Back in 2014, Mumbai had a little visitor. Big ears, squeaky voice, adorable personality, chosen attire of red shorts, yellow shoes and white gloves. You know the guy. Or rather, the mouse. That’s right, Mickey Mouse himself!
The short film, Mumbai Madness , featured the anthropomorphic mouse driving an auto with his elephant passenger, navigating traffic and cows, breaking into a Bollywood dance number, and using curry (!) to fuel his vehicle, all the while speaking Hindi in that distinctive, high-pitched voice.
Stereotypes aside, it was just another adventure for the mouse who has done it all. He has worked as a lifeguard, a police officer and a taxi driver, been shipwrecked, gone on a hunting expedition, tried to photograph a panda in China, watched football in Brazil, attempted to stop a speeding cable car in San Francisco, as well as had a ton of fun and gotten into various scrapes with the gang consisting of his girlfriend Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and pet dog Pluto.
But for Mickey, who turns 90 this year, life in the public eye began in black-and-white on a steamboat. The animated short, Steamboat Willie , is the first cartoon with fully synchronised music and sound effects, and was released on November 18, 1928 in New York.
The short, which also features Pete (who soon became Mickey’s No 1 nemesis) and Minnie (also making her début), begins with Mickey steering the steamboat and cheerfully whistling ‘Steamboat Bill’, a tune by Arthur Collins (which inspired the title of the Buster Keaton film, Steamboat Bill, Jr. , which in turn provided the title for the Mickey short).
The boat’s chugging, huffing from the funnels, and its whistles, Mickey blowing a raspberry and falling down the stairs, the parrot laughing, Pete’s spat out tobacco hitting the bell, the birds at Podunk Landing and Minnie’s cries are all completely in sync with the action on screen; something Walt Disney was determined to achieve when making the film.
The show-stopper though is the song, ‘Turkey in the Straw’. After Minnie’s sheet music and guitar are gobbled up by a goat, Minnie uses the animal’s tail to crank out the music as Mickey dances. Mickey then uses random objects as well as other animals, including a cat, bird and piglets (the unfortunate ones who weren’t anthropomorphic!), to add to the music. The song comes to a grand conclusion with Mickey using the cow’s teeth as a xylophone. Of course, Pete doesn’t take too kindly to this musical interlude and sends Mickey away to peel potatoes. The short ends with Mickey using said potato to knock the mocking parrot out of the port hole.
Steamboat Willie was a huge hit with audiences upon its release. At the time though, there was no guarantee of that. In 1927, Walt had created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit who featured in 27 films that were distributed by Universal Studios. However, in 1928, Walt was told the rights belonged to the studio. On the hunt for a replacement, Walt and his chief animator, Ub Iwerks, came up with the cute mouse who was initially christened Mortimer. The name was dropped, supposedly because Walt’s wife hated it.
Two Mickey Mouse cartoons were then made, Plane Crazy and The Gallopin’ Gaucho , but they failed to find a distributor. Walt, however, had seen the phenomenal response the first ‘talkie’, The Jazz Singer (1927), had received, and was determined to make a cartoon with sound.
Following the enormous success of Steamboat Willie , the Mickey Mouse Fan Club was set up in 1930 and meetings were held across America. By 1932, the club had around 1 million members. The mouse was thriving and a series of Mickey Mouse shorts were released (totalling 130) over the years, including the highly regarded The Band Concert (1935) — the first Mickey cartoon in colour — and Fantasia (1940).
In 1938, animator Fred Moore changed Mickey’s look to the more familiar one we see today, giving Mickey a pear-shaped body, pupils and a skin tone. Ten of the shorts even received Oscar nominations, with Lend a Paw winning in 1942. And when success comes calling, can merchandising be far behind? Disney started selling Mickey merchandise right from the 1930s. Mickey was the face of the Disney company and he was around as soft toys, figurines, on lunchboxes and even on watches. In the 1950s, he even got a theme park, comic strip, and the Mickey Mouse Club variety show premièred, home to future Mouseketeers like Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, Ryan Gosling and Justin Timberlake.
Subsequently, with the focus shifting to feature films like Bambi, Dumbo, Sleeping Beauty , and The Jungle Book , Mickey took a bit of a backseat. In fact, Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983), an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol , was his first theatrical release in over 30 years, following The Simple Things in 1953.
In 1988, Mickey was back in theatres with a cameo in Who Framed Roger Rabbit , then in 1995 with Runaway Brain and then in 2013’s short Get A Horse! Of course, now Mickey Mouse is ubiquitous. Not only can you catch him on the small screen with his friends, but you can also find him on everything from T-shirts and mugs to decals and cushion covers. The Disney corporation is a behemoth today. But as Walt said, “I hope we never lose sight of one thing; that it was all started by a mouse.”
