1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:05,463 --> 00:00:09,092 During the last few years, we've ventured into a lot of different fields. 3 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 4 00:00:09,175 --> 00:00:12,512 We've had the opportunity to meet and work with a lot of wonderful people. 5 00:00:13,138 --> 00:00:15,890 I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing. 6 00:00:15,974 --> 00:00:18,143 That it was all started by a mouse. 7 00:00:34,909 --> 00:00:37,328 It's magical to be able to channel 8 00:00:37,412 --> 00:00:39,664 all of your energy at this character… 9 00:00:39,748 --> 00:00:41,082 Mickey! 10 00:00:41,166 --> 00:00:45,378 …who we can fill with all of our hopes and dreams 11 00:00:45,462 --> 00:00:48,882 and all of our love and all of the innocence 12 00:00:48,965 --> 00:00:53,845 that we experience and then eventually lose and would like back. 13 00:00:55,055 --> 00:00:56,348 Mickey! 14 00:00:59,476 --> 00:01:03,688 Hi, Mickey. Hi, Mickey! Mickey! 15 00:01:24,167 --> 00:01:26,670 Mickey was everywhere when I was a kid. 16 00:01:26,753 --> 00:01:29,130 He was just, like, part of my DNA. 17 00:01:31,633 --> 00:01:35,637 He's plastered over every T-shirt, every billboard. 18 00:01:35,720 --> 00:01:38,014 He speaks multiple languages. 19 00:01:38,098 --> 00:01:40,308 - He's everywhere. - Everywhere! 20 00:01:40,392 --> 00:01:42,936 It's overwhelming. Like, leave me alone. 21 00:01:45,063 --> 00:01:46,898 Uh, no. Okay, let's do that again. 22 00:01:48,149 --> 00:01:50,318 What is it about Mickey Mouse? 23 00:01:51,319 --> 00:01:53,238 He started as this simple character. 24 00:01:54,906 --> 00:01:56,658 But over time, he gets so big 25 00:01:56,741 --> 00:02:01,121 that he becomes this reflection of who we are. 26 00:02:01,746 --> 00:02:02,872 The good and the bad. 27 00:02:07,544 --> 00:02:11,589 How's that even possible with this... ...little mouse? 28 00:02:53,798 --> 00:02:55,425 The life and ventures of Mickey Mouse 29 00:02:55,508 --> 00:02:56,718 have been closely bound up 30 00:02:56,801 --> 00:02:59,554 with my own personal and professional life. 31 00:03:04,934 --> 00:03:08,521 He still speaks for me, and I still speak for him. 32 00:03:53,566 --> 00:03:54,859 Stop it. 33 00:03:59,698 --> 00:04:01,449 Wore that one the other day. 34 00:04:01,991 --> 00:04:03,993 Haven't worn that one in a while. 35 00:04:06,830 --> 00:04:12,043 When I first got to the studio to do the Genie in Aladdin, 36 00:04:12,127 --> 00:04:14,879 I didn't know what to expect with Mickey. 37 00:04:16,840 --> 00:04:19,884 It felt like he was encased in amber, 38 00:04:20,468 --> 00:04:23,304 where they don't want to do anything with him, you know? 39 00:04:25,056 --> 00:04:28,518 Ah. Here we are. The Hat Building. 40 00:04:36,317 --> 00:04:38,445 Sometimes people ask, 41 00:04:38,528 --> 00:04:41,698 "Aren't you unhappy that you're not on one of the features right now?" 42 00:04:41,781 --> 00:04:44,534 I said, "I'm getting to animate Mickey Mouse." 43 00:04:48,163 --> 00:04:51,291 Walt used to say, "Don't forget. It was all started by a mouse." 44 00:04:52,167 --> 00:04:55,670 So, no matter what we're capable of doing now, 45 00:04:56,504 --> 00:04:59,674 Mickey takes us back to our origins. 46 00:05:11,436 --> 00:05:17,108 This process of hand-drawn hasn't really changed for a century. 47 00:05:17,901 --> 00:05:23,782 You know, the process of drawing the characters is exactly the same. 48 00:05:25,450 --> 00:05:28,703 But back when the great Mickey cartoons were being made, 49 00:05:28,787 --> 00:05:35,210 the Disney studio had maybe a hundred animators to do Mickey and his pals. 50 00:05:36,378 --> 00:05:39,756 These days, to do a new hand-drawn Mickey project, 51 00:05:39,839 --> 00:05:43,343 like the one we're starting now, we have three. 52 00:05:44,552 --> 00:05:47,347 Me, Mark Henn and Randy Haycock. 53 00:05:47,931 --> 00:05:51,309 Randy did characters like Clayton in Tarzan. 54 00:05:52,477 --> 00:05:54,604 He did a lot of Pocahontas. 55 00:05:54,688 --> 00:05:59,567 And then Mark Henn is really known as the princess guy. 56 00:06:01,736 --> 00:06:04,072 And the list is endless. 57 00:06:05,657 --> 00:06:07,242 We've always wanted to do something 58 00:06:07,325 --> 00:06:10,370 where we see all the different Mickeys together. 59 00:06:10,453 --> 00:06:13,832 That's never really been seen in a film before, 60 00:06:13,915 --> 00:06:16,751 so that's what we're doing on this project. 61 00:06:17,377 --> 00:06:20,130 And we're calling it Mickey in a Minute. 62 00:06:20,797 --> 00:06:24,426 Where he's walking down the hallways of Disney Animation, 63 00:06:24,509 --> 00:06:30,515 and he gets sucked into a whirlwind that sends him through his most iconic moments 64 00:06:31,141 --> 00:06:35,562 until, finally, he gets spit out at the end as Steamboat Willie. 65 00:06:36,938 --> 00:06:38,481 It's going to be a lot of work. 66 00:06:38,565 --> 00:06:44,487 I mean, basically we're gonna be making about 1,500 original drawings of Mickey 67 00:06:44,571 --> 00:06:47,741 for about one minute's worth of screen time. 68 00:06:48,241 --> 00:06:49,826 But trust me. 69 00:06:49,909 --> 00:06:51,703 It'll be worth it. You'll see. 70 00:06:54,456 --> 00:06:59,961 And this is Mickey as he was designed by Walt and Ub Iwerks. 71 00:07:01,963 --> 00:07:07,552 Not exactly the Mickey we recognize today, but our kind of proto-Mickey. 72 00:07:08,428 --> 00:07:11,389 And yes, he still had a tail. Whoop. 73 00:07:11,473 --> 00:07:12,515 There we go. 74 00:07:17,437 --> 00:07:20,148 It was a beautiful farm in Marceline, Missouri. 75 00:07:20,231 --> 00:07:21,649 Forty-eight acres. 76 00:07:22,567 --> 00:07:25,111 My chore was to keep the horse going around the circle 77 00:07:25,195 --> 00:07:29,407 and then part of it would be feeding the cane in the squeezer, you see? 78 00:07:29,491 --> 00:07:32,786 Walt lived here in Marceline for five years. 79 00:07:32,869 --> 00:07:34,871 It was a short amount of time. 80 00:07:34,954 --> 00:07:38,416 But those very few years were Walt's childhood. 81 00:07:39,668 --> 00:07:41,711 His family was poor, 82 00:07:41,795 --> 00:07:46,132 and his father Elias was extremely strict. 83 00:07:46,216 --> 00:07:50,303 And so art for Walt was an escape. 84 00:07:55,183 --> 00:08:00,438 Walt would take his drawing materials and go down to a special tree. 85 00:08:01,940 --> 00:08:03,108 His dreaming tree. 86 00:08:04,984 --> 00:08:08,738 He would spend hours under that tree just laying in the grass. 87 00:08:08,822 --> 00:08:11,408 A thing that Walt called "Belly Botany." 88 00:08:12,325 --> 00:08:17,330 I don't know if you've ever laid in tall grass on a farm, 89 00:08:17,414 --> 00:08:20,083 but there's a lot that's happening around you. 90 00:08:21,710 --> 00:08:24,921 Whatever happened to run or crawl or fly by, 91 00:08:25,005 --> 00:08:26,798 he would quickly try to sketch. 92 00:08:32,846 --> 00:08:37,726 His little sister told me Walt would do a series of drawings for her. 93 00:08:37,809 --> 00:08:40,812 And then he would make a really good story up to go along with it. 94 00:08:44,107 --> 00:08:50,113 I can just see those creative juices happening underneath his tree. 95 00:08:53,033 --> 00:08:55,660 It was that happy place. 96 00:08:57,370 --> 00:09:00,498 It was where that spark happened. 97 00:09:11,801 --> 00:09:14,929 - I love it. Yeah, that looks cool. - It's cool. I like that. 98 00:09:17,849 --> 00:09:21,519 So, like, all the possibilities of what you would want on your arm, 99 00:09:22,145 --> 00:09:23,772 why'd you choose Mickey Mouse? 100 00:09:23,855 --> 00:09:28,318 I feel like blood, sweat and tears was put into Mickey Mouse by Walt. 101 00:09:28,401 --> 00:09:30,612 You know, he was dirt poor. 102 00:09:30,695 --> 00:09:33,448 Dirt poor with, like, a dream. Just like, "Nope, 103 00:09:33,531 --> 00:09:35,241 - I believe in that mouse." - Right. 104 00:09:35,325 --> 00:09:37,077 You get a lot of people coming in here 105 00:09:37,160 --> 00:09:38,703 asking about Disney and stuff? 106 00:09:38,787 --> 00:09:40,205 Yeah, there's a few. 107 00:09:40,288 --> 00:09:41,956 DJ, correct me if I'm wrong. 108 00:09:42,040 --> 00:09:45,001 This was Walt and Roy's studio in the early '20s? 109 00:09:45,085 --> 00:09:47,587 Yeah. This is the place. 110 00:09:49,089 --> 00:09:53,009 I know way too much about the history of this now, you know? 111 00:09:53,093 --> 00:09:57,472 With Walt and his brother starting the Disney Brothers Studio here. 112 00:09:59,599 --> 00:10:01,976 Walt was chilling right here. 113 00:10:02,727 --> 00:10:04,646 Right here. 114 00:10:05,230 --> 00:10:09,859 And now this little, rad dude 115 00:10:09,943 --> 00:10:13,947 is so imprinted in everybody's brains. 116 00:10:14,030 --> 00:10:16,866 Like, we all got a weird, different feeling about him. 117 00:10:18,118 --> 00:10:20,203 Mickey Mouse, to me, is light. 118 00:10:20,286 --> 00:10:22,372 There's, like, a lot of dark in the world. 119 00:10:22,455 --> 00:10:26,167 Especially nowadays, things do tend to be getting a little bit darker. 120 00:10:26,918 --> 00:10:29,254 And he's just keeping hope in the world. 121 00:10:30,213 --> 00:10:31,756 Yeah! 122 00:10:35,427 --> 00:10:37,220 So, this is the very first, officially licensed 123 00:10:37,303 --> 00:10:39,014 Disney book ever published. 124 00:10:39,097 --> 00:10:41,641 Imaginatively titled, "Mickey Mouse Book." 125 00:10:41,725 --> 00:10:44,310 Uh, what you've got in here are games. 126 00:10:44,394 --> 00:10:49,566 Probably the most interesting, though, is the story of how Mickey meets Walt. 127 00:10:49,649 --> 00:10:54,320 Falling from Mouse Fairy Land, crash-landing on Walt's roof. 128 00:10:54,904 --> 00:10:57,282 Like Santa Claus, Mickey hops down the chimney, 129 00:10:57,866 --> 00:10:59,492 and who does he meet in the house? 130 00:10:59,576 --> 00:11:01,327 None other than Walt Disney himself. 131 00:11:03,163 --> 00:11:06,499 Walt loved to tell tall tales of the story about how Mickey came to be. 132 00:11:06,583 --> 00:11:09,169 He told it different versions over the years himself. 133 00:11:09,252 --> 00:11:12,714 Walt, you're a man who's famous for many things, 134 00:11:12,797 --> 00:11:15,383 not the least of which is building a better mouse. 135 00:11:15,467 --> 00:11:17,719 Mickey Mouse hopped out of my mind 136 00:11:17,802 --> 00:11:20,555 on a train ride from Manhattan to Hollywood 137 00:11:20,638 --> 00:11:24,476 at a time when the business fortunes of my brother, Roy, and myself 138 00:11:24,559 --> 00:11:27,771 were at lowest ebb and disaster seemed right around the corner. 139 00:11:30,106 --> 00:11:31,191 Walt was in trouble. 140 00:11:32,317 --> 00:11:37,572 Before Mickey Mouse, Walt and his studio created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. 141 00:11:38,448 --> 00:11:40,867 I'd argue that Oswald is certainly a lucky rabbit, 142 00:11:40,950 --> 00:11:42,744 but the luck isn't always good. 143 00:11:44,245 --> 00:11:48,625 The actual Oswald contract does not give Walt Disney the rights to that character. 144 00:11:49,668 --> 00:11:52,671 And so, Walt Disney was pushed out of the equation. 145 00:11:55,131 --> 00:11:58,802 It's all about that mythological moment when he's on the train. 146 00:11:59,469 --> 00:12:03,682 And he's been told his entire studio has been hired away from him, 147 00:12:04,265 --> 00:12:07,477 that Oswald doesn't belong to him anymore, and it's crushing. 148 00:12:08,937 --> 00:12:11,147 But out of that comes hope. 149 00:12:12,023 --> 00:12:15,110 He said, "Okay, we've lost everything. Let's start again." 150 00:12:22,701 --> 00:12:24,035 Over the years, 151 00:12:24,119 --> 00:12:27,414 with the retelling of that story on the train, 152 00:12:27,497 --> 00:12:30,500 over and over again, and the different inflections, 153 00:12:30,583 --> 00:12:32,002 it becomes myth. 154 00:12:33,086 --> 00:12:34,629 This is mythmaking. 155 00:12:37,382 --> 00:12:41,553 Walt realizes the importance of linking himself to that mouse. 