November 8, 2009
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Mickey Mouse Gets a Makeover
America’s favorite mouse may soon be getting his rat on. After years of the same old white-gloved cheeriness, Disney is revamping its mousy mascot to be, well, interesting. According to The New York Times, it’s a two-prong process:
First, Disney is developing a new Nintendo Wii game slated for fall 2010 called Epic Mickey, featuring a titular mouse with more sass than we’ve seen in years. Players will essentially be able to choose if they want new Mickey or old Mickey—whether they want to benevolently aid their fellow characters or, as the game’s creative director describes, act “naughty” and “selfish.” Apparently, Mickey will even begin to look more ratlike for players that elect to go the sinister route.
Meanwhile, Disney is doing some major soul-searching to prepare for a total Mickey makeover. This means changing his walk, his talk, his clothes, his house in Disney Land/World/etc., everything. Although Mickey merchandise rakes in about $5 billion a year, less than 20 percent of that is from the United States—American children from the past couple of decades are familiar with Mickey, but we don’t necessarily love him. (I mean, I’d rather spend an afternoon with the old dude from Up.)
And if Mickey is remade to include more snark than his current vanilla incarnate, it would actually be loyal to his roots. According to the Times, Mickey was something like “the Bart Simpson of his time” during his Steamboat Willie days, circa 1928.
Is Disney on the right track, or is this plan destined to backfire? Who’s your favorite cartoon character?
