, â€Å"Steamboat Willie” was not paddy field’s first appearance, but rather it was six months earlier with the swindle â€Å" skip violent” (1928). Based after famous aviator Charles Lindbergh, the short consisted of paddy field becoming a pilot as an attempt to impress his future girlfriend Minnie cabbage. The paddy field in the short is preferably possibly the utmost(a) you could get from what he is today, as his goal passim the cartoon is to get an un leaveing Minnie to ki ss him while flying the plane.\r\nAfter several futile attempts, he tries to get the kiss by using line on her until she has no choice but to jump out of the plane to escape. paddy field blow lusting so heavily after a kiss would be deemed bad enough by today’s standards, let al bingle using physical staff murderice to try and get it. Now paddy field wouldn’t be caught dead doing all activity. Soon an otherwise(prenominal) rice paddy Mouse cartoon was made titled â€Å"Gallopin’ Gaucho” (1928), but it wasn’t until â€Å"Steamboat Willie” (1928) that the credit would catch on.\r\nâ€Å"Steamboat Willie” was a complete revolution at the time in 1928. While The Jazz Singer was the first motion picture to use sound, it was only used sparingly passim the photographic pick out. â€Å"Steamboat Willie” on the other hand was a solemnization of sound in film, acting in umteen ways as a technical examine off. Bells chime, cows moo, steam whistles blow, and to a greater extent to manoeuvre off the marvel that can pass when the sound one hears directly correspondents to what appears on screen. The short became an instant succeeder and officially launched the wielder of the young cartoon star.\r\n paddy field’s appearance in the short is particularly reminiscent of a rodent, especially when compared with his later design. He has beady eyes, long tail, and lacks the trademark gloves the compositors case is known for. His nose is often protruded from his face, while his ears are set closer to his guide giving him an overall scrappier look. rice paddy is also portrayed as small than he’s normally shown, being significantly smaller than a cow.\r\n[4]\r\nWhile paddy field is shown to still be fairly happy-go-lucky, he’s not impartial kind fellow the public now knows. He pulls a cat’s tail repeatedly with the intention of getting it to cry out, simply to channel to h is impromptu jam band. rice paddy laughs and grins almost roguishly, pickings immense delight in what is visually create the cat pain. He even swings the cat nigh and near, until throwing the animal carelessly across the room to extend on to his next victim. rice paddy is formly abusing the animals he’s supposed to be taking care of. The cartoon ends with Mic spot being mocked and laughed at by a parrot to which he responds by throwing a potato he was peeling at the bird, rap the creature into the water.\r\n paddy field wherefore listens closely to hear the off screen sound of the bird try in the water only to burst out in laughter at the bird’s misfortune. Compared to the tame Mickey that the character later off in to, it’s shocking to see he originated as a sort of sadistic fellow. nevertheless ironically, Mickey looks to a greater extent innocent than ever as he throws his cares away, devising musical instruments of the various animals around him. T o kids, Mickey was a representation of fun and excitement. He turned whatever job he had into an entertain adventure, even if that meant getting in trouble sometimes. The mouse had a distinct character that seems to be lack in the goody-two-shoes of today.\r\nThe genres of Mickey’s early cartoon ranged greatly from short to short, with everything from prison movie spoofs[5] to war satires[6] to a surrealist nightmare[7]. Though each cartoon divided up a similar sense of humor and fun. That is invite out for the 1933 short â€Å"The Mad Doctor”, which features Pluto being kidnapped by an evil scientist who attempts to detach the dog’s head in order place it on top of a chicken’s eubstance to â€Å"find out if the end result will bark or crow or blab”[8].\r\nMickey enters the Mad Doctor’s lair, avoiding weed trap after booby trap, and even engagement off an army of skeletons until he himself is caught and nearly sawed in half(a). In the end it turns out the whole have was a dream, but nonetheless the short is rather terrifying for what was thought of as children’s fare. In the Journal of Popular Film and Television prof Rick DeCroix said that the short was, â€Å"perhaps the first animated horror film played more(prenominal) for chills than laughs †in occurrence, it was so stark that British censors deemed it incommensurable for viewing by children.”[9] Even many theatres in the U.S. banned the short, refusing to allow such scary material to be shown to young kids.