156 00:12:41,636 --> 00:12:43,888 They're developing at the same time. 157 00:12:45,765 --> 00:12:49,144 Legend has it that, on that train, 158 00:12:49,227 --> 00:12:52,480 Walt wanted to call Mickey "Mortimer Mouse," 159 00:12:52,564 --> 00:12:56,026 but his wife, Lillian, suggested "Mickey Mouse." 160 00:12:58,695 --> 00:13:01,823 I think that's probably one of the most important decisions 161 00:13:01,906 --> 00:13:04,576 anybody ever made for a character. 162 00:13:05,702 --> 00:13:07,871 But they still had a few Oswalds to produce, 163 00:13:07,954 --> 00:13:10,749 so they couldn't necessarily broadcast it far and wide 164 00:13:10,832 --> 00:13:12,751 that they were gonna be working on a new character. 165 00:13:14,336 --> 00:13:17,547 So that very first Mickey Mouse short was made in their garage. 166 00:13:19,507 --> 00:13:22,552 Walt had to turn to the people that he trusted the most. 167 00:13:22,635 --> 00:13:26,139 Of course, you have Ub Iwerks, Walt's lead animator. 168 00:13:26,222 --> 00:13:29,559 Walt and Ub complemented each other. 169 00:13:30,268 --> 00:13:33,646 You know, Ub could do things that Walt could not. 170 00:13:33,730 --> 00:13:36,483 First of all, animate like a demon. 171 00:13:36,566 --> 00:13:39,069 It was said he could do 700 drawings a day, 172 00:13:39,152 --> 00:13:41,196 which is unbelievable. 173 00:13:42,155 --> 00:13:44,866 Ub Iwerks, meanwhile, remembered a different scenario 174 00:13:44,949 --> 00:13:48,995 where Walt came back on the train and said, "We need a new character." 175 00:13:49,079 --> 00:13:51,831 And they tried out various animals and settled on a mouse. 176 00:13:52,999 --> 00:13:58,630 Either way, there's this famous sheet of different designs of Mickey. 177 00:14:05,804 --> 00:14:07,514 And two of them are circled. 178 00:14:09,474 --> 00:14:12,811 Does it matter if Mickey was created on a train 179 00:14:12,894 --> 00:14:14,604 or at an animator's desk? 180 00:14:15,397 --> 00:14:18,775 What matters is that hope-from-despair story 181 00:14:18,858 --> 00:14:20,735 that we can all resonate with and go, 182 00:14:20,819 --> 00:14:24,406 "You know what? Yeah, I gotta pick myself back up by my bootstraps 183 00:14:24,489 --> 00:14:27,992 and keep going, because if Walt can do it, I can do it." 184 00:14:34,290 --> 00:14:36,960 In so precarious a world of new possibilities 185 00:14:37,043 --> 00:14:38,962 and increased competition, 186 00:14:39,045 --> 00:14:40,839 I'd planned to go all out on sound. 187 00:14:40,922 --> 00:14:45,135 And those plans came very near spelling a major disaster for us. 188 00:14:46,678 --> 00:14:49,931 Mickey was not an overnight success. 189 00:14:52,017 --> 00:14:54,853 Walt had made two cartoons prior to Steamboat Willie, 190 00:14:54,936 --> 00:14:57,063 Plane Crazy and Gallopin' Gaucho. 191 00:14:57,147 --> 00:15:00,150 And he couldn't find a distributor for them. 192 00:15:00,817 --> 00:15:03,862 Then came a very important breakthrough. 193 00:15:03,945 --> 00:15:07,282 In 1927, as sound came in, 194 00:15:07,907 --> 00:15:13,455 he set out to make the first sync-sound cartoon this country had ever seen. 195 00:15:16,041 --> 00:15:17,917 To launch our picture impressively, 196 00:15:18,001 --> 00:15:22,672 I'd hired a full New York orchestra with a famous director to do the recording. 197 00:15:23,757 --> 00:15:26,968 The upshot was that I had to borrow on my automobile, 198 00:15:27,052 --> 00:15:29,554 and Roy and I had to mortgage our homes as well, 199 00:15:29,637 --> 00:15:33,350 to cover the cost of that first synchronization for Steamboat Willie. 200 00:15:33,433 --> 00:15:37,103 And everybody had to synchronize. Hit that thing right on the button. 201 00:15:37,187 --> 00:15:39,105 And we had-- We had a way of doing it though. 202 00:15:39,189 --> 00:15:42,650 We had a little-- kind of a little beat that worked up and down. 203 00:15:42,734 --> 00:15:46,112 They were all musicians working for me, so they could follow those beats, 204 00:15:46,196 --> 00:15:49,032 and when it came to a certain number of beats, they would go... 205 00:15:49,115 --> 00:15:50,408 Or they would go bang! 206 00:15:50,492 --> 00:15:53,161 Or they would go this, or they would pop one of these popguns, you know? 207 00:15:55,330 --> 00:15:56,873 And when it was finished, 208 00:15:56,956 --> 00:15:59,125 the picture wouldn't synchronize with the sound. 209 00:16:00,210 --> 00:16:02,212 And we had to do it all over. 210 00:16:03,672 --> 00:16:07,884 Finally, when all of those elements came together, 211 00:16:09,511 --> 00:16:11,471 that put Mickey into the stratosphere. 212 00:16:33,535 --> 00:16:35,495 It had to be this thing 213 00:16:35,578 --> 00:16:38,790 that you would never forget the experience of having. 214 00:16:41,793 --> 00:16:46,715 It hit. It hit with a bang. It was a hell of a success. 215 00:16:49,300 --> 00:16:52,554 And nothing would ever be the same after that. 216 00:16:56,099 --> 00:16:57,851 With Steamboat Willie, 217 00:16:57,934 --> 00:17:01,646 people would probably just be floored by what they saw, you know? 218 00:17:01,730 --> 00:17:05,817 When this movie came out, there was nothing like this ever done. 219 00:17:06,568 --> 00:17:09,529 And once in a while, in our lifetime, 220 00:17:09,612 --> 00:17:12,615 we see a movie like that and it changes everything. 221 00:17:12,699 --> 00:17:15,744 I mean, for me in my childhood, it was, like, Star Wars. 222 00:17:17,829 --> 00:17:22,250 And I think Steamboat Willie probably had a similar impact. 223 00:17:27,464 --> 00:17:30,925 Mickey became a movie star on the same plane 224 00:17:31,009 --> 00:17:33,386 as Douglas Fairbanks or Charlie Chaplin. 225 00:17:37,766 --> 00:17:41,436 He was somebody they went to the movies to see. 226 00:17:48,693 --> 00:17:54,074 And as his character developed, he became a rescuer to Minnie Mouse… 227 00:17:54,157 --> 00:17:56,284 Take it easy. You're all right. 228 00:17:56,368 --> 00:17:59,913 …a hero stacked up against Peg Leg Pete… 229 00:18:01,122 --> 00:18:03,041 and a very resourceful character. 230 00:18:05,835 --> 00:18:10,465 It's no accident that Walt Disney was the first voice of Mickey Mouse. 231 00:18:10,548 --> 00:18:13,259 Yeah. It's me, I guess. 232 00:18:13,885 --> 00:18:14,928 The optimist. 233 00:18:15,553 --> 00:18:18,098 The curious kid who never grew up. 234 00:18:18,848 --> 00:18:22,560 The guy who was intrepid, who never let anything stand in his way. 235 00:18:23,144 --> 00:18:27,065 That's Mickey Mouse, but that's also Walt Disney. 236 00:18:30,068 --> 00:18:31,778 And in a way, 237 00:18:31,861 --> 00:18:38,785 Mickey's earliest cartoons are really from Walt's memories as a farm boy. 238 00:18:40,787 --> 00:18:42,956 Walt poured himself into this character, 239 00:18:43,039 --> 00:18:45,917 and the character embodies Walt Disney himself. 240 00:18:46,668 --> 00:18:49,254 So, you cannot separate the two. 241 00:18:52,549 --> 00:18:56,136 In the early shorts, there was a sense of adventure. 242 00:18:56,219 --> 00:19:00,849 A sense of Walt doing something exciting that somebody else wasn't doing. 243 00:19:02,892 --> 00:19:08,023 Fairbanks and Chaplin were such fans that they both made arrangements 244 00:19:08,106 --> 00:19:13,236 that several of their films be paired with Mickey Mouse shorts at their premieres. 245 00:19:23,246 --> 00:19:24,414 "What? No Mickey Mouse?" 246 00:19:24,497 --> 00:19:28,168 was the complaint of people going to a movie theater and realizing, 247 00:19:28,251 --> 00:19:31,004 "They're not showing a Mickey Mouse cartoon. What's wrong with you people?" 248 00:19:31,755 --> 00:19:33,548 He really was a sensation, 249 00:19:34,382 --> 00:19:36,676 and the merchandise showed up everywhere. 250 00:19:37,719 --> 00:19:39,387 That was a brand-new thing. 251 00:19:39,471 --> 00:19:42,807 And there were a couple of companies that were on the verge of bankruptcy, 252 00:19:42,891 --> 00:19:46,519 and Mickey Mouse actually saved those companies from disappearing. 253 00:19:47,354 --> 00:19:50,815 What would another culture from another planet think of us 254 00:19:50,899 --> 00:19:53,693 seeing Mickey on everything? 255 00:19:53,777 --> 00:19:58,406 They might say, "Take me to your leader," and it would be Mickey. 256 00:20:02,786 --> 00:20:05,038 Let me get this out of the way. 257 00:20:06,206 --> 00:20:08,917 And here it is, folks. Mouse Heaven. 258 00:20:11,294 --> 00:20:14,589 I collect images that embody a life force. 259 00:20:16,007 --> 00:20:21,680 Now, the more abstract they are, the more they're imbued with that life force. 260 00:20:21,763 --> 00:20:24,391 Because often it's just the bare essence. 261 00:20:24,474 --> 00:20:28,478 So you can clothe it in anything your imagination can bring forth. 262 00:20:29,688 --> 00:20:31,856 Which kind of gets us up to Mickey. 263 00:20:32,440 --> 00:20:38,405 Mickey is pure, absolute geometry, made up of nothing but circles. 264 00:20:39,489 --> 00:20:41,241 This total abstraction 265 00:20:41,324 --> 00:20:47,539 is probably the most universal symbol ever created by man or mouse. 266 00:20:48,498 --> 00:20:52,961 Three simple circles, a quarter and two dimes. 267 00:20:53,044 --> 00:20:56,089 And it's recognizable the world over. 268 00:20:56,798 --> 00:21:00,218 What I've collected is simply the history of this phenomenon. 269 00:21:00,885 --> 00:21:05,557 So, I think, if an archaeologist was to find this place 270 00:21:05,640 --> 00:21:07,934 in the far, far distant future, 271 00:21:08,018 --> 00:21:12,355 they would be convinced that this was a shrine to the great god Mickey. 272 00:21:17,610 --> 00:21:18,862 Welcome to Earth. 273 00:21:18,945 --> 00:21:24,826 I have to tell you about this mouse that will change your life. 274 00:21:24,909 --> 00:21:27,328 - He's a mouse. - That wears clothes though. 275 00:21:27,412 --> 00:21:30,415 White gloves, black fur, I guess it would be. 276 00:21:30,498 --> 00:21:32,625 Red pants. Yellow shoes. 277 00:21:32,709 --> 00:21:35,545 Big ears, you know? And he's always smiling. 278 00:21:35,628 --> 00:21:38,340 He has a very particular voice. 279 00:21:38,423 --> 00:21:40,717 Oh, boy! 280 00:21:40,800 --> 00:21:42,344 He has a girlfriend, Minnie. 281 00:21:42,427 --> 00:21:44,804 He likes Minnie. I know that. 282 00:21:44,888 --> 00:21:48,725 I think that they're dating because there's no ring on them. 283 00:21:48,808 --> 00:21:51,478 And then his other friends are Daisy… 284 00:21:51,561 --> 00:21:53,271 Goofy, Donald… 285 00:21:53,355 --> 00:21:55,023 Oh, and he has a dog named Pluto. 286 00:21:55,106 --> 00:21:59,486 Not to be confused with Goofy, because Goofy is also sort of a dog, 287 00:21:59,569 --> 00:22:01,154 but he's more of a dog-man. 288 00:22:01,237 --> 00:22:03,573 Um, and that's just the world we're living in. 289 00:22:03,656 --> 00:22:05,909 Ha-ha, everybody. 290 00:22:09,204 --> 00:22:10,372 Mickey Mouse. 291 00:22:10,455 --> 00:22:11,581 Mickey Mouse. 292 00:22:13,124 --> 00:22:15,835 Mickey and I just became inseparable. 293 00:22:15,919 --> 00:22:18,254 We love a mouse. How crazy is that? 294 00:22:18,338 --> 00:22:20,632 That's a little absurd. 295 00:22:24,886 --> 00:22:25,887 Lay down! 296 00:22:27,514 --> 00:22:28,515 Get up! 297 00:22:29,557 --> 00:22:31,935 - Speak! 298 00:22:34,813 --> 00:22:39,275 In the world's film capital is the studio that stands as a monument 299 00:22:39,359 --> 00:22:44,280 to the great genius of Walt Disney, master of a new form of popular art that… 300 00:22:44,364 --> 00:22:46,700 That extra revenue from the Mickey Mouse merchandise 301 00:22:46,783 --> 00:22:51,413 really allowed the studio to experiment and improve. 302 00:22:52,372 --> 00:22:54,874 First thing I did when I got a little money, 303 00:22:54,958 --> 00:22:57,085 we set up our own art school. 304 00:22:58,795 --> 00:23:02,674 Art schools that existed then worked with the static figure. 305 00:23:02,757 --> 00:23:06,469 Now, we were dealing in motion, movement and the flow of movement. 306 00:23:06,553 --> 00:23:09,723 The flow of things, you know? Action. Reaction. All of that. 307 00:23:11,516 --> 00:23:13,810 I put all my artists back in school. 