History Quotes / MickeyMouse

-->--Sculptor Ernest Trova

-->--Creator/WaltDisney

->''"Like no other twentieth-century motion-picture character except Chaplin (on whom some say the mouse was modeled), Mickey possessed the world's imagination. He, too, was a creature of many masks, expressing what we all like to think are the best traits of our humanity: sweet sentiment, unfeigned pleasure, saucy impudence. Mickey was all heart, but in the beginning he did not wear it on his sleeve. At first he was very much a rodent. His limbs were thinner and his features smaller than the later, anthropomorphic version. In "WesternAnimation/PlaneCrazy" (1928), his first [produced] film, made as a silent, then released with sound after WesternAnimation/SteamboatWillie, he went barefoot and barehanded, but by WesternAnimation/SteamboatWillie (1928) he wore shoes and soon acquired white four-fingered gloves. He was un-self conscious and egocentric, wearing the same confident, self-satisfied grin Edward G. Robinson was to flash a couple of years later as the immigrant gangster Rico in ''Little Caesar'' (1930). Unlike Rico, however, Mickey had no end. Success eroded him in other ways. "Mickey's our problem child," Disney said later, "He's so much of an institution that we're limited in what we can do with him." He became respectable, bland, gentle, responsible, moral. DonaldDuck was added to the Disney cast to provide the old vinegar and bile."''

-->--Creator/JohnKricfalusi's thoughts on Franchise/MickeyMouse, [[Blog/JohnKStuff "Stock Disney Characters - The Bland Lead"]]
^This guys' opinion is p much worthless

-->--Creator/JohnKricfalusi's thoughts on Franchise/MickeyMouse.

-->--WaltDisney

->''"Like no other twentieth-century motion-picture character except Chaplin (on whom some say the mouse was modeled), Mickey possessed the world's imagination. He, too, was a creature of many masks, expressing what we all like to think are the best traits of our humanity: sweet sentiment, unfeigned pleasure, saucy impudence. Mickey was all heart, but in the beginning he did not wear it on his sleeve. At first he was very much a rodent. His limbs were thinner and his features smaller than the later, anthropomorphic version. In "WesternAnimation/PlaneCrazy" (1928), his first [produced] film, made as a silent, then released with sound after SteamboatWillie, he went barefoot and barehanded, but by WesternAnimation/SteamboatWillie (1928) he wore shoes and soon acquired white four-fingered gloves. He was un-self conscious and egocentric, wearing the same confident, self-satisfied grin Edward G. Robinson was to flash a couple of years later as the immigrant gangster Rico in ''Little Caesar'' (1930). Unlike Rico, however, Mickey had no end. Success eroded him in other ways. "Mickey's our problem child," Disney said later, "He's so much of an institution that we're limited in what we can do with him." He became respectable, bland, gentle, responsible, moral. DonaldDuck was added to the Disney cast to provide the old vinegar and bile."''

-->--WaltDisney

-->--FrankThomas

-->--Creator/JohnKricfalusi's thoughts on MickeyMouse.

->''"Like no other twentieth-century motion-picture character except Chaplin (on whom some say the mouse was modeled), Mickey possessed the world's imagination. He, too, was a creature of many masks, expressing what we all like to think are the best traits of our humanity: sweet sentiment, unfeigned pleasure, saucy impudence. Mickey was all heart, but in the beginning he did not wear it on his sleeve. At first he was very much a rodent. His limbs were thinner and his features smaller than the later, anthropomorphic version. In "PlaneCrazy" (1928), his first [produced] film, made as a silent, then released with sound after SteamboatWillie, he went barefoot and barehanded, but by SteamboatWillie (1928) he wore shoes and soon acquired white four-fingered gloves. He was un-self conscious and egocentric, wearing the same confident, self-satisfied grin Edward G. Robinson was to flash a couple of years later as the immigrant gangster Rico in ''Little Caesar'' (1930). Unlike Rico, however, Mickey had no end. Success eroded him in other ways. "Mickey's our problem child," Disney said later, "He's so much of an institution that we're limited in what we can do with him." He became respectable, bland, gentle, responsible, moral. DonaldDuck was added to the Disney cast to provide the old vinegar and bile."''

