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“Wouldn’t you rather have your child watching cartoons than… than reading Elinor Glyn?” “What Elinor Glyn reads is her mother’s business!”

One thing that many Disney fans have long groused about, and something that I’ve talked about here, is the process by which Mickey Mouse has been transformed over the years from a funny and entertaining character to a bland corporate icon. Many people forget that those early black and white Mickey shorts were hilarious; Mickey came off as a cross between Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks, finding himself in a number of out-sized adventures based on the popular fiction of the day.

But the issue of Mickey’s slide into mediocrity isn’t something we can blame on Michael Eisner or the latter-day corporatization of the company. It isn’t even something we can hang on the meek stewardship of Card Walker. No, this is a rare problem that goes all the way back to Walt’s rule – way, way back as a matter of fact.

From the New York Times, November 16th, 1930

It seems that the issue of what Mickey would or wouldn’t, or should or shouldn’t, do goes all the way back to his infancy. In 1930, just two years after his theatrical debut and at the height of his popularity, a number of theaters and localities were already up in arms about the scandalous antics of the world’s favorite cartoon character. Perhaps it’s no surprise; after all, busybodies and self-appointed crusaders for virtue have plagued popular entertainment since time immemorial. But rarely have the efforts of the thought police centered so heavily on the wardrobe of animated mice or the reading habits of cows.

This censorship proved more than a minor irritant to Disney, though. “Objectionable” scenes couldn’t be merely snipped out of the films, they had to be replaced with new scenes so as to not disturb the timing of the soundtrack. I wonder if these scenes, mentioned in the following interview with Mr. Mouse from November of 1930, still exist?

From the Los Angeles Times, November 23rd, 1930

The subject of Mickey’s relevance as an entertainer has been a hot topic lately; this seems to happen at least once a decade. It happened in the 1980s after Michael Eisner’s arrival at Disney, and it happened in the 1990s with the release of Runaway Brain. We’ve also seen attempts at revivals with the Mickey Mouse Works and House of Mouse television anthologies. This time, the discussion accompanies the hype leading up to 2010’s release of Epic Mickey for the Wii gaming console. Designer Warren Spector had been reluctant to tackle a Mickey-related title, as the character has become so devoid of… character. Like many of the previous attempted revivals, Spector has looked to Mickey’s early work for inspiration. The early peeks have been intriguing, with many characters from Mickey’s early years and adventures in print popping up. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and the Phantom Blot? Yes, please.

Hopefully, there won’t be any Elinor Glyn.

The men behind Mickey in 1988 and their thoughts about the character. From left to right: Wayne Allwine, Floyd Norman, Roman Arambula, Glen Keane, Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas and Mark Henn.

Recently, Disney announced that their new Goofy-starring short How To Hook Up Your Home Theater would be released to theaters on December 21st in front of the new film National Treasure: Book of Secrets. This was a surprise to fans, as most everyone had assumed it would be released a month earlier attached to the more animation-appropriate Enchanted. Instead, Disney is choosing to premiere the first release from its new shorts program in front of a live-action adventure film, an act of counter-programming that shows their faith in the product and the desire to reach a larger market with these new shorts than the already animation-friendly family market.

How To Hook Up Your Home Theater is not the first animated short from Disney in recent years; Destino, Lorenzo, and The Little Match Girl were all produced as part of a failed Fantasia sequel and were released on the festival circuit. Still, they weren’t released to a wide audience – only Lorenzo played in theaters (inexplicably, in front of the film Raising Helen) and two of the three aren’t currently available to the public (trust me – I’ve tried to find a copy of Lorenzo to watch!). How To Hook Up Your Home Theater differs from these earlier efforts in that it is part of a program initiated when John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and their Pixar crew came to Disney a few years ago; a official shorts division is now set up and operating under the control of veteran story artist Chuck Williams.

Pixar is well known for its short films – Lasseter and company spent a decade working only on shorts before they released Toy Story in 1995, and nowadays every Pixar release is accompanied by a new short. Lasseter and Catmull had the clout to help revive a similar program at Walt Disney Feature Animation, and we’re now starting to enjoy the fruits of their labors. The benefits of a shorts program are manifold; they are a valuable training tool for new animators, they help to develop and discover new talent, they allow experimentation, and they push innovation. Shorts also provide an outlet for ideas that deserve realization, but aren’t hefty enough on their own to hold up an entire feature film.

The Disney Studios were built on the success of Mickey Mouse shorts in the 1920’s and 30’s, but after the war the profits on shorts began to dry up and they became a drain on resources. Despite several attempts to revive the animated short over the years, they never seemed to be a natural fit in the modern theater industry. Nowadays, however, with digital distribution and new media, there are more outlets for short films than ever. Studios are always looking for new and inexpensive content to add to DVD’s, and Pixar has successfully produced new shorts for their home video products as a value-added inducement to consumers. Shorts are easily shared online, and it’s much more likely that a person would download a few inexpensive shorts onto their ipod for a crosstown bus ride than an entire feature. Shorts are a rarity – an archaic form of media that might just fit perfectly into our attention-span-deprived modern world.

Taking all of this into account, and combining it with a sheer nostalgic love of the Disney animated short, Lasseter, Catmull and the new management at WDAS are setting out to create a steady stream of new shorts for the upcoming years (at the time of this writing, aside from the Goofy short, five more are said to have been approved with three in actual production). Lasseter has specifically indicated a desire to revive Disney’s classic stable of characters, and it’s worth noting that several of the films are in traditional 2-D animation. Let’s take a look at what they have in store:

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