Who cares about Mickey Mouse? Do kids today even know who he is or was?
They call it the "House of Mouse" - the Disney empire. But is that really true? At least for my generation, Mickey Mouse was like a missing divorced Dad - we never even saw him on weekends. Yet Disney trots out Mickey as the cartoon character "beloved by children of all ages!" when in fact, Mickey, we hardly knew ye.
Think about it. Do you remember the plot of a single Mickey Mouse cartoon? And while you may be able to rattle off the names of five or six characters, such as Donald and Goofy, can you really remember them for anything of consequence?
Much ado has been made about the original Mickey falling out of Copyright. But really, who cares? It isn't like he is the big money-making center for the Disney company. Indeed, it seems hard to fathom what is making money for Disney, as its streaming service seems to be unprofitable and its numerous Star Wars spin-offs are losing the interest of fans. But Mickey Mouse? He seems to have gone AWOL, decades ago.
Sure, when I was very, very young, it was during the waning days of the "Mickey Mouse Club" which we watched, because the parents parked us in front of the TeeVee and then went out on the patio to have a cocktail and some peace and quiet for a half-hour. We kids would rather have watched Soupy Sales, as he was more hip. Although, to be fair, Annette Funicello had these mysterious orbs concealed in her skin-tight sweater. We noticed them, and so did Uncle Roy, it seemed.
And yea, they would show one short cartoon during that show, but for the life of me, I can't remember a single one. Nothing stood out. Nothing was memorable.
But the next year, it seemed, Saturday mornings exploded with cartoons. Mickey Mouse was off the air on weekday afternoons, Bozo the clown was in. But Saturday ruled the cartoon roost, and Warner Brothers and Hanna-Barbara ruled Saturday. Disney was nowhere to be seen - preoccupied, perhaps by the theme park and feature-length cartoon movies like Bambi. I went to see Bambi, but for the life of me, I can't remember much of it, even Bambi's mother getting shot. I did remember Fantasia in the late 1960s when it had a reprise for all those acid-tripping hippies. I think we were the only kids in the theater.
But for me, cartoons meant Bugs Bunny and Scooby-Doo. And I can recall dozens of characters and plot lines from those shows. Remember Bugs doing The Barber of Seville? Genius stuff, really, as unlike Mickey Mouse, it didn't talk down to us. Mel Blanc was a God. Even Hanna-Barbara productions, which were generally lamer, had a seriousness to them. Shows such as Johnny Quest had an adult feel to them, at least to a 7-year-old.
Mickey Mouse? That dude was gone, man. Off-the-air. Yesterday's news. Nowhere to be seen. Disney coasted on this idea that kids loved Mickey, while at the same time, limiting his exposure to a mascot character at Disneyland (who, no doubt, scared the crap out of little kids). The term "Mickey-Mouse" came to be viewed as an insult, describing something that was lame, outdated, kiddie-style, or just poorly put together. As in, "hey man, that setup is really mickey-mouse!"
And Disney didn't seem to notice, preoccupied with their efforts to turn the sleepy little town of Orlando into the nightmare that it is today. Never drive on I-4 if you can help it. Too late, at least for my generation, Disney jumped back into Saturday morning cartoon fare, with things like Duck Tales, which actually introduced new characters, rather than relying too much on old ones. But where was Mickey? Of course, at that point, I was too old to care.
And the new generation of Saturday morning fare seemed to talk down to kids. Anything by Sid and Marty Kroft seemed patronizing, as did newer shows like Muppet Babies. Sadly, even Warner Brothers jumped on that bandwagon with "baby looney tunes." Cartoons were dead to me by then - I had outgrown them, and they had left me as well. The nail in the coffin was reliance on Japanese Anime, which started out by doing voice-overs of cheaply made Japanese Cartoons like Speed Racer. Producers realized you could churn out poorly animated crap and kids would watch it. Today, adults watch it, and I don't think it is healthy.
Of course, "adult cartoons" got a start in my childhood as well. Shows like The Flintstones and The Jetsons got their start as evening television fare during prime-time, not as Saturday morning kiddie shows. Nevertheless, they were kind of lame, with loud laugh tracks and plot lines and characters recycled from old shows like The Honeymooners.
Today, of course, we have a plethora of "adult" cartoons to watch, with The Simpsons being the oldest one currently running. Maybe these shows are more hip and sophisticated that The Flintstones and their ilk, but the underlying idea is the same - a family sit-com, presented as animation.
And as for Saturday morning? I suspect it is now dead, as kids can watch cartoons any time of day or night. There is even a network for cartoons. Of course, much of the modern fare eludes me - like music, I guess we focus on what we listened to during our formative years and reject any "modern" replacements. I was never a Ren and Stimpy fan and not much of a Beavis and Butthead one, although South Park has its moments - and yet, like The Simpsons, seems to be subtle right-wing propaganda sometimes. Or perhaps not-so-subtle.
But Mickey Mouse? Haven't seen him around in decades. Other than his annoying voice and poorly drawn character, I don't remember much about him. The only thing memorable about him is the use of his name as a slur.
Think about it. No one ever called something "Bugs Bunny" as a means of deriding it. No one every said, "That's just Scooby-Doo!"
But Mickey Mouse? Yea, he was really Mickey-Mouse, and not in a good way.
