Taking the Mickey

Today marks the 80th anniversary of Mickey Mouse appearing in it´s first talking film, the smart-aleck, boring, humourless and all around conservative icon for blandness (can you tell I am more of a Donald Duck-person?) appeared before, but this date is widely seen as it´s birthday.

As we all heard, Mickey was the brainchild of Disney´s colleague Ub Iwerks, who turned out not to be such a ruthless sales and marketing genius as uncle Walt, who claimed the idea to be his own. Well, maybe it was better this way, "Iwerksland" would have sounded a bit strange, after all.


Here is to the dark genius of Walt Disney and the forgotten talent of Ub Iwerks: The legendary Sparks performing "Mickey Mouse" during their only gig at Saturday Night Live. This memorable clip features an introduction by Danny DeVito, a speech AND a creepy breakdance performance by Ronald Mael mid-song.

Mickey Mouse


Disclaimer: The last time I wrote about Disney´s attempt to destroy the rainforest (not the real one) the Disney crawlbots (or top management) paid me a visit within five minutes after hitting "publish post". So I want to make sure that my readers are aware of the fact, that the pictures in this post are not showing the real Mickey Mouse, which was -as we all know- conceived, painted, animated and voiced by the real Walt Disney.