308 00:23:15,186 --> 00:23:18,898 And out of that school would come the artists that now make up my staff here. 309 00:23:18,982 --> 00:23:20,191 And more than that, 310 00:23:20,275 --> 00:23:23,403 the artists that make up most all of the cartoon outfits in Hollywood. 311 00:23:25,613 --> 00:23:27,699 Mickey has taken the world by storm. 312 00:23:27,782 --> 00:23:30,410 The great thinkers, the great artists are all stepping back 313 00:23:30,493 --> 00:23:34,456 and acknowledging that this is something otherworldly and important. 314 00:23:41,796 --> 00:23:44,758 What is the power behind this character? 315 00:23:45,383 --> 00:23:46,885 Yoo-hoo! 316 00:24:02,442 --> 00:24:06,071 I think Mickey appeals for a lot of different reasons. 317 00:24:06,571 --> 00:24:11,451 But if I had to pick one, it's the way he moves. 318 00:24:14,788 --> 00:24:21,127 It's how he does things that make him compelling to watch. 319 00:24:22,962 --> 00:24:27,634 He has a spirit to him, dating all the way back to Steamboat Willie, 320 00:24:28,677 --> 00:24:33,556 that is playful, inventive, resourceful and fun. 321 00:24:34,432 --> 00:24:40,063 But his imperfections are as much a part of his character as anything else. 322 00:24:44,150 --> 00:24:45,819 Mickey wasn't perfect, 323 00:24:47,195 --> 00:24:51,574 but he would always find a resourceful way to get out of situations. 324 00:24:54,994 --> 00:24:55,995 Minnie! 325 00:24:57,497 --> 00:25:00,834 His movement is defining who he is. 326 00:25:00,917 --> 00:25:05,964 And that is what the Disney Studio has specialized in ever since. 327 00:25:07,966 --> 00:25:11,177 You're not just creating movement for movement's sake. 328 00:25:12,262 --> 00:25:18,018 You're creating movement that defines that individual's personality. 329 00:25:38,371 --> 00:25:42,125 People tend to forget that Mickey Mouse started in the Roaring '20s. 330 00:25:42,208 --> 00:25:45,879 But almost immediately, the Depression fell on the United States. 331 00:25:47,047 --> 00:25:49,549 America, the land of shattered dreams. 332 00:25:49,632 --> 00:25:52,802 A place of deep despair and real fear. 333 00:25:53,762 --> 00:25:57,807 Millions of Americans homeless, hungry, and without hope. 334 00:26:00,769 --> 00:26:02,979 Because of the crisis, the majority of kids 335 00:26:03,063 --> 00:26:05,315 were spending their time without parents. 336 00:26:06,441 --> 00:26:09,819 They were left free to do what they wanted during the day. 337 00:26:10,403 --> 00:26:13,823 And movies were the cheapest entertainment you could get for a child. 338 00:26:14,324 --> 00:26:16,451 So if you're a kid, 339 00:26:16,534 --> 00:26:19,746 the one thing you could be guaranteed of was a Saturday matinee. 340 00:26:20,914 --> 00:26:22,707 It was the highlight of your week. 341 00:26:24,709 --> 00:26:26,419 Yoo-hoo, Mickey! 342 00:26:27,837 --> 00:26:29,089 Yoo-hoo! 343 00:26:33,593 --> 00:26:36,221 I fell in love with Mickey 344 00:26:36,304 --> 00:26:39,933 because I went to the movies almost every day with my sister and brother. 345 00:26:40,475 --> 00:26:43,520 And you had a double feature and a cartoon in the middle, 346 00:26:44,688 --> 00:26:49,192 so you were there for hours out of the hands of your parents. 347 00:26:51,820 --> 00:26:54,739 And there's the cartoon, and when I saw that cartoon-- 348 00:26:54,823 --> 00:26:58,535 First the big head would appear with radiant lights coming out of it. 349 00:27:04,541 --> 00:27:05,792 I remember my sister saying, 350 00:27:05,875 --> 00:27:08,712 "We knew it was coming, and Jackie would grab you by one arm, 351 00:27:08,795 --> 00:27:12,257 and I would grab you by the other arm, and you went into a frenzy." 352 00:27:37,699 --> 00:27:40,160 Wow. I get the goose bumps every time. 353 00:27:43,955 --> 00:27:49,753 Mickey becomes the icon of how to truly survive the Great Depression. 354 00:27:50,587 --> 00:27:52,922 The American dream has suffered. 355 00:27:53,506 --> 00:27:55,842 But Mickey is able to bring that back. 356 00:27:56,634 --> 00:28:01,848 He's able to return us to a sense of perseverance. 357 00:28:04,309 --> 00:28:08,438 There was no other character having that grip on a mass conscience. 358 00:28:09,647 --> 00:28:13,026 That popularity spins out into things like the Mickey Mouse clubs, 359 00:28:13,109 --> 00:28:15,070 where kids could get together 360 00:28:15,153 --> 00:28:17,614 and watch Mickey cartoons together and laugh together. 361 00:28:34,631 --> 00:28:36,966 And now they're all waiting for Mickey himself. 362 00:28:38,093 --> 00:28:39,594 Here he comes! 363 00:28:46,059 --> 00:28:50,939 Mickey weathers the Depression, but he's got to change and transform. 364 00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:55,985 Because America and Mickey, they change together. 365 00:29:14,879 --> 00:29:17,424 There's almost a hundred years 366 00:29:17,507 --> 00:29:20,093 of Disney Animation history within this building. 367 00:29:20,969 --> 00:29:24,973 We have approximately 65 million pieces of art in our collection. 368 00:29:25,890 --> 00:29:30,228 And every box holds a spark of creativity. 369 00:29:31,730 --> 00:29:35,442 So, here you've got Steamboat Willie. 370 00:29:36,359 --> 00:29:38,153 Ah. That's a nice one. 371 00:29:38,236 --> 00:29:41,197 Mickey as he's falling in the soap bucket. 372 00:29:43,408 --> 00:29:45,493 Yeah, and it's so, so simple. 373 00:29:45,577 --> 00:29:47,287 You look at the hands-- 374 00:29:47,370 --> 00:29:49,372 They almost look like just little pinwheels. 375 00:29:49,456 --> 00:29:50,832 - And just-- - Yeah. 376 00:29:50,915 --> 00:29:56,546 It's the spirit of Mickey, just really simplified to an essence. 377 00:29:58,548 --> 00:30:02,052 You'll be able to see an evolution of Mickey here. 378 00:30:03,136 --> 00:30:05,430 - So, we've gone five years later. - Mm-hmm. 379 00:30:05,513 --> 00:30:06,514 Oh, yeah. 380 00:30:06,598 --> 00:30:08,850 You can see there's a little bit more to him. 381 00:30:08,933 --> 00:30:14,898 It's the same character, but you can tell that a different animator did this. 382 00:30:14,981 --> 00:30:15,982 Mm-hmm. 383 00:30:16,941 --> 00:30:19,778 The hands, for example. They added the white gloves. 384 00:30:23,656 --> 00:30:27,577 And this Mickey is just that much more 385 00:30:27,660 --> 00:30:30,497 three-dimensional and organic. 386 00:30:31,915 --> 00:30:35,210 You would take an animator's drawing of Mickey, 387 00:30:35,293 --> 00:30:38,213 put it on your light box, and then improve it. 388 00:30:38,296 --> 00:30:39,214 Whoop. 389 00:30:39,297 --> 00:30:45,387 Improve it by making that pose stronger, making that line of action more defined. 390 00:30:46,805 --> 00:30:52,894 But there's still something personal in it that you're bringing to the table. 391 00:30:55,939 --> 00:31:00,360 The very first animation I did here at the studio back in 19-- 392 00:31:00,443 --> 00:31:02,654 We won't talk about that. It was a long time ago. 393 00:31:02,737 --> 00:31:05,323 But the very first animation I did was Mickey Mouse. 394 00:31:06,324 --> 00:31:09,411 I felt it then, and I feel it now with this short. 395 00:31:09,953 --> 00:31:12,122 And we're able to keep him alive, 396 00:31:12,205 --> 00:31:14,791 and we're doing it in the way that Mickey should be done. 397 00:31:19,462 --> 00:31:22,215 I don't know if I can flip this 'cause the papers are kind of thin. 398 00:31:24,592 --> 00:31:27,220 The character of Mickey, the personality of Mickey-- 399 00:31:28,346 --> 00:31:30,390 Being hand-drawn is part of who he is. 400 00:31:31,933 --> 00:31:35,270 And if people recognize that, you know, 401 00:31:35,353 --> 00:31:38,481 there will always be a reason for us to keep drawing him. 402 00:31:41,234 --> 00:31:44,237 And those early animators, as crude as it was, 403 00:31:44,320 --> 00:31:47,490 they were discovering the language of animation. 404 00:31:49,159 --> 00:31:50,326 Well, Walt, 405 00:31:50,410 --> 00:31:53,580 how is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs coming along? 406 00:31:53,663 --> 00:31:55,457 Oh, it's come along very well. 407 00:31:56,374 --> 00:31:58,251 Going to run for one hour and a half. 408 00:31:58,335 --> 00:32:00,712 No cartoon production has ever run that long before. 409 00:32:01,296 --> 00:32:04,424 That's why we feel justified in putting one million dollars into it. 410 00:32:05,050 --> 00:32:06,468 In terms of animation, 411 00:32:06,551 --> 00:32:09,721 Mickey opened a lot of doors for Walt, 412 00:32:09,804 --> 00:32:12,223 and Walt was always looking for new doors. 413 00:32:13,016 --> 00:32:15,852 You know, it makes me dizzy to think of the millions of drawings 414 00:32:15,935 --> 00:32:17,937 necessary for a production of this kind. 415 00:32:18,688 --> 00:32:21,566 Disney needs to expand hugely. 416 00:32:22,067 --> 00:32:27,197 And so, the studio goes from a small group to 300 people. 417 00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:30,575 And that change really transforms the studio. 418 00:32:31,910 --> 00:32:35,538 No longer can Walt be involved in every Mickey short. 419 00:32:35,622 --> 00:32:38,833 His entire focus shifts over to Snow White. 420 00:32:39,626 --> 00:32:43,713 Snow White was not taking place in the same universe that Mickey lived in. 421 00:32:44,881 --> 00:32:47,008 But at the same time, Mickey never goes away. 422 00:32:47,842 --> 00:32:53,223 He's always right there by Walt's side whenever he takes on a new enthusiasm. 423 00:33:01,898 --> 00:33:05,485 Mickey Mouse is probably the most difficult character to ink 424 00:33:05,568 --> 00:33:07,112 because of all the curves. 425 00:33:08,780 --> 00:33:11,658 That's the most difficult part of inking is inking circles. 426 00:33:11,741 --> 00:33:14,619 And Mickey Mouse is full of circles. 427 00:33:24,754 --> 00:33:29,551 Your job as an inker is translating the animator's work onto the cel. 428 00:33:29,634 --> 00:33:32,637 You don't have any room to go outside of that. 429 00:33:32,721 --> 00:33:35,640 Because if you do that, you change their intention. 430 00:33:35,724 --> 00:33:38,184 You change their work. 431 00:33:41,146 --> 00:33:44,607 They say it takes about 15 years of consistent inking-- 432 00:33:45,108 --> 00:33:49,988 eight hours a day, five times a week, for 15 years-- to become a master inker. 433 00:33:50,905 --> 00:33:53,908 There's only a few of us in the Ink and Paint department now, 434 00:33:53,992 --> 00:33:58,079 but it used to be hundreds, and for a long time, it was all women. 435 00:33:58,163 --> 00:33:59,831 The thousands of pencil drawings 436 00:33:59,914 --> 00:34:01,249 go to the inking department. 437 00:34:01,332 --> 00:34:03,585 Here, hundreds of pretty girls cover the drawings 438 00:34:03,668 --> 00:34:05,295 with sheets of transparent celluloid. 439 00:34:05,378 --> 00:34:09,132 Then they painstakingly trace every line of every drawing in ink, 440 00:34:09,215 --> 00:34:12,844 following exactly, in every detail, the original animation drawing. 441 00:34:12,927 --> 00:34:16,598 The role of the inkers and painters gets glossed over 442 00:34:16,681 --> 00:34:21,519 into this log-line of pretty girls who traced and colored. 443 00:34:22,979 --> 00:34:27,442 When what they were accomplishing was mind-blowing. 444 00:34:28,818 --> 00:34:31,196 These women were artists in their own right. 445 00:34:31,905 --> 00:34:33,490 In the studio paint laboratory, 446 00:34:33,573 --> 00:34:36,326 all colors used are made up from secret formulas. 447 00:34:36,409 --> 00:34:40,413 Expert chemists developed more than 1500 different shades of color 448 00:34:40,497 --> 00:34:42,332 for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. 449 00:34:50,465 --> 00:34:55,387 Color forever transforms the world of Mickey Mouse. 450 00:34:57,806 --> 00:35:00,767 Pastel is his flesh. His tongue. 451 00:35:00,850 --> 00:35:03,812 Marigold, his shoes. Lobster, his pants. 452 00:35:05,146 --> 00:35:07,315 We are not really brushing. 453 00:35:08,024 --> 00:35:14,406 It's actually dropping a glob of paint, and then we just push it to the edges, 454 00:35:14,489 --> 00:35:18,493 because we wanna make the paint look as opaque as possible. 