The Book of Mouse: A Celebration of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse (7 page)

In a final audition, Russi Taylor, the voice of Minnie Mouse and the widow of Wayne Allwine, helped in choosing Iwan, who took over the role just two weeks after Allwine’s death. Iwan said:

The audition was basically a voice match. They provided an MP3 of clips from a couple of Walt’s cartoons and a couple of Wayne’s cartoons. And the audition was to do the best you could to match those voices.

Iwan has done the voice of Mickey in videogames like the
Epic Mickey
series, television shows like
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
, and toys like “Dance Star Mickey”, and has recorded Mickey’s dialogue for the new musical stage show at Disneyland,
Mickey and the Magical Map
, that opened May 2013.

However, for the 19 new Mickey Mouse cartoons that aired on the Disney Channel in 2013, Executive Producer Paul Rudish wanted an “edgier” tone to Mickey’s voice and used actor Chris Diamantopoulos instead of Iwan to supply the voice.

In June 2013, Diamantopoulos wrote:

I’m so proud to be the voice of Mickey in these [cartoons].

Ubbe Eert Iwwerks (who officially shortened his Dutch name to Ub Iwerks in the 1920s) was a legendary animator and inventor who worked with Walt Disney for much of his life. He was a shy, sometimes inarticulate, serious fellow whose talent amazed everyone.

Iwerks was born March 14, 1901, and passed away July 7, 1971. Iwerks was Mickey Mouse’s second father and has been referred to as “the hand behind the mouse”. He was the best draftsman at the Disney Studio, able to turn out more footage than anyone else. Iwerks could do 600-700 usable drawings a day, which translated into roughly one drawing a minute during a ten-hour day.

Walt and Iwerks became friends as teenagers. Iwerks started working for Walt in 1922 at the Laugh-O-Gram Studio and continued through the
Alice Comedies
and the Oswald the Rabbit cartoon series at the Disney Studio in California. He was the only animator who remained loyal to Walt when Disney lost the Oswald series. It was Iwerks who came up with the final design of Mickey Mouse based on Walt’s ideas, and it was Iwerks who animated virtually all of the first three Mickey Mouse films by himself.

Iwerksue n Dave said in an interview published in the November 12, 1978, issue of
Family Weekly
:

Mickey was not born on that [train] ride, as per legend. He was created at a drawing board in Los Angeles. Father drew many characters, one of which was a mouse. Whether Walt suggested [draw a mouse] is in doubt.

It’s quite possible the mouse was just one of the many characters Dad churned out. He never spoke of Mickey or regaled us with stories of those early days. Once he accomplished something — no matter what — he forgot all about it and moved on to other things. He wasn’t one to boast “Look what I did!” It was all in his day’s work.

Dad did everything on the first three Mickey cartoons from the first stroke on the drawing board to the finished cartoon. Proof of Dad’s importance to Walt lies in the fact that in 1930, Dad earned $150 a week. Walt collected $75. Reason Dad got twice as much as Walt was because Walt wanted to keep Dad there at all costs. He understood his value.

Iwerks also did the lion’s share of the animation work, including backgrounds, on the next two 1929 Mickey shorts,
The Barn Dance
and
The Opry House
. In addition, he illustrated the first few weeks of the Mickey Mouse comic strip as well as many promotional items featuring Mickey Mouse such as a giveaway phenakistoscope of Mickey walking forward.

Disney animator and director Ben Sharpsteen affirmed:

If there ever was a right-hand man to Walt, it was Ub.

For a variety of reasons, including some personal disagreements with Walt, Iwerks left the Disney Studio in January 1930 to start his own animation studio. He returned to the Disney Studio in 1940 but not as an animator; instead, he developed the Special Process Laboratory that handled photographic processes such as special effects both for animation and live action.

Iwerks was awarded two special Oscars for these achievements. In 1959, he was given an Academy Award for the design of an improved optical printer for special effects and matte shots, and in 1965 he was awarded again for advancements in the traveling matte system used in
Mary Poppins
(1965) to combine live action and animation. In addition, Iwerks contributed many other technical improvements to the Disney Company, including the use of Xerox in producing cel animation and the continuous loop projection system used for films at the Disney theme parks.

