While shopping in Sears recently, my wife and I saw an amazing display of inexpensive watches, which included various versions of the Mickey Mouse timepiece. We both have Mickey Mouse wrist watches and always find newer versions of interest.
Mine is more than 40 years old and was a gift from a friend who worked at Disney Studios. It’s the real deal, a bit worn, but it still works and keeps fairly accurate time.
I love Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and as I waited while my wife tried on some clothes, I began to wonder just what has happened to Mickey’s image. As his appearance progressed from his early beginnings as Steamboat Willie to the popular figure that is so familiar to us today, he has played an important role in the lives of pretty much everyone in America as they were growing up.
Mickey has always been lovable, and he seems to have universal appeal. Mickey Mouse characters cavorting at Disneyland and Disney World, entertaining crowds of all ages, and The Mickey Mouse Club that was the launching pad for young entertainers in the 1970s, are all part of his persona.
Following are some interesting facts about Mickey Mouse (from Jan’s Mickey Mouse Page):
» Plane Crazy was Mickey Mouse’s first cartoon appearance — on May 15, 1928 — a silent cartoon.
» Mickey first appeared in his signature white gloves in 1929, in The Opry House, a musical short.
» Steamboat Willie, released in 1928, was the first Mickey Mouse sound cartoon.
» Mickey Mouse spoke his first words — “hot dogs” — in the 1929 short The Karnival Kid. Walt Disney was the original voice.
» Mickey first appeared in a comic strip in the New York Daily Mirror in 1930.
» Mickey’s sister is Amelia Fieldmouse. She has two children, Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse, Mickey’s nephews.
» Mickey was the first nonhuman to win an Oscar, in 1932.
» In 1934, the Encyclopedia Britannica gave Mickey his own entry.
» In 1935, Mickey was awarded a medal as an ambassador of goodwill by the League of Nations.
» The shape of Mickey’s body was redesigned in 1939, when “his body became more pear-shaped and pupils were added to his eyes to increase his range of expression.”
» Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
» During World War II, the code word of Allied Forces on D-Day was “Mickey Mouse.”
» In 1978, in honor of his 50th anniversary, Mickey Mouse was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, between Elton John and Jack Nicholson.
» One of Mickey’s favorite quotes is, “There has to be a wienie at the end of every street.”
So, how did the use of Mickey’s name morph into an expression that means too easy or incompetent, as in a Mickey Mouse organization or enterprise? There doesn’t seem to be a clear answer to this, but some sources think it is related to the poor quality of Mickey Mouse watches. Others believe it started with the college students of the late 1950s, who described an easy course as “a Mickey Mouse course.” Another possibility relates the derogatory use of the term started during World War II, when soldiers referred to “absurd Army routine as ‘Mickey Mouse.’”
Another possibility is a belief that is related to the music world of jazz, when the term meant “small and worthless,” particularly a mediocre dance-band music, which was “a put-down based on the type of tunes played as background in cartoon films …”
However the use of Mickey Mouse as a derogatory term may have come about, it’s unfortunate that poor Mickey has become the fall guy for the failings of various organizations and groups.
Apparently Mickey never had a chance to defend himself.
— Harris R. Sherline is a retired CPA and former chairman and CEO of Santa Ynez Valley Hospital who as lived in Santa Barbara County for more than 30 years. He stays active writing opinion columns and his blog, Opinionfest.com.