455 00:35:21,663 --> 00:35:23,998 When I'm inking or painting Mickey Mouse, 456 00:35:24,082 --> 00:35:27,836 it just takes me back to when Walt first created Mickey. 457 00:35:35,176 --> 00:35:38,680 So now that we're done with it, this is what it looks like from the front. 458 00:35:44,185 --> 00:35:46,146 All ready, Uncle Mickey? 459 00:35:46,229 --> 00:35:47,939 Okay, let's go. 460 00:35:52,569 --> 00:35:55,780 Once Mickey becomes an international children's star, 461 00:35:55,864 --> 00:35:57,657 there's certain things he cannot do. 462 00:35:59,409 --> 00:36:01,327 Parents of Mickey's younger viewers 463 00:36:01,411 --> 00:36:05,040 wanted Mickey to clean up his act and not be as bad an influence. 464 00:36:07,125 --> 00:36:10,378 He can't be a bully. He can't punch people. 465 00:36:10,462 --> 00:36:15,216 He can't behave in any way that would be considered bad behavior. 466 00:36:17,093 --> 00:36:19,512 It pushed Mickey into a straight man role, 467 00:36:20,305 --> 00:36:23,058 where almost any kind of flaw 468 00:36:23,141 --> 00:36:26,936 is seen as out of character. 469 00:36:29,856 --> 00:36:32,984 And so, Donald Duck appears. 470 00:36:38,365 --> 00:36:40,116 Aw, phooey! 471 00:36:40,784 --> 00:36:45,121 The duck came along as a result of too many taboos put onto Mickey Mouse. 472 00:36:45,789 --> 00:36:48,958 People didn't feel that Mickey could blow his top like the duck. 473 00:36:49,042 --> 00:36:51,127 He had to maintain a certain dignity. 474 00:36:54,506 --> 00:36:57,258 So, in order to give ourselves a latitude, 475 00:36:57,342 --> 00:36:59,552 we created this terrible-tempered Mr. Duck. 476 00:37:09,062 --> 00:37:10,814 Get out of here! Get out of here! 477 00:37:10,897 --> 00:37:13,566 Story after story was rejected for Mickey 478 00:37:13,650 --> 00:37:16,736 because he was perceived as being a little bit too silly in them. 479 00:37:18,780 --> 00:37:22,450 They found out Mickey is probably best paired with Donald and Goofy. 480 00:37:22,534 --> 00:37:24,160 A moose! 481 00:37:24,244 --> 00:37:25,245 A moose! 482 00:37:25,328 --> 00:37:26,705 And have this little trio. 483 00:37:26,788 --> 00:37:31,292 Hot dog! Now do your stuff. I'll take care of the rest. 484 00:37:31,376 --> 00:37:34,421 There are many great ones that include the three of them 485 00:37:34,504 --> 00:37:38,466 that work well 'cause their personalities rub off against each other. 486 00:37:38,550 --> 00:37:40,135 Lend a hand, me hearties! 487 00:37:40,218 --> 00:37:41,720 Aye, aye, Captain! 488 00:37:42,846 --> 00:37:44,472 What's the big idea? 489 00:37:44,556 --> 00:37:48,393 But it became evident that Donald is getting Mickey's anger 490 00:37:49,310 --> 00:37:51,980 and Goofy gets Mickey's silly side. 491 00:37:53,481 --> 00:37:57,485 And if Mickey is the responsible one, he pretty much has to take a back seat. 492 00:37:59,654 --> 00:38:01,573 But then where does that leave Mickey? 493 00:38:19,132 --> 00:38:21,801 This part of the short that I'm animating 494 00:38:21,885 --> 00:38:24,304 is from the Brave Little Tailor. 495 00:38:30,935 --> 00:38:33,146 He's trying to get his arm out of his sleeve. 496 00:38:33,229 --> 00:38:34,272 Can't get it. 497 00:38:34,773 --> 00:38:38,401 And then that's when Mickey comes in to his arm right here. 498 00:38:40,111 --> 00:38:44,991 Then I gotta get all that done in 297 frames. 499 00:38:45,075 --> 00:38:48,119 So I've only got a hundred frames to get the rest of it. 500 00:38:52,374 --> 00:38:56,252 I think I was here 25 years before I actually animated Mickey. 501 00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:59,798 And it seems a shame because, you know, if you work at Disney, 502 00:39:00,507 --> 00:39:03,051 you should be animating Mickey all the time, I'd think. 503 00:39:04,761 --> 00:39:08,640 When Eric gave me the sections that I was gonna do, I got really excited 504 00:39:08,723 --> 00:39:12,018 because that was my favorite Mickey that made me wanna be an animator. 505 00:39:12,102 --> 00:39:16,106 They came at me from the right. Then the left. Right, left, left, right! 506 00:39:16,189 --> 00:39:19,442 So that was exciting and intimidating all at the same time. 507 00:39:22,237 --> 00:39:27,033 As Mickey evolved, what used to be his eye, 508 00:39:27,117 --> 00:39:31,788 when you get to Fantasia, just became this little thing here 509 00:39:31,871 --> 00:39:34,416 and so you would end up with the pupils. 510 00:39:35,417 --> 00:39:36,793 Fantasia Mickey's important 511 00:39:36,876 --> 00:39:40,088 because with the whites of his eyes like this, 512 00:39:40,171 --> 00:39:42,882 it made him a lot more expressive. 513 00:39:42,966 --> 00:39:45,510 And I'm gonna stretch his ears a little more here 514 00:39:45,593 --> 00:39:50,390 because he just became a little more pliable from this point on. 515 00:40:02,944 --> 00:40:09,034 We wouldn't have a Fantasia if it weren't for Walt's concern for Mickey Mouse. 516 00:40:09,117 --> 00:40:13,872 He was worried that Donald and Goofy were overtaking Mickey's popularity, 517 00:40:14,706 --> 00:40:20,128 and he wanted a vehicle to bring Mickey back in the limelight again. 518 00:40:21,588 --> 00:40:27,719 And so originally, Fantasia was just going to be The Sorcerer's Apprentice short, 519 00:40:27,802 --> 00:40:34,309 and it then blossomed into an entire innovative feature film 520 00:40:34,392 --> 00:40:36,853 that's still never been equaled. 521 00:40:38,772 --> 00:40:41,149 Fantasia is something that was a huge gamble. 522 00:40:42,275 --> 00:40:43,985 You have so many different styles. 523 00:40:44,819 --> 00:40:46,863 It's something that, in theory, shouldn't work. 524 00:40:48,031 --> 00:40:50,241 The greatest thrill of his acting career happened 525 00:40:50,325 --> 00:40:53,161 on the night of November 13th, 1940 526 00:40:53,244 --> 00:40:57,082 at the same theater where he made his first appearance as a ragged, 527 00:40:57,165 --> 00:40:59,793 shoeless mouse almost ten years before. 528 00:41:23,066 --> 00:41:27,237 Some of the old animators said that when they heard that Walt wanted Mickey 529 00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:31,533 to be on this rock conducting the universe, 530 00:41:31,616 --> 00:41:33,660 they thought he'd gotten kinda crazy 531 00:41:33,743 --> 00:41:35,912 'cause Mickey Mouse, after all, is a cartoon character. 532 00:41:35,995 --> 00:41:37,414 You don't conduct the universe. 533 00:41:46,631 --> 00:41:49,009 Mickey conducting the universe you can translate 534 00:41:49,092 --> 00:41:53,471 to Walt conducting his own universe 'cause by that time his company had grown, 535 00:41:53,555 --> 00:41:56,850 and thousands and thousands of people were working at the studio. 536 00:41:58,810 --> 00:42:00,645 So I think Walt became Mickey then. 537 00:42:12,115 --> 00:42:14,576 There's some scenes in Sorcerer's Apprentice 538 00:42:14,659 --> 00:42:19,039 where he knows he's screwed up in front of the sorcerer. 539 00:42:19,122 --> 00:42:22,167 The subtlety that they get on his face, 540 00:42:23,001 --> 00:42:29,507 I think that's where the character hit his absolute peak of perfection. 541 00:42:32,260 --> 00:42:36,765 Artistically, Walt achieved everything he wanted to with Fantasia. 542 00:42:38,850 --> 00:42:42,645 But when the movie came out, it was a failure. 543 00:42:42,729 --> 00:42:45,273 Artistic success, financial failure, you know? 544 00:42:45,357 --> 00:42:47,609 Certainly an artistic success. It was a magnificent-- 545 00:42:47,692 --> 00:42:50,987 Well, there's-- Some people would, uh, would question that too. 546 00:42:53,198 --> 00:42:57,702 Fantasia was Mickey's culmination and his termination. 547 00:42:58,536 --> 00:43:02,791 That sorcerer swatted him with the broom, and he scurried off of the stage, 548 00:43:02,874 --> 00:43:05,043 and he never quite came back again. 549 00:43:05,877 --> 00:43:08,088 Well, so long! I'll be seeing ya! 550 00:43:21,976 --> 00:43:24,187 The story of Walt and Mickey 551 00:43:24,270 --> 00:43:27,565 wasn't just one continual success after success. 552 00:43:27,649 --> 00:43:30,568 It was stumble after stumble, failure after failure. 553 00:43:31,319 --> 00:43:36,074 But Walt believed that if he worked hard enough, he could overcome every obstacle. 554 00:43:39,828 --> 00:43:42,205 There are two main animators 555 00:43:42,288 --> 00:43:44,791 who were really, really important in Mickey's life, 556 00:43:45,458 --> 00:43:48,795 Ub Iwerks and Fred Moore. 557 00:43:49,963 --> 00:43:53,967 It was Moore who redesigned the mouse more than once, 558 00:43:54,801 --> 00:43:59,514 and after Fantasia, the studio is talking in terms of a comeback. 559 00:43:59,597 --> 00:44:03,935 From Fantasia, Freddie Moore took him even further 560 00:44:04,019 --> 00:44:06,688 for even more fluidity 561 00:44:07,272 --> 00:44:08,815 and more character. 562 00:44:11,484 --> 00:44:13,695 They gave him a loose, rangy kind of movement, 563 00:44:13,778 --> 00:44:16,406 and they had him deliberately clowning around. 564 00:44:16,990 --> 00:44:22,120 Everything's kind of working to this S curve here. 565 00:44:22,203 --> 00:44:23,955 I'll clean up your yard. 566 00:44:24,039 --> 00:44:26,166 All right. But no more clowning. 567 00:44:26,249 --> 00:44:28,960 They were trying to make Mickey funny again. 568 00:44:29,044 --> 00:44:31,880 You know? Let him play a clown once in a while, 569 00:44:31,963 --> 00:44:36,426 like when he's doing his goofy dance in Mickey's Birthday Party, 570 00:44:36,509 --> 00:44:40,472 or when he's raking up leaves in The Little Whirlwind, you know? 571 00:44:40,555 --> 00:44:46,895 It's okay for him to make mistakes or act foolish once in a while in that year. 572 00:44:48,897 --> 00:44:52,859 The movement, the organic qualities, 573 00:44:52,942 --> 00:44:57,030 the fluidity of the animation was never better. 574 00:44:59,074 --> 00:45:02,452 They could do with Mickey… anything. 575 00:45:07,457 --> 00:45:10,710 This new Mickey seemed to hold the promise of 576 00:45:10,794 --> 00:45:15,090 freeing him from that role of being the serious, responsible one all the time. 577 00:45:17,550 --> 00:45:20,470 But that version of Mickey didn't last long. 578 00:45:41,741 --> 00:45:44,160 The whole world is aflame. 579 00:45:44,244 --> 00:45:48,581 All the peoples of the United Nations are fighting the savage enemies of freedom. 580 00:45:50,542 --> 00:45:53,044 In Hollywood, Walt Disney has turned over 581 00:45:53,128 --> 00:45:55,588 almost the entire facilities of his studio 582 00:45:55,672 --> 00:45:58,550 for the production of Army and Navy instructional films. 583 00:45:58,633 --> 00:46:01,094 Four, eight, sequence one. Let her roll. 584 00:46:01,970 --> 00:46:04,055 Walt, being the patriot that he was, 585 00:46:04,139 --> 00:46:06,641 supported whatever the government and the military wanted… 586 00:46:06,725 --> 00:46:09,060 Don't throw away that bacon grease. 587 00:46:09,144 --> 00:46:12,939 Fats make glycerin and glycerin makes explosives. 588 00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:17,569 …whether that was creating shorts for home front or propaganda purposes… 589 00:46:17,652 --> 00:46:20,155 Will our own cities and homes be bombed? 590 00:46:20,739 --> 00:46:23,950 …or training films and educational films for the military. 591 00:46:24,034 --> 00:46:27,454 If the bolt is pulled back, the magazine's free… 592 00:46:27,537 --> 00:46:29,330 They were designing insignia 593 00:46:29,414 --> 00:46:32,042 for different military and auxiliary units around the world. 594 00:46:32,125 --> 00:46:33,793 Over twelve hundred were made. 595 00:46:35,295 --> 00:46:37,505 You have groups writing to the studio, saying, 596 00:46:37,589 --> 00:46:40,258 "We want Mickey to help get us through this." 597 00:46:41,968 --> 00:46:44,679 Before the war, Hitler liked Mickey, 598 00:46:44,763 --> 00:46:48,808 Mussolini loved Mickey, Hirohito loved Mickey. 599 00:46:48,892 --> 00:46:52,645 But when America enters war, Mickey ends up banned. 