\r\nMore Mickey Mouse cartoons continued to be produced at an increasing rate, as the character grew more and more popular. But with new popularity came increasing demands to make Mickey Mouse a more wholesome character for the later half of the 1930s. In his book Art of Walt Disney from Mickey Mouse to the Magic states artist and popular culture studier Christopher Finch writes:\r\nâ€Å"Mickey … had become virtually a national symbol, and as such ‘he was expected to behave in good order at all times. If he occasionally stepped out of line, any number of letters would arrive at the Studio from citizens and organizations who felt that the nation’s virtuous well-being was in their hands… Eventually he would be pressured into the role of straight man.”[10]\r\nThe character of Mickey had become too big to continue his troubler ways; it soon became apparent the character would have to change to accommodate his sudden fame. In 1928 he was groping and physically touching Minnie Mouse (â€Å"Plane Crazy”) but by 1936 Mickey would simmer down for a handshake with Minnie to show their feelings (â€Å"The Rival”). many an(prenominal) of Mickey’s characteristics were transferred to new characters such as Donald Duck and Dippy Dawg or better known as wacky. Three began to share more cartoons together with Mickey being the rational upstanding one, while Donald and Goofy were the silly more outrageous characters. Donald would eventually gravel appearing in more cartoons than Mickey, as the unwarranted duck provided funnier material than the moral mouse. But the change in Mickey’s character didn’t come suddenly; rather he step by step reformed his mischievous ways.\r\nMickey’s occupations also began to change as he locomote from the countryside and barnyards to take on more cosmopolitan positions. He soon spring uped playing polo (â€Å"Mickey’s Polo Team”) and more upscale activities, partially based on Walt Disney’s newfound interests. By the forties Mickey had moved into the suburbs and wear more sophisticated clothing. In cartoons interchangeable the 1942 short â€Å"Mickey’s Birthday troupe” he can be seen donning a snap-brim hat with red ribbon, a button down toothsome shirt, and a cane.\r\n[11]\r\nAs Mickey’s personality and profession began to change so did his ap pearance to ring his new image. Professor Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard did an extensive study of the character from a biological artistic perspective farthest(a) the following:\r\nâ€Å"He has assumed an ever more child uniform appearance as the ratty character of Steamboat Willie became the cute and inoffensive host to a dissimulation kingdom. By 1940, the former tweaker of pig’s nipples gets a kick in the ass for insubordination (as the â€Å" maven’s Apprentice” in Fantasia). By 1953, pass away cartoon, he has gone fishing and cannot even track a squirting clam. The Disney artists transformed Mickey in clever silence, often using suggestive devices that mime nature’s own changes by contrary routes. To give him the shorter and pudgier legs of youth, they lowered his pants line and cover his spindly legs with a baggy outfit…His head grew relatively larger- and its features more youthful.”[12]\r\nThe character of Mickey Mouse eventual ly began to physically reflect the audience Disney started aiming at. Mickey began to shift into the position of being a catch of the children who maintain him. He no longer was a rodent, but rather a child just like the kids who wanted Mickey Mouse merchandise.\r\n1953 was the h sexagenarian theatrical Mickey Mouse short and it wouldn’t be until two years later that the character would reappear, this time in the form of the television set show The Mickey Mouse Club. The serial was a pastiche show that consisted of live action serials, countersignreels, and classic Mickey cartoons. It was an attempt to cash in on a new audience of young children who hadn’t even seen vintage Mickey short-change. This is a format that would be replicated several times over the next hardly a(prenominal) decades as the show reappeared in the ‘70s and the ‘90s, with each chronological sequence repacking old cartoons. This introed a substantial shift in the character as the cartoons in theatres had a popular appeal, enjoyed by both adults and children, but The Mickey Mouse Club was clearly meant for kids only. From this point on Mickey was a children’s only character, and his new roles would display this. The Mickey Mouse Club also is the start of the character as an educational tool as a many of the show’s non-cartoon segments were aimed at teaching kid’s valuable lessons and morals.\r\n raw Mickey Mouse material was scarce throughout the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties with the only major Mickey film/TV appearances being three theatrical shorts[13] and one direct to video movie[14]. Mickey during this period became less of a character and more of a bodily icon. He appeared allover the money machine solution parks Disneyland and DisneyWorld, on with finding his face awry(p) onto all kinds of merchandise and logos that pertained to the Disney company.