-->--UsefulNotes/NewYork's Metropolitan Museum of Art, praising the mouse.

-->--JohnKricfalusi's thoughts on MickeyMouse.

->''"All we ever intended for [Mickey] or expected of him was that he should continue to make people everywhere chuckle with him and at him. We didn't burden him with any social symbolism, we made him no mouthpiece for frustration or harsh satire. Mickey was simply a little personality assigned to the purposes of laughter."

->''"As an "actor", the early Mickey's expressive range was as limited as his black and white coloring: There was a "happy" Mickey and a "not-so-happy" Mickey. He had a personality because he could think and solve problems, but he was a character whose emotive reactions were of the broadest, most rudimentary sort and quite unconvincing."''

-->--JohnKricfalusi's thoughts on MickeyMouse.

->''"I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman i've ever known."''

->''"For sheer power of the graphics, Mickey Mouse is rivalved only by the Coca-Cola trademark and the Swastika."''

->''"Like no other twentieth-century motion-picture character except Chaplin (on whom some say the mouse was modeled), Mickey possessed the world's imagination. He, too, was a creature of many masks, expressing what we all like to think are the best traits of our humanity: sweet sentiment, unfeigned pleasure, saucy impudence. Mickey was all heart, but in the beginning he did not wear it on his sleeve. At first he was very much a rodent. His limbs were thinner and his features smaller than the later, anthropomorphic version. In "PlaneCrazy" (1928), his first [produced] film, made as a silent, then released with sound after SteamboatWillie, he went barefoot and barehanded, but by SteamboatWillie (1928) he wore shoes and soon acquired white four-fingered gloves. He was un-self conscious and egocentric, wearing the same confident, self-satisfied grin Edward G. Robinson was to flasha couple of years later as the immigrant gangster Rico in ''Little Caesar'' (1930). Unlike Rico, however, Mickey had no end. Success eroded him in other ways. "Mickey's our problem child," Disney said later, "He's so much of an institution that we're limited in what we can do with him." He became respectable, bland, gentle, responsible, moral. DonaldDuck was added to the Disney cast to provide the old vinegar and bile."''

->''"...the symbolic meaning of Mickey's figure is obvious. Symbolically, we should have to call it a phallus but a desexualized one. Mickey's actions and adventures demonstrate his lack of genital interest. His audience feels that, and although he remains a mouse and a phallus, he does not stir up wishes which have to be suppresed and consequently he does not rouse anxiety."''
-->--Fritz Moellenfoff's [[FreudWasRight freudian theory]] about the mouse's design.

->''"Mickey's vagueness as a character became an asset--a source of his popularity. However difficult he might be to describe, he was undeniably an active, positive character, and this was very important at a time when the world was sliding into the worst days of the Great Depression. Audiences could read into him an optimistic affirmation of their own values."''

->''"Mickey had traveled, it seemed, light years away from the crudely drawn, rat-like barnyard sadist he had been, to the tredendously appealing, versatile and subtle performer he became."''

->''"He was holier than a horse opera hero, goody-goodier than any cartoon character has a right to be, he never dared to set a bad example by so much as flying off the handle in a situation where anybody but a Saint would've blown his top. He turned into this paragon of virtue under pressure from the nearly 500,000,000 fans who, one yer during the zenith of his fame, paid for their tickets and stampeded theater ushers to get seats to see their idol. It hasn't made Disney, or anybody else, for that matter, love Mickey any the less. But it has definetely put a limit to the number of situations you can get Mickey into in the course of a year without repeating yourself."''

->''"Mickey is the ultimate bland character. His appeal completely depends on how cute the individual artists can draw such simple shapes. He's made of circles and ovals and has no personality. He dosen't even have a distinct voice. It's just Walt in falsetto-which sounds exactly like anyone else doing a falsetto. He's very cute though and is a good character to train your youngest kids to understand cartoons with. He makes a good logo."''

-->--NewYork's Metropolitan Museum of Art, praising the mouse.

-->--Historian John Canemaker on Mickey.

-->--SergeiEisenstein, praising Mickey.

-->--Sergei Eisenstein, praising Mickey.