600 00:46:55,106 --> 00:46:58,568 The little fellow's grin was too infectious for Nazism. 601 00:46:58,651 --> 00:47:00,653 Hitler thunderingly forbade his people 602 00:47:00,737 --> 00:47:05,075 to wear the then-popular Mickey Mouse button in place of the swastika. 603 00:47:05,575 --> 00:47:07,911 Hitler understood what Mickey symbolized. 604 00:47:09,287 --> 00:47:13,500 Independence, liberty, freedom. 605 00:47:14,125 --> 00:47:16,252 America is Mickey. 606 00:47:21,591 --> 00:47:24,344 Commando Duck, here are your orders. 607 00:47:24,427 --> 00:47:27,347 You'll parachute at position D-4. 608 00:47:28,723 --> 00:47:31,643 But with the wartime shorts that are produced to create morale, 609 00:47:31,726 --> 00:47:34,729 almost all of those are done by Donald Duck. 610 00:47:38,650 --> 00:47:42,987 Mickey's presence in World War II tended to rely on the home front. 611 00:47:43,071 --> 00:47:46,157 You see him on support posters, 612 00:47:46,241 --> 00:47:47,701 getting people to carpool, 613 00:47:47,784 --> 00:47:49,703 rationing, selling war bonds, 614 00:47:50,286 --> 00:47:53,957 supporting the war effort not from the front line but at home. 615 00:47:54,874 --> 00:47:58,169 If you were a child at that point in time or a family, 616 00:47:58,253 --> 00:48:02,424 who better to look to than Mickey Mouse for that sense of comfort? 617 00:48:06,553 --> 00:48:08,221 But you, as a creator, 618 00:48:08,930 --> 00:48:11,099 don't control what happens to your products. 619 00:48:11,182 --> 00:48:13,435 You don't control what happens to your characters. 620 00:48:14,436 --> 00:48:18,481 And so, when wartime came, Mickey was already there. 621 00:48:26,865 --> 00:48:31,703 There was a village in Poland in which the entire village was destroyed by the Nazis. 622 00:48:33,329 --> 00:48:37,417 And there are images left from that village 623 00:48:37,500 --> 00:48:42,672 that create a collection of the life of the village before the horror. 624 00:48:46,468 --> 00:48:49,012 And in one of the photographs is Mickey. 625 00:48:53,183 --> 00:48:56,102 And it's a shocking image within the Holocaust museum 626 00:48:56,186 --> 00:49:00,523 to see this-- this being, Mickey Mouse, creating pleasure for this community 627 00:49:00,607 --> 00:49:02,442 right on the cusp of the war. 628 00:49:07,238 --> 00:49:10,825 Children in the camps were dressed up in Mickey Mouse costume, 629 00:49:11,618 --> 00:49:15,872 staging Mickey Mouse plays, drawing images of Mickey Mouse. 630 00:49:17,624 --> 00:49:23,046 There was actually a comic strip written by someone in the camps, 631 00:49:24,255 --> 00:49:28,426 which covered the daily life through the perspective of Mickey Mouse. 632 00:49:29,761 --> 00:49:36,351 And at the end, he erases Mickey and says, "Mickey's gone back to America." 633 00:49:36,434 --> 00:49:39,396 And the person who drew the comic strip was then killed. 634 00:49:41,022 --> 00:49:46,903 Mickey was in the Holocaust because Mickey represented the possibility of escape, 635 00:49:47,529 --> 00:49:49,489 of joy, of happiness. 636 00:49:50,073 --> 00:49:54,703 And those dictators understood very well that was not what they were offering. 637 00:50:02,377 --> 00:50:05,296 We kind of have to think of Mickey as, like, before World War II 638 00:50:05,380 --> 00:50:06,798 and then after World War II. 639 00:50:06,881 --> 00:50:08,717 It's two very different careers. 640 00:50:11,302 --> 00:50:13,013 - Well, here we are, Pluto. 641 00:50:13,096 --> 00:50:15,015 Boy, what a dream place. 642 00:50:15,098 --> 00:50:19,310 Come on, Your Highness. Utopia is yours. 643 00:50:24,524 --> 00:50:26,735 This migration to the suburbs, 644 00:50:26,818 --> 00:50:30,030 variously estimated as from 40 to 80 million people. 645 00:50:30,697 --> 00:50:33,700 Many people complain about the post-war Mickeys 646 00:50:33,783 --> 00:50:37,787 being domesticated, but Walt Disney is a very different person. 647 00:50:38,455 --> 00:50:43,335 Walt has a suburban house, has a very set, conservative life, really. 648 00:50:44,669 --> 00:50:48,173 And he's a person now who's gone through nervous breakdowns, 649 00:50:48,256 --> 00:50:51,384 possibilities of financial ruin, a strike. 650 00:50:51,468 --> 00:50:53,470 He gets involved in HUAC 651 00:50:54,596 --> 00:50:57,057 and that changes the Mickey we know. 652 00:50:57,807 --> 00:51:02,270 It makes him a much more contained character than he was in the early years. 653 00:51:04,272 --> 00:51:07,192 And America is moving in that direction too. 654 00:51:09,277 --> 00:51:10,862 We don't want chaos. 655 00:51:12,947 --> 00:51:16,159 We wanna feel safe. We wanna feel familiar and protected. 656 00:51:16,242 --> 00:51:18,411 Okay, Pluto. Let's get our tree. 657 00:51:19,621 --> 00:51:22,290 - 1953 was his last short, 658 00:51:22,374 --> 00:51:25,835 and I've heard him described as just being a little-- little man. 659 00:51:26,961 --> 00:51:30,048 He acquired a decent house and a mortgage, 660 00:51:30,131 --> 00:51:34,260 and he just became your suburban mouse next door. 661 00:51:37,430 --> 00:51:40,350 There is a continuing trend to more time off, 662 00:51:41,142 --> 00:51:43,019 which means more time to consume. 663 00:51:45,772 --> 00:51:48,274 It's a completely new idea in automobiles. 664 00:51:48,358 --> 00:51:51,277 The daring, dazzling 1955 Rambler. 665 00:51:51,361 --> 00:51:55,448 Come on, Pluto, old boy. We're going to see the 1955 Nash. 666 00:51:56,199 --> 00:51:57,826 When I first saw these, 667 00:51:57,909 --> 00:52:04,249 I did a complete double take that Mickey was even drawn this way. 668 00:52:04,332 --> 00:52:08,837 The new 1955 Rambler offers complete year-round air conditioning. 669 00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:12,340 They're sending the signals that Mickey and Minnie are married 670 00:52:12,424 --> 00:52:14,509 and they're driving in the front of the Nash Rambler, 671 00:52:14,592 --> 00:52:18,096 and there are their two kids sitting in the back. And it's like, "Wait a minute!" 672 00:52:18,179 --> 00:52:19,806 Live a little. 673 00:52:19,889 --> 00:52:21,307 Drive a Rambler. 674 00:52:21,808 --> 00:52:26,312 Apparently, they had made a few commercials before Walt saw them. 675 00:52:26,396 --> 00:52:30,025 What had happened was, a fan had written to him saying, 676 00:52:30,108 --> 00:52:32,610 "Dear Walt, what did you do with Mickey?" 677 00:52:34,446 --> 00:52:39,826 And he found these commercials and looked at them and just went, "Stop! 678 00:52:39,909 --> 00:52:42,912 That's not Mickey. We're not doing that anymore." 679 00:52:45,999 --> 00:52:47,292 Walt was getting so busy 680 00:52:47,375 --> 00:52:50,170 that he didn't always have time to stop what he was doing 681 00:52:50,253 --> 00:52:52,881 and go to the soundstage and record Mickey's voice. 682 00:52:53,465 --> 00:52:57,385 And doing that falsetto voice of Mickey was becoming harder. 683 00:52:57,469 --> 00:53:00,263 He actually had to go to a doctor for the vocal strain. 684 00:53:09,814 --> 00:53:11,107 - Hi. - How are you? 685 00:53:11,191 --> 00:53:12,859 - Nice to meet ya. - Nice to meet you. 686 00:53:12,942 --> 00:53:14,235 Yeah. I'm excited to work on this. 687 00:53:14,319 --> 00:53:17,906 You know, you could-- you could do this for a living. You sound just like him. 688 00:53:17,989 --> 00:53:20,283 - I would hope to. Thanks. Thanks. 689 00:53:23,328 --> 00:53:24,996 So, you've read the script. 690 00:53:25,080 --> 00:53:27,791 It's kind of a fanciful trip through Mickey's career. 691 00:53:27,874 --> 00:53:31,628 Uh, it starts with him walking through the halls of the animation studio 692 00:53:31,711 --> 00:53:35,757 and he's looking at his past glories on posters. 693 00:53:35,840 --> 00:53:39,052 So, why don't you go through it, and we'll see what we get. 694 00:53:39,636 --> 00:53:40,929 - All right. - Okay. 695 00:53:41,763 --> 00:53:43,223 One. Take one. 696 00:53:43,306 --> 00:53:45,225 Aw, there's Pluto. 697 00:53:45,308 --> 00:53:46,309 It's Minnie. 698 00:53:46,893 --> 00:53:48,812 Pete. 699 00:53:48,895 --> 00:53:51,731 Try another one where you're just a little more casual, 700 00:53:51,815 --> 00:53:52,982 - a little slower. - Okay. 701 00:53:53,566 --> 00:53:55,527 Hmm, hmm. 702 00:53:56,152 --> 00:53:58,571 Oh, I remember that. 703 00:53:59,155 --> 00:54:02,534 Those are great. Try one more that's just a, "Hmm." 704 00:54:03,743 --> 00:54:07,288 Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. 705 00:54:07,372 --> 00:54:09,249 The responsibility is huge, 706 00:54:09,332 --> 00:54:12,711 because I'm just playing a part in continuing this legacy 707 00:54:12,794 --> 00:54:15,130 that started with Walt back in 1928. 708 00:54:15,630 --> 00:54:17,382 Hey, Pluto. Here she comes. 709 00:54:17,465 --> 00:54:19,634 - Hi, folks. - Hi, folks! 710 00:54:19,718 --> 00:54:21,636 - This is Mickey. - I'm Mickey too. 711 00:54:21,720 --> 00:54:23,346 - You are? - I thought so. 712 00:54:23,430 --> 00:54:26,808 Jimmy Macdonald, the second voice of Mickey, told Wayne, 713 00:54:26,891 --> 00:54:30,061 "Remember, kid, you're only filling in for the boss." And that's how I look at it. 714 00:54:30,145 --> 00:54:32,272 Come on. We gotta hurry. 715 00:54:32,355 --> 00:54:34,065 Come on. We gotta hurry. 716 00:54:34,149 --> 00:54:36,234 Ah, gosh. 717 00:54:36,317 --> 00:54:38,653 Gosh! Oh, gosh! 718 00:54:38,737 --> 00:54:40,572 I will never forget that, essentially, 719 00:54:40,655 --> 00:54:42,449 I'm emulating Walt's performance as Mickey. 720 00:54:42,532 --> 00:54:44,492 Hot dog! Hot dog! 721 00:54:44,576 --> 00:54:45,994 Hot dog! 722 00:54:46,077 --> 00:54:48,371 - Hot dog! - That last one. 723 00:54:48,455 --> 00:54:49,539 Yeah, nice. 724 00:54:50,290 --> 00:54:53,168 You know, the coal is floating around him like asteroids, 725 00:54:53,251 --> 00:54:55,295 - so he's trying to grab for them. - Uh-huh. 726 00:54:56,963 --> 00:54:58,089 Gotcha! 727 00:54:58,173 --> 00:54:59,382 Great. 728 00:55:02,010 --> 00:55:05,513 I'm sitting there and I'm listening to Bret doing the voice, and I'm thinking, 729 00:55:05,597 --> 00:55:09,434 "Oh, man. He's nailed it. He's really got him." 730 00:55:09,517 --> 00:55:14,606 And I hope that as well as Bret nails the voice, we nail the visuals. 731 00:55:16,775 --> 00:55:19,903 Working on this short is kind of Mickey heaven 732 00:55:19,986 --> 00:55:23,406 because you get to play with all these different styles, 733 00:55:23,490 --> 00:55:26,201 as do the other animators who are working on it. 734 00:55:26,993 --> 00:55:32,874 So in this particular case, this is a Mickey from the 1950s. 735 00:55:33,583 --> 00:55:37,087 And this sequence was animated by John Lounsbery. 736 00:55:38,254 --> 00:55:39,839 And to be honest, 737 00:55:39,923 --> 00:55:44,636 this is the first time I've drawn a 1950s Johnny Lounsbery Mickey. 738 00:55:44,719 --> 00:55:48,973 So, you know, I'm learning as I go. 739 00:55:58,817 --> 00:56:01,820 -Hi, partners! - Hi, Mickey! 740 00:56:03,029 --> 00:56:06,908 Well, this here's our roundup day, so, uh, you all pretty nigh ready? 741 00:56:06,991 --> 00:56:09,119 - Sure enough! -Sure enough. 742 00:56:09,202 --> 00:56:10,620 Then let's get on with it. 743 00:56:10,704 --> 00:56:15,542 Most Hollywood producers were terrified of television. 744 00:56:16,334 --> 00:56:19,170 Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse present 745 00:56:19,254 --> 00:56:20,755 The Mickey Mouse Club. 746 00:56:20,839 --> 00:56:24,676 Walt goes in the opposite direction and embraces television. 747 00:56:27,929 --> 00:56:31,391 He relished the idea of getting into a new field like that. 748 00:56:31,474 --> 00:56:33,184 Hi, Mouseketeers. 749 00:56:33,268 --> 00:56:34,561 Hi, Roy! 750 00:56:35,478 --> 00:56:37,063 What would you like to have me draw? 751 00:56:37,147 --> 00:56:38,356 Mickey Mouse. 752 00:56:38,440 --> 00:56:42,652 It made it a lot easier to have this audience identification 753 00:56:42,736 --> 00:56:45,030 with a character that they had known for all those years 754 00:56:45,113 --> 00:56:46,781 and had become a part of their lives. 