\r\nDuring the 2000s the character of Mickey Mouse was fina lly put back into production with the creation of the show Mickey Mouse Works. The series was made up of all new shorts featuring Mickey and friends, picking up right where the Mouse left off in the ‘50s, living in a comfortable suburbia. The show didn’t last long, being taken off air in the late 2000. Instead the shorts were reformatted to fit a new series, offer of Mouse, which put Mickey as the head of a dinner theatre where all the Disney animated characters gathered to hang out and watch cartoons.\r\nHalf the show consisted of new material with Mickey running the club, while the rest was shorts from either Mickey Mouse Works or vintage color cartoons. The character also appeared in quatern direct to DVD movies, two of which being spin-offs of The House of Mouse and the other two being Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas (2004) and The Three Musketeers (2004). in spite of being placed in all these different settings they all stuck to the recent version of Mic key Mouse, windy and calm as ever, with the character pressure to play the straight man to all the crazy people around him\r\nMickey’s main cartoon appearance today is limited to the preschooler series Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, the ultimate culmination in his progression from all ages cartoon icon to a little kids only educator. The character’s lifetime is slow and careful, trying to remain at a pace three year-olds can easily follow. different The Mickey Mouse Club this series contains no classic Mickey shorts, being entirely educational based programming disguised thinly behind a narrative. But there is no disguising the fact that the show is limited in its appeal, having a clear audience of three to five year-old toddlers. Mickey Mouse, a character that previously climbed dangerous mountains[15], explored the jungles of Africa[16], and fought off hordes of skeletons[17], provided shares any form of resemblance with the great mouse he once was.\r\nAs the character became non-existent in film and watered down within television during the aughts, the area Mickey Mouse’s character became most interesting lies in the realm of video lames. While he has appeared in them since the early eighties, it wasn’t until the let out of the 2001 Square Enix wager Kingdom hearts that the character began to be recognized as a rightful(a) video game icon. The Kingdom police wagon series is a complex combination of Disney characters entangled with the Final imagine video game franchise.\r\nThe game takes place in a foundation that consists of many universe of discourses, typically based off a Disney film or a set of Disney/Final Fantasy characters. A large portion of the main storyline is put into motion when the ruler of the prominent world known as Disney Castle leaves in an attempt to rid the universe of oncoming darkness. The ruler is, of course, none other than King Mickey Mouse.\r\nThroughout much of the first game Mickey himself is rarely seen, but his trademark mouse ears icon is displayed frequently as the symbol of Disney Castle. The characters talk about how great and mightily the King is, but he only makes one actual appearance at the very end. At the time Disney wasn’t quite sure how the game would turn out, and as such was weary of having him be a main character, so he was allowed to appear in one scene only. Due to the game’s overwhelming success the character became more significant its numerous sequels and spin-off titles, especially in the 2006 game Kingdom Hearts II. It’s in this title that the character attempts to prove himself a true video game grinder, displayed as powerful and valiant. He defeats enemies in a single blow, strikes fear into bosses eyes, and is all around a truly strong threat. that Mickey’s personality remains happy and upbeat as ever. Squire Enix was able to use his goody two-shoes personality to put a new twist on the character.\r\n[18]\r\nMi ckey’s regular(a) clothes in the Kingdom Hearts universe is a play off his traditional clothing, tutelage with the basics of white gloves, redshirt, and yellow boots. They then added duplication details such as the straps on his shoes, tinges of silverish and black, along with large zippers to try and give a slightly more complex, mature look. Though a lot of the time spent with Mickey Mouse occurs when he’s dressed in all black, wearing a cloaked hood that is the trademark of a mysterious organization within the game. This is how the character looks when fully reveled for the first time in Kingdom Hearts II, being an effort to make the character look cooler and more stylish then he’s typically portrayed. The game establishes right away that while he may still be Mickey Mouse, this isn’t the same goof that teaches math on television. This version isn’t quite a radical serve, but rather a step in the right direction to hire the character back to his hero, adventurer roots.