For decades now, Mickey Mouse has been the corporate symbol
of The Walt Disney Company. Nice, safe and bland.
But there are those at the Mouse House who remember when
Disney's corporate symbol used to be really funny. To be specific, Eric Coleman
— the senior vice president of Original Series at Disney Television Animation
— and Mike Moon — who's a creative vice president for that same arm of The
Walt Disney Company.
And as Eric & Mike looked at those old Mickey Mouse
shorts which the Studio used to crank out in the late 1920s / early 1930s, back
when this animated character still had some juice and some edge to him, they
wondered: Would it be possible to create a new series of Mickey Mouse shorts
set in today's world which could still have the same sort of energy & fun
that these shorts did back in the 1930s?
Mike Moon and Paul Rudish at the Disney Television Animation preview event for these
new Mickey Mouse shorts. Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
To see if this might even be possible, Coleman & Moon
turned to Annie Award-winner Paul Rudish. Who had only recently arrived at the
Mouse House after spending years at Cartoon Network, where Paul had worked
side-by-side with Gennedy Tartakovsky & Craig McCracken writing, designing
characters for and/or art directing episodes of such acclaimed animated series
as Dexter's Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack. Not to mention
Rudish's Emmy Award-winning work on the Star Wars: Clone Wars mini-series back
in 2003.
"What was kind of ironic about Eric & Mike reaching
out to me at that time was — just before we had this Mickey Mouse meeting — I
had actually been looking at a lot of Disney's old black-and-white shorts from
the 1930s. I mean, they had such great energy. Their design was strong,"
said Paul during a recent interview. "And since I was working in the
development department at Disney Television Animation at that time, I was
wondering: Could I maybe trick these guys into letting me make a Mickey Mouse
cartoon. And then I thought: Nah. They'd never let me do that."
But clearly word had gotten around Disney's Glendale
campus that Rudish was an old school Mickey Mouse fan. For the next thing Paul
knew, he was being called into a meeting with Eric & Mike. Where Coleman
then got the ball rolling by saying "I hear you like Mickey."
Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
"And the next thing I know, Eric is telling me that
Corporate has asked Disney Television Animation to take a stab at making some
new Mickey Mouse shorts and that he & Mike were wondering what my take on
this material might be," Rudish continued. "So I went away for a
while and worked on some storyboards for two Mickey Mouse cartoons where I took
my inspiration from those animated shorts that the Studio used to make back in
the late 1920s / early 1930s. Back when Mickey was still fun & funny but also
had some grit to him."
Mind you, Paul did have some pretty daring ideas. One
conceit was that each short in this new series would be set in a different part
of the world. So that Mickey could be seen zooming through Paris aboard a motor
scooter in one short and then be battling crowds on a bullet train in Tokyo in another.
More to the point, that all of the new animated shorts would feel contemporary
and modern.
"And when I say contemporary and modern, I don't mean
that Mickey is going to start wearing his baseball cap sideways or that we're
going to give this character an iPhone," Paul laughed. "I mean that
these shorts will feel contemporary and modern because they're going to come
out of the hands of contemporary and modern artists. Plus we were going to use
contemporary film storytelling techniques. Which — given these shorts' 3 &
1/2 minute-long running times — is going to make them seem faster paced."
Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
But at the same time, Rudish was looking to make these new
Mickey Mouse shorts sound a lot like the ones that Disney made back in the
1920s & 1930s by making a crucial casting change when it came to this
character.
"The Walt Disney Company is all about character
consistency. Making sure that Mickey, Donald & Goofy always sound the same
whether they're appearing in the theme parks or in a new animated featurette.
That's why the Company has a Character Voice Department," Paul explained.
"Well, given what we were trying to achieve with these new Mickey Mouse
shorts, the problem here was that we wanted Mickey to sound just like he did
when Walt was still doing this character's voice. And Walt's voice — because
he smoked and drank bourbon — had a very distinct twang to it."
But Coleman & Moon got what Rudish was trying to do here
. So with their support, Paul was allowed to bring different actors to audition
to be the voice of Mickey Mouse for this specific series of animated shorts.
Which is why Rudish eventually crossed paths with Chris Diamantopoulos right
after this actor / comedian had just finished shooting "The Three
Stooges" for the Farrelly Brothers.
(L to R) Will Sasso as Curly. Chris Diamantopoulos as Moe and Sean Hayes as
Larry in "The Three Stooges." Copyright 20th Century Fox. All rights reserved
"And as soon as I heard Chris' audition tape, I noticed
right away that his voice had that 1930s twang to it just like Walt's
did," Paul recalled. "And when I pointed this out to our sound
engineer, he said 'Well, you know who this guy is. He just played Moe in the
Three Stooges movie.' So Chris was the obvious choice to be the new voice of
Mickey. I mean, he's completely schooled in that 1930s style of performing. And
that's the version of Mickey we were trying to resurrect here. The one from
1934 or thereabouts. Back when this character was still funny."
So now that Rudish had found the right look for these shorts
(not to mention the perfect voice for Mickey), he then pushed ahead with production
of 19 new shorts. The first of which was supposed to bow on the Disney Channel back
in June of 2013.
"I won't lie to you. I was a little nervous about how
these Mickey Mouse shorts might be received," Rudish said. "I mean,
me personally, I thought that they looked great and were really funny. But
Disney fans and animation buffs can be very particular, very critical when it
comes to Disney's classic characters. And I'd hate to be accused of being the
guy who was trying to fix something that wasn't broken in the first
place."
But from the moment that "Croissant de Triomphe"
popped up on the Web as a "special preview" for this new series of
shorts back in June, Paul's reimagined / revitalized Mickey has been
enthusiastically embraced by both
animation fans & the pros alike. This series even managed to take home
three Emmys earlier this year.
So what exactly is it about these new Mickey Mouse shorts
that makes them so special? Take a peek at this clip from the short which premiered on the Disney Channel this past Friday, " 'O Sole Minnie." This particular cartoon
is set in Venice, Italy.
Where Mickey is working as a gondolier and — after spying Minnie working in a
canal-side cafe — ardently tries to woo her. Only to then be upstaged by
everything from a pot-banging bear to an opera-singing whale.
"We've got ten of these in the can and another nine in
various stages of production. I'm just so grateful that Eric & Mike initially
came to me with this project. We've really had a lot of fun putting a
contemporary spin on these old-school Mickey Mouse shorts. And I'm hoping that
we get to do a lot more of them in the future," Paul concluded.