755 00:56:50,535 --> 00:56:54,330 Once again, Mickey provided the momentum that made all of that possible. 756 00:56:54,414 --> 00:56:59,711 Yay, Mickey! Yay, Mickey! 757 00:56:59,794 --> 00:57:02,255 Yay, Mickey Mouse Club! 758 00:57:03,465 --> 00:57:09,471 One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. 759 00:57:10,972 --> 00:57:14,434 You know, Walt, I think, very quickly realized 760 00:57:14,517 --> 00:57:18,480 that the power of his creations had life beyond the walls of the studio. 761 00:57:19,147 --> 00:57:20,482 And he would get fan mail. 762 00:57:20,565 --> 00:57:22,942 People would ask, "How can I meet Mickey and Minnie?" 763 00:57:23,026 --> 00:57:24,027 Welcome. 764 00:57:24,611 --> 00:57:26,780 I guess you all know this little fella here. 765 00:57:27,530 --> 00:57:28,740 It's an old partnership. 766 00:57:29,699 --> 00:57:33,661 Mickey and I started out the first time many, many years ago. 767 00:57:34,496 --> 00:57:36,498 We've had a lot of our dreams come true. 768 00:57:37,123 --> 00:57:40,335 Now we want you to share with us our latest and greatest dream. 769 00:57:42,003 --> 00:57:43,672 That's it right here. 770 00:57:44,923 --> 00:57:46,216 Disneyland. 771 00:57:54,891 --> 00:57:56,726 As soon as Walt starts on another path 772 00:57:56,810 --> 00:57:59,646 and focuses his interests on Disneyland, 773 00:57:59,729 --> 00:58:02,023 Mickey goes through a major transformation as well. 774 00:58:03,358 --> 00:58:07,404 He has to become the kind of icon that Walt is becoming. 775 00:58:08,988 --> 00:58:10,907 Disneyland is your land. 776 00:58:14,119 --> 00:58:16,746 Here, age relives fond memories of the past, 777 00:58:17,997 --> 00:58:21,251 and here, youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. 778 00:58:23,044 --> 00:58:24,879 There is something very personal 779 00:58:24,963 --> 00:58:28,758 about this whole quest that Walt is on. 780 00:58:28,842 --> 00:58:32,637 Returning to his own sense of being a child. 781 00:58:35,849 --> 00:58:40,145 And that Mickey Mouse, the character that existed in his head 782 00:58:40,228 --> 00:58:44,190 and then on paper, that existed on the big screen, 783 00:58:44,274 --> 00:58:48,528 could now be as close to every visitor at the park as it was to him. 784 00:58:49,112 --> 00:58:52,365 That's Mickey Mouse, the inimitable little character 785 00:58:52,449 --> 00:58:56,286 that started this whole story with Walt Disney 25 years ago. 786 00:58:57,829 --> 00:59:01,082 The real star of it is Mickey Mouse. 787 00:59:01,166 --> 00:59:02,917 I think there's an aura of magic 788 00:59:03,001 --> 00:59:05,337 around Mickey Mouse that makes you feel safe. 789 00:59:06,546 --> 00:59:10,592 And I think within that bubble, you are safe. 790 00:59:18,308 --> 00:59:20,769 Mickey connects generations. 791 00:59:25,148 --> 00:59:28,485 He connects our childhood memories to our adult memories. 792 00:59:30,987 --> 00:59:35,241 And so when you encounter Mickey in the park, you are not just you. 793 00:59:35,325 --> 00:59:37,452 You are six-year-old you, 794 00:59:38,995 --> 00:59:41,790 and you are 80-year-old you in the future. 795 00:59:44,167 --> 00:59:47,504 And you are with your grandmother, and you are with your grandchildren, 796 00:59:47,587 --> 00:59:51,341 and you are participating in a timeless moment. 797 01:00:00,892 --> 01:00:05,313 Mickey is the walking embodiment of Walt's philosophies. 798 01:00:05,397 --> 01:00:08,858 And you can meet him, still, in the persona of Mickey. 799 01:00:13,613 --> 01:00:16,282 I do remember, like, driving up to it 800 01:00:16,366 --> 01:00:19,911 and having that feeling that, like, this is where Mickey lives. 801 01:00:19,994 --> 01:00:22,122 Oh, this is a sacred space. 802 01:00:22,205 --> 01:00:23,665 It's like he made Disneyland. 803 01:00:23,748 --> 01:00:25,458 It's like he used magic to, like-- 804 01:00:27,127 --> 01:00:29,129 At that time, I'm thinking he's like John Wayne 805 01:00:29,212 --> 01:00:30,755 or he's like a real, true movie star. 806 01:00:30,839 --> 01:00:32,090 He spent his money. 807 01:00:32,173 --> 01:00:34,509 He bought this so people could come visit him. 808 01:00:34,592 --> 01:00:36,094 And I actually got to meet him. 809 01:00:36,177 --> 01:00:38,763 - When I was five years old-- - Five years old. 810 01:00:38,847 --> 01:00:39,973 Maybe ten? 811 01:00:40,056 --> 01:00:44,728 When I saw him in Tokyo Disneyland, I really believe it's him. 812 01:00:44,811 --> 01:00:46,563 He's right down here. 813 01:00:46,646 --> 01:00:50,442 And actually, I think the sweetest one is me and Minnie down here. 814 01:00:50,525 --> 01:00:53,153 It's kind of a big deal when I see Mickey. 815 01:00:53,236 --> 01:00:55,947 My husband literally pushed me out of the way-- 816 01:00:56,031 --> 01:00:58,825 Pushed her out of the way so I could get to Mickey first. 817 01:00:59,826 --> 01:01:02,454 Really happy when I got Mickey Mouse's signature. 818 01:01:03,038 --> 01:01:05,957 Thank you for all the times you were there for me. 819 01:01:06,458 --> 01:01:08,585 And you've always been my best friend. 820 01:01:09,085 --> 01:01:10,628 I resonate with Mickey so well 821 01:01:10,712 --> 01:01:14,466 because there's an undeniable piece of Walt's heart in Mickey Mouse. 822 01:01:24,476 --> 01:01:26,644 Can you still make a noise like Mickey Mouse? 823 01:01:27,228 --> 01:01:30,065 Well, uh, Mickey used to talk something like this, you know? 824 01:01:30,148 --> 01:01:31,649 It's kind of a falsetto. 825 01:01:31,733 --> 01:01:35,612 Of course, he's an old mouse now and the falsetto's getting a little old. 826 01:01:35,695 --> 01:01:36,696 Yeah. 827 01:01:48,667 --> 01:01:52,212 Working with Walt, nobody had any idea he was ill. 828 01:01:52,879 --> 01:01:55,298 Certainly not to the extent he was. 829 01:01:57,300 --> 01:02:00,720 We simply didn't see it coming. We never saw it coming. 830 01:02:06,309 --> 01:02:11,523 After Walt's death, his wife, Lillian, said that 831 01:02:11,606 --> 01:02:16,027 it was difficult for her to watch or listen to Mickey Mouse 832 01:02:17,529 --> 01:02:19,489 because there was so much of Walt in him. 833 01:02:34,879 --> 01:02:38,383 After his passing, they pretty much closed up the office. 834 01:02:41,177 --> 01:02:43,430 They'd go in and dust and-- and things like that, 835 01:02:43,513 --> 01:02:45,348 but it-- it looks just the way it did. 836 01:02:48,685 --> 01:02:51,354 We've tried to keep it as close to Walt as possible. 837 01:03:06,411 --> 01:03:08,663 You know, with the passing of Walt, 838 01:03:08,747 --> 01:03:11,875 the studio honestly did not know what to do with Mickey. 839 01:03:13,668 --> 01:03:17,589 And for me as a Disney storyteller, it was kind of eye-opening. 840 01:03:20,717 --> 01:03:23,762 It almost seemed that they wanted to put the lid on Mickey. 841 01:03:28,099 --> 01:03:32,687 Because Walt's values, Walt's ideas would be frozen in time. 842 01:03:46,117 --> 01:03:48,078 The world changed. The culture changed. 843 01:03:49,954 --> 01:03:52,957 And Mickey hadn't really changed with it. 844 01:03:54,000 --> 01:03:56,461 Even Mickey Mouse has troubles these days. 845 01:03:56,544 --> 01:03:59,923 A band of yippies threatened trouble in the park all day yesterday. 846 01:04:01,091 --> 01:04:04,552 The yippies said they have come to liberate Mickey Mouse. 847 01:04:08,598 --> 01:04:12,352 Mickey Mouse was still very much alive outside the Disney studio. 848 01:04:13,937 --> 01:04:16,731 You know, you could not escape him. 849 01:04:20,068 --> 01:04:21,945 Just like America splits in the '60s, 850 01:04:22,028 --> 01:04:23,530 Mickey Mouse splits as well. 851 01:04:25,198 --> 01:04:27,242 There's kind of a surface meaning to him. 852 01:04:27,325 --> 01:04:30,036 But the more you look into him, the more you think about it, 853 01:04:30,120 --> 01:04:32,580 the more levels there are to this symbol. 854 01:04:34,499 --> 01:04:36,292 So there are two Mickeys now. 855 01:04:36,376 --> 01:04:38,753 Mainstream Mickey and counterculture Mickey. 856 01:04:39,295 --> 01:04:41,423 And those coexist in this one character. 857 01:04:56,980 --> 01:04:58,773 Mickey becomes this irresistible symbol 858 01:04:58,857 --> 01:04:59,899 to the counterculture. 859 01:05:02,736 --> 01:05:06,906 So if you have an issue with your parents, with authority, with America in general, 860 01:05:06,990 --> 01:05:08,366 Mickey Mouse is your guy. 861 01:05:10,660 --> 01:05:13,788 What Mickey provided was inspiration. 862 01:05:15,331 --> 01:05:16,875 People were starting to use Mickey 863 01:05:16,958 --> 01:05:21,046 to reflect life around them in all sorts of different ways. 864 01:05:24,132 --> 01:05:27,344 And that really starts to deepen the character of Mickey Mouse. 865 01:05:31,139 --> 01:05:34,934 I don't know why things persist in people's minds and memories. 866 01:05:35,018 --> 01:05:37,562 Some things stick, some things don't. 867 01:05:38,146 --> 01:05:39,397 I forgot I did that. 868 01:05:39,481 --> 01:05:44,402 That was Mickey Mouse by Leonardo da Vinci. 869 01:05:46,363 --> 01:05:53,161 All significant art represents an attempt to understand reality. 870 01:05:57,082 --> 01:05:59,459 I was against the Vietnam War, 871 01:06:01,252 --> 01:06:07,008 and I thought we could do a little film on Mickey Mouse in Vietnam. 872 01:06:09,010 --> 01:06:12,263 I was looking for a symbol that would represent every man. 873 01:06:12,972 --> 01:06:15,433 And Mickey was sort of universal. 874 01:06:16,393 --> 01:06:18,812 And so much a part of the American ethos. 875 01:06:20,313 --> 01:06:23,316 Part of the factor was his innocence. 876 01:06:24,901 --> 01:06:28,988 By that point, Mickey really had become an emblem of what America stood for. 877 01:06:30,615 --> 01:06:34,452 But America is changing during that time, and in that short film, 878 01:06:34,536 --> 01:06:38,331 Mickey somehow manages to be the perfect symbol for that change. 879 01:06:38,415 --> 01:06:40,542 Of innocence lost during that war. 880 01:06:41,793 --> 01:06:44,087 By that point, we're so identified with Mickey, 881 01:06:44,170 --> 01:06:48,341 Mickey is so close to us, that there's no other character or symbol 882 01:06:48,425 --> 01:06:50,468 that could sell that message so effectively. 883 01:07:04,315 --> 01:07:07,694 Every version of Mickey is a version of all of us. 884 01:07:07,777 --> 01:07:10,530 It's a version of the society that we have all come from. 885 01:07:12,741 --> 01:07:17,787 And in the 1960s, America began to ask questions about itself, 886 01:07:19,122 --> 01:07:23,626 questions that many had ignored, and that included Mickey Mouse. 887 01:07:26,046 --> 01:07:31,301 Just like Mickey's shorts in the '30s where Mickey's performing in blackface, 888 01:07:31,384 --> 01:07:33,970 popular forms of entertainment show 889 01:07:34,054 --> 01:07:38,183 America has been divided since the founding of this country. 890 01:07:41,353 --> 01:07:45,857 But it's difficult to see Mickey part of that conversation. 891 01:07:48,360 --> 01:07:52,447 It's a disconnection that happens as a viewer when I'm faced with that… 892 01:07:54,699 --> 01:07:56,534 …and those sorts of presentations. 893 01:07:58,411 --> 01:08:00,372 And then, of course, you have Minnie. 894 01:08:02,916 --> 01:08:06,753 It's hard to watch those Mickey shorts with our eyes today. 895 01:08:07,837 --> 01:08:10,173 - But the last thing we wanna do… - Don't do that! 896 01:08:10,256 --> 01:08:13,009 …is to ignore, to hide, 897 01:08:13,093 --> 01:08:16,262 to somehow imagine those elements of our identity don't exist. 898 01:08:17,097 --> 01:08:19,641 That version of Mickey does exist. 899 01:08:20,141 --> 01:08:23,269 He speaks to the racism within our own society. 900 01:08:24,479 --> 01:08:26,272 It's easy to say, "It is what it is." 901 01:08:26,356 --> 01:08:29,359 It's easy to say that was just Walt being the man he was at the time. 902 01:08:30,402 --> 01:08:34,155 But given the cultural power that Walt had, 903 01:08:34,239 --> 01:08:38,451 some of the images he put out there with Mickey did damage. 