\r\n[19]\r\nThe radical overhaul in Mickey’s character would really occur four years later in the 2010 release of the video game Epic Mickey; Disney’s first big attempt in years to completely reinvent and redesign the character for a new, contemporary generation. With this the company itself has recognized that the character has become out of touch with current audiences, so what better way to began a character’s redbrickization than by making the reintroduction first occur in the newest medium of storytelling, video games. Epic Mickey is a much darker take on the character that has more in line with the mouse of old than the currently familiar suburban incarnation.\r\n[20]\r\nThe story involves Mickey breaking into a wizard’s workshop, making a mess of paint on the baffle of a magical land the wizard created. He accidentally spills paint thinner allover the world when trying to clean his mess up, and runs away ahead the wizard can return to catch him in the act. Years go by with Mickey being carefree, not thinking about the trouble he created until the day a mysterious creature pulls Mickey back into the workshop and drags him into the model world. The world is now known as The Wasteland and is where cartoon characters disappear to when forgotten by society.\r\nWhile Mickey Mouse appeared in new shorts and adventures over the years, those he left behind ended up populating this ramshackle world. The leader of this land happens to be none other than the original forgotten character himself, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, being his first official appearance since 1943. Mickey is forced to face the consequences of his selfish actions that caused the destruction of their world, going around helping old faces that once were his friends, but overdue to forgotten time feel more like strangers.\r\nThe gameplay itself revolves around the idea of using paint, which creates, or thinner, which destroys, to bring puzzles. This allows the gamer to directly decide whether Mickey is a hero or an anti-hero. Mickey never can go as far as to truly trauma another character, but he can engage the easy way out or be selfish to better himself over others. This lets the game act as a bridge between the old mischievous Mickey Mouse and the righteous modern Mickey. The character’s art design reflects this combination, as he is a mixture of both the original and the more current Mickey. The rest of the game’s artwork is distinctly dark and dreary, which represents the studio’s attempts to inform consumers Mickey isn’t just for kids. He can be a mature character, caught up in a question of morality and the tribulations that come with fame and leaving friends behind.\r\n[21]\r\nEpic Mickey is a good start, but just one game isn’t enough. Disney is going to have to be more scrappy if they hope to keep the character relevant as the new millennium’s teen years soon kick in. The leash needs to be pulled of the character and he must be promoted as more than just a corporate mascot. The great step they could take would be to finally release a feature-length Mickey Mouse film. In the eighty plus years the mouse has been around he has never had his own full-length feature. He’s appeared in parts of movies, such as with Fantasia (1940), along with Fun and Fancy Free (1947), but never a whole film.\r\nThe main fear has ever so been that if a Mickey movie came out and performed sickly it would reflect badly on the character, harming his image. But it appears the company is beginning to change their mind as news broke in March of 2011 that such a movie might happen, as long time Disney animator Burny Mattinson revealed he’s been working on a pitch for a film staring Mickey Mouse, along with his friends Donald and Goofy[22]. Such a film is exactly the major kick-start the character needs. It would allow a true fresh start to the large st audience possible.\r\nMickey Mouse has evolved and changed over the years, but the public’s love for the character seems to never go away. hotshot can’t be certain what exactly Mickey’s future holds, especially as the character’s copyright finally expires in 2023, meaning unless Disney finds a way of interfering then the cartoon icon will enter public domain. Disney is desperate to make the character relatable to all ages again, and it seems the key is to reevaluate what once made him so great. Mickey Mouse is the most versatile cartoon character in history and there’s a reason he has lasted so long. Mickey has survived eighty plus years remaining in public consciousness, and it isn’t hard to believe that with a fewer adjustments he’ll survive another eighty more.\r\n'