Ub Iwerks was inducted as a Disney Legend in 1989.

Robert Fred Moore, born September 7, 1911, and often referred to as “Freddy” or “Freddie”, was a legendary animator whose work is still studied today for Moore’s ability to instill “appeal” in his characters. Moore died November 23, 1952.

Disney Legend Marc Davis, one of Walt’s “Nine Old Men”, said:

Fred Moore
was
Disney drawing. That was the basis of what Disney stood for. It was certainly the springboard for everything that came after.

Moore is credited with the appealing re-design of Mickey Mouse in the mid-1930s, including the pear-shaped body, cheeks, and the effective addition of pupils to Mickey’s eyes.

When he first showed these changes to Walt in a “sweatbox” session (where preliminary work was reviewed), Moore was nervous, especially knowing Walt’s deep connection to Mickey Mouse. Walt reran the scene several times without saying a word. Then, Walt lifted his eyebrow, turned to Moore and said: “Now that’s the way I want Mickey to be drawn from now on!”

Disney Legend Ward Kimball remembered his friend:

Fred was just right for the time. He decided to make Mickey’s cheeks move with his mouth, which they had never done before because you drew everything inside the circle.

When he was hired at the Disney Studio, Moore became an assistant to Disney Legend Les Clark, a former assistant to Ub Iwerks and the resident Mickey Mouse specialist at the time. Soon, it was Moore who was considered the Mickey specialist.

Unlike Iwerks, Moore was the charming life of the party with a cocky innocence that often showed itself in prankish behavior. Coordinated and athletic, his body awareness transferred to his animation, giving his characters a fluidity lacking in the animation of others.

In the late 1930s, though no later than 1938, Moore gave an illustrated presentation to the Disney animators about how to approach the character of Mickey Mouse. Entitled “Analysis of Mickey Mouse”, it was part of a series of lectures given by top Disney animators like Art Babbitt, Norm Ferguson, and Fred Spencer on the characters of Goofy, Pluto, and Donald Duck. From Moore’s lecture:

Mickey seems to be the average young boy of no particular age; living in a small town, clean living, fun loving, bashful around girls, polite and clever as he must be for the particular story. In some pictures he has a touch of Fred Astaire; in others of Charlie Chaplin, and some of Douglas Fairbanks, but in all of these there should be some of the young boy.

Moore went on to talk about the construction of the figure:

The legs are better drawn tapering from the pant leg to the shoe, that is, larger at the shoe with the knee coming low on the leg. This also applies to the arms; the hands being fairly large.

He also discussed handling Mickey in animation:

The ears are better kept far back on the head and often act as a balance for the figure. However, do not shift them around on the head just to balance.

The lecture included Moore’s commentary about Minnie Mouse:

Minnie seems cuter with the skirts high on her body — showing a large expanse of her lace panties. This skirt should be starched and not hang limp.

Unfortunately, Moore developed an alcohol problem that escalated in severity during the late 1940s. He was inducted as a Disney Legend in 1995.

For nearly eighty years, both the Disney Company and the world press believed as absolute fact that in June 1935 Mickey Mouse received a special gold medallion from the prestigious League of Nations as “an international symbol of Good Will”.

That it would have been the only such special award ever given out by the organization during its entire existence should have aroused some suspicions.

The story of the award was first reported in the June 18, 1935, edition of
The Times
of London. News organizations around the world picked up on the item and shared it as well. Roughly a week later, even Edna Disney, Walt’s sister-in-law, wrote in her personal diary: “Walt was presented with a League of Nations medal.”

The award was proudly displayed at the Disney Studio for decades. Merchandising guru Kay Kamen used a photo of the medal front and center on the cover of the 1935
Mickey Mouse Merchandise Catalog
along wh pictures of almost a dozen other awards won by Disney within the last twelve months.

But as Disney historian Didier Ghez discovered while researching his book
Disney’s Grand Tour
(Theme Park Press 2013), it was all just a misunderstanding.

Summarizing Ghez’s groundbreaking research, The League of Nations did not present a special award to Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse.