904 01:08:40,245 --> 01:08:42,497 Mickey's supposed to love everybody. 905 01:08:44,666 --> 01:08:48,878 Clearly, in these moments, he's not loving all of us. 906 01:08:48,962 --> 01:08:50,797 He's not loving all of us. 907 01:08:52,590 --> 01:08:56,136 And here is Mickey's official 50th anniversary portrait. 908 01:08:56,219 --> 01:09:01,975 He's a little taller now. More grown-up. And, at the temples, just a touch of gray. 909 01:09:09,315 --> 01:09:12,068 Mickey's physical appearance has changed somewhat 910 01:09:12,152 --> 01:09:15,155 since Walt Disney created the mouse back in 1928. 911 01:09:15,238 --> 01:09:18,324 And over the years, Mickey's tastes have changed as well. 912 01:09:18,825 --> 01:09:23,329 But Mickey Mouse seems to stay up with the times, and in the area of music, 913 01:09:23,413 --> 01:09:27,876 it is only natural that Mickey Mouse would eventually go disco. 914 01:09:39,679 --> 01:09:43,641 Mickey is truly iconic in the sense that he cannot be beaten. 915 01:09:44,684 --> 01:09:47,187 So, yes, he's gonna have a disco album that's horrible 916 01:09:47,270 --> 01:09:50,065 and that comes two or three years after disco's peak. 917 01:09:50,148 --> 01:09:53,068 But it's still gonna be really popular and successful. 918 01:09:53,151 --> 01:09:56,654 I loved the Mickey Mouse Disco when I was younger. 919 01:09:56,738 --> 01:09:58,782 And I would just, like, dance in my living room. 920 01:10:01,493 --> 01:10:02,494 That's cute. 921 01:10:03,787 --> 01:10:07,540 But then on the other side, we see the punk appropriation of Mickey. 922 01:10:14,172 --> 01:10:17,133 And we see the Ramones wearing Mickey Mouse T-shirts. 923 01:10:17,217 --> 01:10:18,551 What are they doing? 924 01:10:21,429 --> 01:10:25,475 I, myself, and my friends, when we were into punk and skateboarding, 925 01:10:25,558 --> 01:10:27,811 would wear Mickey Mouse T-shirts. 926 01:10:27,894 --> 01:10:31,106 It was a mixture of, "I am making fun of something, 927 01:10:31,189 --> 01:10:33,608 and I am also expressing admiration for something, 928 01:10:33,692 --> 01:10:35,985 and my parents don't get that." 929 01:10:36,486 --> 01:10:38,780 So it became kind of a secret language. 930 01:10:46,121 --> 01:10:49,749 A lot of artists began to incorporate Mickey as a way of saying, 931 01:10:49,833 --> 01:10:53,545 "If you're gonna flood the culture with this kind of imagery, 932 01:10:53,628 --> 01:10:55,505 then it becomes ours at some point." 933 01:11:05,390 --> 01:11:07,058 He becomes the super symbol. 934 01:11:08,184 --> 01:11:09,728 Mickey Mouse, we are told, 935 01:11:09,811 --> 01:11:12,355 is one of the top three icons of the 20th century. 936 01:11:12,439 --> 01:11:16,234 A distinction he shares with Adolf Hitler and the Coca-Cola bottle. 937 01:11:16,317 --> 01:11:18,695 Andy Warhol lifted the image straight 938 01:11:18,778 --> 01:11:21,614 as part of a series of screen prints entitled Myths. 939 01:11:21,698 --> 01:11:24,617 Mickey Mouse is my favorite, uh, image 940 01:11:24,701 --> 01:11:27,662 because, uh, Walt Disney is my favorite artist. 941 01:11:31,791 --> 01:11:33,960 - I'm Mickey Mouse. - I'm Minnie Mouse. 942 01:11:34,044 --> 01:11:35,462 I'm Donald Duck. 943 01:11:36,671 --> 01:11:38,214 By the 1980s, 944 01:11:38,298 --> 01:11:40,175 things were getting weird for Mickey Mouse, 945 01:11:40,842 --> 01:11:47,015 because he had become almost this divine figure that you didn't mess with. 946 01:11:47,599 --> 01:11:49,184 Recently, The Walt Disney Company 947 01:11:49,267 --> 01:11:51,936 heard about the painted characters at this day care center 948 01:11:52,020 --> 01:11:54,522 and two others in Hallandale, Florida. 949 01:11:54,606 --> 01:11:57,275 Disney now demanding the removal of all its characters. 950 01:11:57,359 --> 01:12:00,570 The company charging unauthorized infringement of its rights 951 01:12:00,653 --> 01:12:02,364 under the US Copyright Act. 952 01:12:03,782 --> 01:12:06,409 Do you know what they're going to do to Mickey Mouse? 953 01:12:06,493 --> 01:12:08,912 - What? - They're gonna take him away. 954 01:12:10,205 --> 01:12:12,957 Despite their objections, the day care centers say 955 01:12:13,041 --> 01:12:15,669 they'll have to paint over the cartoon characters 956 01:12:15,752 --> 01:12:18,797 because they can't fight the power of the corporate mouse. 957 01:12:19,964 --> 01:12:22,634 Our legal protection of Mickey has inevitably led 958 01:12:22,717 --> 01:12:26,554 to some uncomfortable situations over the course of the company's history. 959 01:12:27,514 --> 01:12:30,475 I wouldn't say that we've handled every situation perfectly, 960 01:12:30,558 --> 01:12:34,479 but there's really no precedent for a creation like this 961 01:12:34,562 --> 01:12:36,231 when it comes to copyright. 962 01:12:36,314 --> 01:12:38,525 Mickey's one of the most popular characters in the world, 963 01:12:38,608 --> 01:12:41,444 and there's really no question that we've had to learn as we go. 964 01:12:43,780 --> 01:12:45,782 Disney's been very protective of Mickey, 965 01:12:46,324 --> 01:12:49,619 and it's interesting to think about how Walt's own experience 966 01:12:49,703 --> 01:12:54,416 of losing Oswald early on helps to define the trajectory of the studio. 967 01:12:54,499 --> 01:12:58,795 You signed this contract. See this signature there? Walt Disney. 968 01:12:58,878 --> 01:13:03,049 Right here it says that we own Oswald the Rabbit. 969 01:13:04,259 --> 01:13:07,846 Disney as a company was created out of tremendous loss, 970 01:13:08,722 --> 01:13:12,684 and I think that will give some context to why the company 971 01:13:12,767 --> 01:13:15,145 has defended Mickey so carefully over the years. 972 01:13:16,896 --> 01:13:20,316 And we understand that copyright is a part of the Mickey Mouse story. 973 01:13:21,401 --> 01:13:24,779 The challenging thing is that from a practical perspective, 974 01:13:24,863 --> 01:13:28,366 your copyright is only as good as your ability to enforce it. 975 01:13:29,492 --> 01:13:33,121 It's a balance and one that we continually work to get right. 976 01:13:36,041 --> 01:13:39,794 I am wholeheartedly against the infringement of copyright. 977 01:13:39,878 --> 01:13:42,672 So much so, that I had that phrase trademarked, 978 01:13:42,756 --> 01:13:45,759 and then I had it emblazoned on a Mickey Mouse doll. 979 01:13:49,637 --> 01:13:53,641 Where does something this big and this important to society 980 01:13:53,725 --> 01:13:56,353 become just owned by society? 981 01:13:56,436 --> 01:13:59,606 There is a level of Mickey that, you know, we all own. 982 01:13:59,689 --> 01:14:04,152 Disney the company was very strict about copyright and legal issues, 983 01:14:04,235 --> 01:14:07,822 but I never personally associated it with Mickey himself. 984 01:14:07,906 --> 01:14:10,116 There's the ambassador-of-the-company Mickey, 985 01:14:10,200 --> 01:14:13,286 and then there is that little more rambunctious nature of Mickey. 986 01:14:13,370 --> 01:14:15,830 There are two Mickeys, 'cause like anybody else would, 987 01:14:15,914 --> 01:14:19,334 Mickey has to act a little bit differently in different environments. 988 01:14:21,252 --> 01:14:23,630 And how do you not love Mickey's Christmas Carol? 989 01:14:23,713 --> 01:14:24,714 You know that-- that-- 990 01:14:24,798 --> 01:14:27,967 The soul of Mickey in that movie is still the pure soul of the film. 991 01:14:31,763 --> 01:14:33,556 Walt Disney Studios. 992 01:14:33,640 --> 01:14:38,103 Home to characters and stories spun from pure cinematic magic. 993 01:14:38,186 --> 01:14:40,730 But up until 1983, 994 01:14:40,814 --> 01:14:44,109 the Disney character who started the whole enchanted operation 995 01:14:44,192 --> 01:14:46,444 hadn't made a movie in 30 years. 996 01:14:51,241 --> 01:14:52,701 When we created the picture, 997 01:14:52,784 --> 01:14:57,789 there was, amongst us, a sense that we-- we were gonna be able to bring him back. 998 01:15:01,042 --> 01:15:04,087 G-g-g-good morning, Mr. Scrooge. 999 01:15:04,170 --> 01:15:07,090 Mickey's Christmas Carol was heralded as Mickey's great comeback. 1000 01:15:08,174 --> 01:15:09,843 But it's really a Scrooge McDuck cartoon. 1001 01:15:09,926 --> 01:15:11,302 What are you doing? 1002 01:15:12,429 --> 01:15:16,057 I was just trying to keep my hands warm, sir. 1003 01:15:18,101 --> 01:15:20,979 Some of the top people that used to work here have done Mickey 1004 01:15:21,062 --> 01:15:23,732 and, uh, you know, things were pretty well established 1005 01:15:23,815 --> 01:15:26,735 as far as what kind of a character, you know, he is. 1006 01:15:28,695 --> 01:15:33,491 There was a sense that there was a little bit of a fear, I think, 1007 01:15:33,575 --> 01:15:34,993 that the studio had with Mickey 1008 01:15:35,076 --> 01:15:40,081 'cause they didn't want to do something that failed. 1009 01:15:41,499 --> 01:15:43,960 He was our corporate symbol. 1010 01:15:44,794 --> 01:15:48,548 So it would've been really difficult if Mickey's a flop. 1011 01:15:48,631 --> 01:15:52,135 Like Walt always said, it all started with a mouse. 1012 01:15:52,218 --> 01:15:54,554 So they kind of became very careful 1013 01:15:54,637 --> 01:15:57,640 about what projects Mickey was involved with. 1014 01:16:01,478 --> 01:16:02,937 Oh! Huh. 1015 01:16:03,021 --> 01:16:04,314 Aw, Minnie and I… 1016 01:16:04,397 --> 01:16:07,484 It's both an honor and a challenge 1017 01:16:07,567 --> 01:16:09,778 to animate Mickey in the present day. 1018 01:16:09,861 --> 01:16:11,279 Hey! 1019 01:16:12,614 --> 01:16:15,825 You've got this big weight on your shoulders… 1020 01:16:15,909 --> 01:16:18,078 …like, "I'd better not louse it up." 1021 01:16:19,829 --> 01:16:24,918 But, you know, I just look at it as a continuum. 1022 01:16:25,794 --> 01:16:28,546 I mean, here we are almost a hundred years later, 1023 01:16:28,630 --> 01:16:32,300 and we're in the final week of animating this new short. 1024 01:16:33,134 --> 01:16:36,930 You know, we're still drawing him, we're still talking about him. 1025 01:16:37,889 --> 01:16:40,767 After all the things that Mickey has been through… 1026 01:16:41,726 --> 01:16:43,061 he's still here. 1027 01:16:46,189 --> 01:16:47,524 The Disney name evoked 1028 01:16:47,607 --> 01:16:50,151 some of the happiest and most endearing memories 1029 01:16:50,235 --> 01:16:54,322 in entertainment, but in recent years, some of that luster has dimmed. 1030 01:16:54,406 --> 01:16:57,075 Even with that legacy and with those assets, 1031 01:16:57,158 --> 01:17:00,412 everyone would acknowledge something was wrong. 1032 01:17:00,495 --> 01:17:02,205 What do you think about Mickey Mouse? 1033 01:17:02,288 --> 01:17:03,581 He's okay, but… 1034 01:17:03,665 --> 01:17:07,335 I like Goofy. And Minnie and Goofy. 1035 01:17:08,586 --> 01:17:12,382 In attempting to interact with as many people as possible, 1036 01:17:12,465 --> 01:17:13,842 Mickey seems lost. 1037 01:17:14,843 --> 01:17:17,053 He's hollow. There's-- There's nothing there. 1038 01:17:17,637 --> 01:17:20,181 Look in the dictionary. What a definition! 1039 01:17:20,265 --> 01:17:24,060 "Unimportant. Trivial. Irritatingly petty." 1040 01:17:24,144 --> 01:17:28,314 Let Fredo take care of some Mickey Mouse nightclub somewhere! 1041 01:17:29,149 --> 01:17:31,067 Do I like new Mickey Mouse? 1042 01:17:31,609 --> 01:17:34,612 Would I sing the Mouseketeer Club song? 1043 01:17:35,196 --> 01:17:37,532 No. No, I'm not a fan of Mickey. 1044 01:17:38,491 --> 01:17:41,327 This is the Mickey that you see today. 1045 01:17:41,411 --> 01:17:43,997 He has nice puffed-out cheeks. 1046 01:17:44,080 --> 01:17:46,499 In other words, all the kids think he looks cute. 1047 01:17:48,043 --> 01:17:49,794 Guess who's moving to Japan? 1048 01:17:49,878 --> 01:17:52,547 America's best-known mouse, Mickey. 1049 01:17:53,298 --> 01:17:55,133 Not only was Mickey mobbed 1050 01:17:55,216 --> 01:17:56,885 but so was the store selling his ears. 1051 01:17:56,968 --> 01:18:00,096 Fresh supplies had to be flown in after the hats sold out. 1052 01:18:00,680 --> 01:18:03,558 Mickey stands for Disneyland 1053 01:18:03,641 --> 01:18:06,394 the place where they can go and have all this fun. 1054 01:18:07,645 --> 01:18:08,772 And spend money. 