After 10 years of creating new Mickey Mouse cartoons, Paul Rudish—the executive producer and supervising director of these shorts – says that Disney+ is airing the very last one. Steamboat Silly is the final short in The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse cartoon series. And it finishes well as a tribute to Disney’s 100 years.
The short features Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald and Daisy getting comfortable to watch Mickey’s home movies. But soon, chaos ensues (as it usually does) when multiple versions of Steamboat Willy Mickey jump off of the film reel and run amuck. Although amused by himself, Mickey and his friends go on a mission to round them all up. “That’s a lot of me’s” he says at one point in the cartoon.
As with the many before it, this cartoon pokes fun of other Disney films over the years including the Silly Symphonys’ Skelton Dance, Dumbo and The Mickey Mouse Club. (Hardcore fans will notice in the latter how the new cartoon mimics the original TV show opening.)
Mickey Mouse is an unusual character. His form has changed numerous times over the years, but with every induration, he’s still Mickey. Everyone has their favorite too. I’m partial to the classic Mickey wears he runs around in nothing but red shorts and yellow shoes. Others prefers the more modern version that we see most often at the Disney theme parks or on Playhouse Disney. But in 2013, Rudish and his crew went out on a limb creating a new look and feel for Mickey and his friends.
The first new Mickey Mouse short, Croissant de Triomphe (featuring Mr. Mouse delivering baguettes on a Vespa in Paris) was first released on Disney.com on March 12, 2013. While drawn distinctly different from the classic Mickey look, this new Mickey brought back some of the mouse’s sass and silliness that was a hallmark of his earliest works.
“Our goal was to bring him back to the new audiences,” Rudish said in an article published by the Walt Disney Company. “I wanted to return to that flavor of Mickey and that vibe, but not replicate them. We didn’t want to go, ‘Look, here’s a 1930s cartoon.’ We wanted to take the sensibilities of those things but then put that through the lens of a team of modern artists.”
I admit, it took me some time to warm up to the new Mickey and I’m not happy with how Goofy turned out, but I see his charms. And I’m not alone. Those shorts have won multiple Emmy and Annie Awards and the hearts of many viewers.
“Our Mickey is a bit flawed,” Rudish said. “I think people responded to that. They root for the cheerful optimist, but it’s not always an easy road…the ongoing message of if you’ve got big dreams and you really try hard, you can make them come true…Mickey has always been an icon of that idea. It’s inspirational.”
The Mickey Mouse shorts later became The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse and over the last 10 years, more than 120 episodes have been produced. But while the cartoons have ended (don’t worry, they are still being shown on Disney+) this new Mickey lives on in Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway at California’s Disneyland and Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida. (If you haven’t experienced it yet, you should. It’s really clever.)
Also, Mickey still represents “the ongoing message of if you’ve got big dreams and you really try hard, you can make them come true,” according to Rudish.
Main Image: Disney+
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