As a former resident of Orlando, I have the odd love- hate- tolerate relationship with Disney World which many Floridians share. The company itself, so closely tied with its iconic character ears, is often called “The Mouse,” or, on particularly bad days, “The Rat.”
But it did occur to me– what’s the big freaking deal about Mickey Mouse? Dude’s a… a mouse. Why does he get the songs, the iconography, the most character appearances?
And I think that way because I, like most World War II babies, met Mickey well after his days as a shorts star in the movie theaters. We were well accustomed to a genial, pleasant sort of rodent, not the charismatic star with a mischievous, everyman personality which made him the icon of a fledgling cartoon company. Old Mickey, by the standards of the now-defunct Antioch College, practically sexually harassed Minnie in his inaugural cartoon, Plane Crazy. And get this– he cracks a fart joke in his breakout role in Steamboat Willie. That’s not the bland mouse waving at babies in the Main Street Electrical Parade.
Well, and then there’s this:
This is not your Mickey Mouse Club Mickey Mouse. Via
That’s a still from Epic Mickey, the punky new video adventure for Wii. It’s a mashup of classic Mickey characters from long ago, ones which have been slowly emerging in the Disney Channel’s House of Mouse and Mickey’s Club House. But this is for anything but the pre-school set; the graphics, as you can see here, are arresting, grotesque, and almost post apocalyptic.
It is the next major step in the fusion of animation and the flesh since 1988′s Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Building on its origins of movie shorts and TV comfort food, the role- playing game places the Wii remote wielder in the role of both Mickey and animator.
That’s all a former Floridian can ask for.