The award was actually given by an organization called Comité International pour la Diffusion Artistique et Littéraire par le Cinématographe (C.I.D.A.L.C.), or in English, the International Committee for the Diffusion of Arts and Literature through the Cinema. At the gala event where the award was presented on the morning of June 25, 1935, attendees were shown eight Disney animated shorts and watched live-action performances by several French entertainers.

Then, Walt was formally presented with a gold medal from Mlle. Hélène Vacaresco, President of C.I.D.A.L.C.

Everything seemed to support the notion that C.I.D.A.L.C. was an official sub-committee of the League of Nations. Mlle. Vacaresco, its president, was the Romanian League of Nations delegate; M. Nicolas Pillat, Permanent General Secretary of C.I.D.A.L.C., was the Economic Counselor of the Romanian delegation. The members of the Executive Committee of the organization included Brazilian and Italian ambassadors, ministers, and famous writers. C.I.D.A.L.C. also claimed to act “in the spirit of the League of Nations”.

Everyone, from Walt Disney and his family to the press, was convinced that C.I.D.A.L.C. was acting on behalf of the League. Because of all this publicity, a letter dated June 28, 1935, was sent from J.D. de Montenach’s assistant at the League of Nations in Geneva to H.R. Cunnings in the League of Nations’ London office, in an attempt to explain that C.I.D.A.L.C. was not connected to the League of Nations in any way, and that this confusion had existed for years.

However, no official public correction was ever made, and the error continued to appear in magazine stories, books, and elsewhere for decades.

On November 17, 1988, the United Nations and UNICEF
did
honor Mickey on his 60th birthday as an Emissary of Goodwill in recognition “of the joy he has brought to the children around the world.” The ceremony was held in the Economic and Social Chamber.

Since the 1940s, one of the most frequently quoted “fun facts” about Mickey Mouse is that his name was used as the code word for the launch of the Allied Invasion of Normandy (D-Day) on June 6, 1944.

No one, however, could find any documented confirmation either in the personal files of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the U.S. military archives, or the Disney Archives. For several decades, it troubled Disney researchers as a story simply too good to be true.

Then, Disney historian Michael Barrier uncovered a press release from the United Press dated June 8, 1944, from London, that clarifies where the story originated. The press release states:

Mickey Mouse played a part in the invasion of northern France, it was revealed today. Naval officers gathering for invasion briefing at a southern port approached the sentry at the door and furtively whispered into his ear the password of admission: “Mickey Mouse”.

“Mickey Mouse” was the password for the officers to enter a meeting where they would receive orders for the invasion. It was not the name that launched the actual invasion. Recognition passwords used at U.S. military sentry points often were based on information or names considered uniquely American, such as baseball facts and cartoon characters.

As mentioned, the story of Walt Disney being inspired by a real mouse during his days as a young artist in Kansas City to create the character of Mickey Mouse on a train trip from New York to Los Angeles has become mythology. However, modern research has debunked the specifics of the legend while maintaining that Walt may have done some rough sketches on the train and may have considered a mouse as a replacement for Oswald the Rabbit.

Here are some of the variations of the legend that Walt shared with reporters in the earliest years of Mickey Mouse’s popularity.

From
W.T. Maxwell Daily Sketch
(1938):

While riding in the upper berth of the train taking Walt from New York to Hollywood, Walt heard the continuous but slight creaking of the woodwork in his compartment that sounded like a million mice in conference. The idea made him laugh and in that split second Mickey Mouse was born.

Walt later told another interviewer that the repeating rhythm of the sound of the wheels and the sound of the extended whistle slowly blowing on the train seemed to sound like the word “mouse” over and over. Neither of these stories is true but rather examples of Walt’s inventive storytelling.

From
Photoplay
magazine (June 1932):

Legend has it that [Walt] Disney, broke and discouraged, was sitting on a park bench wondering where the next coffee and cakes were coming from. He laughed at the funny antics of a mouse scurrying about a nearby trash can. “If that critter made me laugh,” reasoned Walt, “he might do the same for the world!” And he certainly has!