According to John Updike, Mickey Mouse has become " the most persistent and pervasive figment of American popular culture in this century." I was curious what had led this cartoon mouse to become the icon of Americanism that he is today. Over time, Mickey has changed into an ideal, an exemplification of Americana. Most characters have both good and bad qualities, virtues and vices, this is what makes them human, what allows us to relate, but Mickey has no downfalls, he remains "the perfect gentleman." Mickey's evolutions, both physical and characteristic, have helped him to become the icon he is today.
Mickey Mouse was born in 1928 on a train ride from New York to the West Coast. Walt Disney an animator who had just lost the rights to his creation Oswald the Rabbit and needed a new character. He remembered the field mice that used to live in his studio and so it was that Walt Disney created one of the world's most familiar and beloved characters. The original Mickey, however, was not the same mouse that today's children adore. Wearing only shorts and shoes with a long tail behind, he wasn't the upstanding theme park proprietor we know now. If you have seen his debut film, "Steamboat Willie" in 1928, Mickey was actually more naughty than nice. In the cartoon, he terrorizes ducks, plays the teeth of a cow as a xylophone, and winds the tail of a goat like a crank. In the first cartoon, the similarities between Mickey and the mischievous Charley Chaplin that Updike references are obvious. .
With feedback from the public, Mickey became more human and less of a troublemaker. He was a kinder, gentler mouse. The physicality changed along with the attitude. Mickey was given gloves to make him more human and he was fleshed out a little more. His nose became rounder and shorter, less rodent-like, and his feet got larger. In this time period he appears to become more child-like, and therefore more appealing as a character.