1055 01:18:09,481 --> 01:18:11,524 We don't just sell Disney. 1056 01:18:11,608 --> 01:18:13,068 We are Disney. 1057 01:18:14,069 --> 01:18:16,738 Mickey in one word? Uh… 1058 01:18:18,239 --> 01:18:19,491 Consumerism. 1059 01:18:20,617 --> 01:18:23,411 I'm the mascot of an evil corporation. 1060 01:18:27,916 --> 01:18:29,209 Take the good with the bad. 1061 01:18:29,292 --> 01:18:31,378 Think of all the laughs I've given you. 1062 01:18:31,961 --> 01:18:34,005 You're supposed to be funny? 1063 01:18:34,089 --> 01:18:36,049 - Yeah. 1064 01:18:49,562 --> 01:18:52,190 I think we confused people. 1065 01:18:52,273 --> 01:18:56,695 So that, in 2005, when you asked people, uh, who Mickey Mouse was, 1066 01:18:57,320 --> 01:18:58,530 they typically would say 1067 01:18:58,613 --> 01:19:01,950 he's a corporate symbol of The Walt Disney Company. 1068 01:19:04,244 --> 01:19:09,749 I'm not sure people really knew who Mickey was or what Mickey was 1069 01:19:09,833 --> 01:19:12,502 because Mickey had been so many different things 1070 01:19:12,585 --> 01:19:13,962 and not necessarily all good. 1071 01:19:14,045 --> 01:19:16,631 - What's that? You want some more? - Hey! 1072 01:19:16,715 --> 01:19:18,466 Who's the mouse that's got the groove? 1073 01:19:18,550 --> 01:19:21,011 He was looked upon, I think, as commerce versus art. 1074 01:19:22,971 --> 01:19:24,139 Not quite heartless, 1075 01:19:24,222 --> 01:19:30,645 but he didn't have enough of the identity that Walt created for him originally. 1076 01:19:35,692 --> 01:19:38,528 The last thing Walt would've wanted would've been for Mickey 1077 01:19:38,611 --> 01:19:42,198 to remain as he was or to be stuck in some museum case. 1078 01:19:42,824 --> 01:19:46,828 So, we began a process to bring Mickey forward. 1079 01:19:48,747 --> 01:19:50,540 Most people, when they thought of Mickey, 1080 01:19:50,623 --> 01:19:54,169 besides being a corporate icon, felt that Mickey was old. 1081 01:19:55,086 --> 01:19:57,714 We asked people, "How old do you think Mickey is?" 1082 01:19:57,797 --> 01:20:00,383 And everybody said, "Well, he's over sixty-five." 1083 01:20:01,634 --> 01:20:04,387 And there had been very little content made 1084 01:20:04,471 --> 01:20:06,890 with Mickey in it for quite some time. 1085 01:20:08,016 --> 01:20:11,144 We prevented anyone innovating with the character 1086 01:20:11,227 --> 01:20:14,647 or anyone even trying to return Mickey to his former self. 1087 01:20:15,440 --> 01:20:18,860 We thought we owed it to ourselves and to the character 1088 01:20:18,943 --> 01:20:21,988 to engage with all sectors of the company. 1089 01:20:22,864 --> 01:20:25,200 And that led to what we called a bake-off. 1090 01:20:25,283 --> 01:20:28,661 We let each of the entities present to us 1091 01:20:28,745 --> 01:20:32,374 a fresh version of Mickey Mouse that everybody could love again. 1092 01:20:33,041 --> 01:20:35,960 At first, I was like, "Well, gosh. It sure would be cool 1093 01:20:36,044 --> 01:20:40,256 to just make Mickey Mouse shorts, but they're not gonna let me do that." 1094 01:20:42,967 --> 01:20:46,763 It was a very interesting time. For me, it was like, 1095 01:20:46,846 --> 01:20:48,264 "He doesn't need to be a shill. 1096 01:20:48,348 --> 01:20:52,894 He can go back to the time when he was really active and happy." 1097 01:20:54,396 --> 01:20:57,565 But I felt like Mickey himself had forgotten his roots. 1098 01:20:57,649 --> 01:20:58,983 Forgotten where he came from. 1099 01:20:59,818 --> 01:21:03,363 Disney had this bible of what Mickey is and isn't, 1100 01:21:03,446 --> 01:21:07,492 the dos and don'ts, and they decided not to show me that. 1101 01:21:08,535 --> 01:21:12,539 I wanted to remind him that he wasn't just a corporate symbol, 1102 01:21:12,622 --> 01:21:14,958 that he wasn't just a greeter in the parks, 1103 01:21:15,792 --> 01:21:18,169 that he was a cartoon character too. 1104 01:21:24,467 --> 01:21:27,345 The bake-off ultimately led to 1105 01:21:27,429 --> 01:21:30,265 a whole new era of storytelling with Mickey. 1106 01:21:30,348 --> 01:21:32,142 Hang on, pal. Here we go. 1107 01:21:32,726 --> 01:21:35,729 Holy moly! It's Mickey Mouse! 1108 01:21:39,357 --> 01:21:42,444 They wanted to restore Mickey to his glory and make sure, 1109 01:21:42,527 --> 01:21:44,904 because Mickey didn't take himself too seriously, 1110 01:21:44,988 --> 01:21:46,990 we weren't taking Mickey so seriously. 1111 01:21:49,242 --> 01:21:52,037 The new shorts actually, that version of Mickey, to me, 1112 01:21:52,120 --> 01:21:55,790 is the first time I've seen that kind of truest version of him in a long time. 1113 01:21:55,874 --> 01:21:58,209 I'm coming, Minnie! 1114 01:21:58,293 --> 01:21:59,502 Fire, fire, fire! 1115 01:21:59,586 --> 01:22:01,379 He's, like, coming into his personality. 1116 01:22:01,463 --> 01:22:04,382 He's not holding back. The sky is the limit for him. 1117 01:22:05,967 --> 01:22:07,886 He's still allowed to be a goober 1118 01:22:07,969 --> 01:22:12,515 and still allowed to be sad and happy and angry. All of it. 1119 01:22:15,226 --> 01:22:16,603 Get back here! 1120 01:22:17,854 --> 01:22:21,399 It's been fun to see kids going, "Wow! These are actually funny!" 1121 01:22:24,527 --> 01:22:27,739 How do you balance the heritage that created the character, 1122 01:22:27,822 --> 01:22:31,951 that created the company, with the need to be innovative and modern? 1123 01:22:32,035 --> 01:22:36,873 The trick is to respect the past but not revere it. 1124 01:22:43,588 --> 01:22:44,964 Hello. 1125 01:22:47,342 --> 01:22:49,344 Oh, my gosh. Red! 1126 01:22:49,427 --> 01:22:53,181 There's only really one Mickey I want to see. 1127 01:22:53,264 --> 01:22:56,017 And that's that old-time Mickey. 1128 01:22:56,101 --> 01:22:57,102 - Mickey! - Minnie! 1129 01:22:57,185 --> 01:22:59,771 When he came out of the screen, we didn't want him to feel like, 1130 01:23:00,271 --> 01:23:02,857 "Oh, he's the new Mickey." We wanted him to feel like, 1131 01:23:02,941 --> 01:23:05,902 "This is Mickey, just outside of his black-and-white screen." 1132 01:23:06,945 --> 01:23:09,322 There was a moment on the film when we were like, 1133 01:23:09,406 --> 01:23:16,413 "Wait. So, all the characters are running in and out of the screen from 2D to CG, 1134 01:23:16,496 --> 01:23:19,207 and they loop, like, six or seven times?" 1135 01:23:19,290 --> 01:23:20,625 And Lauren's like, "Yeah!" 1136 01:23:20,709 --> 01:23:21,710 And we're like… 1137 01:23:23,211 --> 01:23:25,005 "Okay." 1138 01:23:26,131 --> 01:23:29,342 I think that's something that Walt established early on 1139 01:23:29,426 --> 01:23:30,927 where you just-- You never say no. 1140 01:23:31,011 --> 01:23:33,346 You always push boundaries. You're always innovating. 1141 01:23:34,889 --> 01:23:37,767 He would've had us in hologram animation by now. 1142 01:23:39,310 --> 01:23:41,521 In the same way that the parks 1143 01:23:41,604 --> 01:23:44,274 and the walk-arounds keep the characters alive, 1144 01:23:45,191 --> 01:23:48,737 new animation helps keep them alive. 1145 01:23:49,404 --> 01:23:53,742 And pencil to paper is the way that Mickey started. 1146 01:23:53,825 --> 01:23:57,495 And, in many cases, it's the way he looks the best. 1147 01:24:03,835 --> 01:24:05,587 Well, I just got the short back. 1148 01:24:08,381 --> 01:24:11,676 The thing that I'm really happiest about in this piece is 1149 01:24:11,760 --> 01:24:13,845 that when you see it all cut together-- 1150 01:24:14,679 --> 01:24:18,224 you know, all the Mickeys, all in one short film-- 1151 01:24:19,184 --> 01:24:23,313 it really does feel like the Mickey that we all love. 1152 01:24:24,522 --> 01:24:26,649 - Good to see you guys! - Good to see you. 1153 01:24:26,733 --> 01:24:27,942 Good to see you. 1154 01:24:28,026 --> 01:24:29,361 This is gonna be cool. 1155 01:24:29,444 --> 01:24:31,279 Everything looks better in this theater. 1156 01:24:31,363 --> 01:24:33,365 - Yeah, I think it does. 1157 01:24:33,448 --> 01:24:36,201 You know, if Walt and Ub are watching, 1158 01:24:36,868 --> 01:24:43,708 I'd like to think we did our darndest to honor them and honor their creation. 1159 01:24:51,424 --> 01:24:52,592 Oh! Huh. 1160 01:24:53,385 --> 01:24:54,552 Mm-hmm. 1161 01:24:54,636 --> 01:24:56,179 Oh. And there's Pluto. 1162 01:24:56,971 --> 01:24:58,348 Aw, Minnie and I. 1163 01:25:00,183 --> 01:25:03,186 Wow. That one sure gave me a workout. 1164 01:25:03,853 --> 01:25:04,854 Hey! 1165 01:25:20,120 --> 01:25:21,955 Whoo! Whoo! 1166 01:25:36,761 --> 01:25:38,513 Oh! Gosh. 1167 01:25:43,101 --> 01:25:44,644 Well… …what do you know? 1168 01:25:46,396 --> 01:25:47,814 Okay, roll it! 1169 01:25:48,606 --> 01:25:49,983 Whoa! 1170 01:25:50,567 --> 01:25:51,776 Yeah, that's it. 1171 01:25:51,860 --> 01:25:53,028 All right. 1172 01:25:54,904 --> 01:25:56,906 You guys did a great job. 1173 01:25:56,990 --> 01:25:59,325 - Absolutely great. - Thank you. It was fun. A lot of fun. 1174 01:25:59,409 --> 01:26:01,036 Walt would be proud. 1175 01:26:01,119 --> 01:26:03,163 - I hope so. 1176 01:26:04,789 --> 01:26:05,832 Can we run it again? 1177 01:26:05,915 --> 01:26:06,916 Yeah. 1178 01:26:14,424 --> 01:26:17,260 Everybody used to say, "What would Walt think?" 1179 01:26:17,927 --> 01:26:20,013 I actually think about that a lot. 1180 01:26:22,724 --> 01:26:25,518 Walt would say, "Never lose sight of the fact 1181 01:26:25,602 --> 01:26:27,312 that it was all started with a mouse." 1182 01:26:27,395 --> 01:26:31,274 But before Mickey Mouse, it all started with Walt Disney. 1183 01:26:41,493 --> 01:26:45,413 One thing that Walt kept in his office right until the end 1184 01:26:46,039 --> 01:26:50,168 was a hand-drawn map of the farm here in Marceline. 1185 01:26:57,342 --> 01:27:02,555 And I-- I really like the idea that even at the end of his life, 1186 01:27:02,639 --> 01:27:08,603 Walt was still thinking about that tree where he first felt that spark. 1187 01:27:24,994 --> 01:27:27,706 Mickey is a thing we all share. 1188 01:27:28,790 --> 01:27:30,500 There aren't many of those around. 1189 01:27:33,420 --> 01:27:39,217 He's grown into a necessary character for us. 1190 01:27:47,267 --> 01:27:50,562 Whenever I did chemo, I had to have my Mickey Mouse shorts. 1191 01:27:50,645 --> 01:27:54,024 And this dark and dreary moment that I was in-- 1192 01:27:54,607 --> 01:27:56,359 I found a little hope, you know? 1193 01:27:56,443 --> 01:27:59,362 And I feel like that's who Mickey Mouse is. 1194 01:28:01,781 --> 01:28:05,285 When I was 13, I was granted a Make-A-Wish. 1195 01:28:05,368 --> 01:28:09,873 Then seeing Mickey, he just brought, like, this, um, happiness out of me, 1196 01:28:09,956 --> 01:28:13,960 and, like, made me, uh, remember that I was still a child. 1197 01:28:24,554 --> 01:28:26,681 That magical spark… 1198 01:28:27,807 --> 01:28:30,685 I felt it and never forgot it. 1199 01:28:32,312 --> 01:28:33,855 Bye, Mickey! 1200 01:28:33,938 --> 01:28:37,150 At this point, I think Mickey is us. 1201 01:28:39,027 --> 01:28:43,490 So, wherever we're headed next, he's coming with us. 1202 01:29:07,597 --> 01:29:11,017 I love that Disney hides Mickey Mouses everywhere. 1203 01:29:11,601 --> 01:29:13,937 All over the park or any sort of property. 1204 01:29:15,105 --> 01:29:16,898 It's a little secret way of saying, 1205 01:29:16,981 --> 01:29:18,900 "Thank you, Mickey. You still belong here." 1206 01:29:20,902 --> 01:29:23,530 And the cool thing about it is, it doesn't stop there. 1207 01:29:23,613 --> 01:29:25,907 You'll leave, and then in real life, 1208 01:29:25,990 --> 01:29:28,952 you'll just notice Mickey heads everywhere. 1209 01:29:30,036 --> 01:29:31,037 It's like, "Oh, my gosh. 1210 01:29:31,121 --> 01:29:33,456 Okay, wait a minute. Mickey, are you-- are you speaking to me? 1211 01:29:33,540 --> 01:29:36,084 Are you communicating to me? What is happening here? 1212 01:29:36,167 --> 01:29:37,794 Why am I seeing you everywhere?"