Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character
created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio.
Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts,
large yellow shoes, and white gloves.
He is one of the most recognizable
cartoon characters in the world and is the mascot of The Walt Disney
Company, the world’s largest media conglomerate in terms of annual
revenue.
Mickey debuted in November 1928 in the
animated cartoon Steamboat Willie after initially appearing in a test
screening earlier that year.
He went on to appear in over 130 films
including The Band Concert (1935), Brave Little Tailor (1938), and
Fantasia (1940). Mickey appeared primarily in short films, but also in a
few feature-length films.
Nine of Mickey’s cartoons were nominated
for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, one of which, Lend a
Paw, won the award in 1942. In 1978, Mickey became the first cartoon
character to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Beginning 1930, Mickey has also been
featured extensively as a comic strip character. His self-titled
newspaper strip, drawn primarily by Floyd Gottfredson, ran for 45 years.
Mickey has also appeared in comic books and in television series such as The Mickey Mouse Club (1955–1996) and others.
He also appears in other media such as video games as well as merchandising, and is a meetable character at the Disney parks.
Mickey typically appears alongside his
girlfriend Minnie Mouse, his pet dog Pluto, his friends Horace
Horsecollar, Donald Duck, and Goofy, and his nemesis Pete among others
(see Mickey Mouse universe).
Originally characterized as a mischievous
antihero, Mickey’s increasing popularity led to his being rebranded as
an everyman, usually seen as an ever cheerful, yet shy role model.
In 2009, Disney announced that they will
begin to rebrand the character again by putting less emphasis on his
pleasant, cheerful side and reintroducing the more mischievous and
adventurous sides of his personality most evident in his earlier films
of the 1920s and 1930s; the repositioning of Mickey started with the
video game Epic Mickey.
