While the article is rather gleefully iconoclastic, the basic message is an interesting one: how can Disney make Mickey Mouse a worthwhile character, rather than a bland corporate symbol?
“Boring,” “embalmed,” “neglected,” “irrelevant,” “deracinated” and, perhaps most damning, “over” are some of the adjectives that cropped up in recent interviews with people in the cartoon, movie and marketing businesses. And strangely for such a well-known figure, Mickey doesn’t even have a back story: no clearly defined relations, no hometown, no goals, no weaknesses. According to David Smith, director of the Disney archives, the company maintains no “biography” of the character; he is who he is.
But Mickey is not just another property that Disney owns: he’s the hallmark, the frontman, the ambassador for its theme parks, the logo on its business cards. A significant portion of the Disney empire is built around this strange creature. And yet, at a time when the company is already facing an almost cartoonishly daunting litany of travails — a hostile takeover bid, the loss of its highly successful partnership with the animation studio Pixar, mass layoffs at its own animation studio, the very public campaign by Roy E. Disney, nephew of Walt, to dethrone the C.E.O., Michael Eisner — his appeal is apparently starting to slip.
Again, there’s a lot of market-speak floating around here, as well as some artistic pooh-poohing. But I’ve always been less than thrilled with Mickey, even as a kid — he never seemed to have much personality (compared to his rival in my kidhood, Bugs Bunny).
And today he shows up on our TV in the “House of Mouse” cartoon more as a worry-wart middle-management type — neither inspirational nor empathetic, but simply a face and a voice.
And, frankly, though Donald and Goofy are marginally more interesting, it’s a problem that plagues them, too, despite ham-handed efforts to make the characters more “relevant.” And perhaps that’s part of the problem — while iconoclasts want to make radical (and, frankly, stupid) changes, the Disney owners don’t seem to have any sense of who the character really are, just what they earn. That means they can’t use them to best effect, nor extend them in ways that are logical and meaningful. While WB hasn’t been the best counter-example, they’ve still at least tried to recycle some of their cartoon icons into contemporary shows, some of which have been quite entertaining. Disney, to the extent that it wants to invest in their characters, needs to do the same.
(via BoingBoing)
Funny…
I’d watch the “super mickey” at least once for the train-wreck value alone.
But I’d have to agree with the assessment on the entertainment value of Mickey Mouse. The WB was done a great job of keeping the characters out there and entertaining. From showing the old shorts, to putting the old characters in new shows with new characters.
Agreed. Duck Dodgers has been loads of fun, particularly with reimagining of some of the supporting characters/types. While the WB live action movies have been only moderately successful, at least they’re giving it a try.
I don’t envy anyone at Disney trying to tackle this problem.
Young Miss Laura was finally old enough (we thought) to watch “Spirited Away” (which means Daddy wanted to see it and figured he’d watch it if she was there or not…). What a movie! What wonderful animation! What interesting characters depicted (visually and personally)! Wowza!
If Disney were still making movies like this, then maybe they’d still be making money at it. Maybe this is what you get when you put things like character, story, and quality ahead of the bottom line. You end up with a product that helps you bottom line.
John Lassiter of Pixar introduces Spirited Away. Pixar makes quality movies. Disney thought Pixar was asking too much money, so would dilute “shareholder value” and did not re-sign Pixar. Result? The only quality product coming from Disney…won’t be coming from Disney any more!
Disney’s problem was that part of it was too cheap to maintain a strong internal animation (2D or 3D), so it subbed the work out to Pixar. And part of it was too cheap to pay Pixar all that company wanted in return for using the characters.
So, as a result, Disney now has next to nothing in the way of animation production.
This isn’t helped by basically neglecting the strong, positive, modern offerings they do have. Even if you discount Pixar, and the last 5-7 years, Disney ought to be exploiting the heck out of The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Beauty & the Beast, Mulan, even Aladdin, and other successes. Instead, a visit to Disney parks gives you very little derived from those products. (One Aladdin ride I can think of, and the hoary Swiss Family Robinson treehouse recommissioned for Tarzan).
They’ve been minorly exploited with shoddy direct-to-video sequels and a few TV shows, but Disney’s not doing anything to support the successful brands it does have.