At 75, Mickey more than just a mouse

ORLANDO - Mickey Mouse arrived on the world's cultural stage 75 years ago today as a scrawny but buoyant black and white product of the Jazz Age.

He was a symbol of American pluck in his screen debut, Steamboat Willie, on Nov. 18, 1928. The film at New York's Colony Theatre showed an irreverent rodent who takes Captain Pete's steamboat on a joyride and woos Minnie Mouse by making music on the bodies of various farm animals.

The years have dulled Mickey's personality, a result of him becoming the corporate face of a multibillion-dollar entertainment empire. In the process, Mickey also has become a cultural Rorschach test: a symbol of American optimism, resourcefulness and energy, or an icon of cultural commodification and corporate imperialism.

"There are a number of qualities Mickey represents on which people like to stick their particular view of the world," said Janet Wasko, a University of Oregon professor and author of Understanding Disney: The Manufacture of Fantasy.

For Roy E. Disney, whose uncle, Walt Disney, created the character, Mickey Mouse is " "this friendly little guy,' which were Walt's words for describing him."

For Penn State professor Henry Giroux, however, Mickey Mouse represents the vast reach of American cultural power. He symbolizes a company that has turned childhood into a function of consumerism as children feel obligated to purchase the latest Finding Nemo DVD or Mickey Mouse watch.

"Mickey Mouse offers up a . . . symbol of innocence while hiding the role it plays in commodifying children's dreams and extending the logic of the market into all aspects of their lives," said Giroux, author of The Mouse That Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence, a cultural critique of the company.

Mickey wasn't always so complex.

According to the official company history, on a train ride in 1928, Disney conjured up a little mouse named Mortimer. His wife, Lillian, thought the name too pompous and suggested Mickey.

But others have argued that Mickey's creation was more likely a collaboration between Disney and his chief animator, Ub Iwerks, with Disney taking the credit. Mickey Mouse was first drawn by Iwerks' hand.

Disney and Iwerks initially produced two silent cartoons for Mickey Mouse, Plane Crazy and The Gallopin' Gaucho. But in the wake of the success of the nation's first "talkie," Al Jolson's The Jazz Singer in 1927, Disney decided to produce a cartoon that would be synchronized to songs, music and sound effects.

Steamboat Willie was an instant hit, arriving at a time when technological advances in motion pictures, radio and the phonograph were transforming mass culture. By the end of the 1930s, Mickey had starred in more than 100 cartoons.

Mickey gradually transformed physically and spiritually. His face was rounded out, and his eyes went from black ovals to white eyes with pupils in the late 1930s. His face became friendlier, less ratlike.

Mickey Mouse became the face that launched a thousand products - now about $4.5-billion a year in sales - even though he is currently second to Winnie the Pooh for the Disney company.

Toward the end of the 1930s and the start of the 1940s, Disney animators found it harder to create story lines around Mickey as the character became the face of the company.

"Donald (Duck) became easier to write stories around because his personality was more varied," said David Smith, archives director for Walt Disney Co. "Often in that period, they would start a cartoon with Mickey, and it wouldn't work, and someone would say "Use Donald.' You didn't want to do naughty things with your corporate logo. He suddenly became sacrosanct."

Mickey gained new life in the 1950s with the airing of TV's Mickey Mouse Club and the opening of Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif.

These days, he's a regular presence on television in House of Mouse on the Disney Channel and is photographed daily alongside thousands of tourists at theme parks in California, Florida, France and Japan.

"Mickey Mouse speaks an international language," said Marty Sklar, vice chairman and principal creative executive at Walt Disney Imagineering. "When I go to Tokyo and see how kids react to Mickey Mouse the same way they do in Paris, it's reassuring that there are some things that cross international boundaries."