Leave Steamboat Willie Alone
Friday, January 5, 2024
Steamboat Willie was the third animated cartoon to feature Mickey and Minnie Mouse, but the first one to be released in 1928. Its use of fully synchronized sound was a cinematic breakthrough, earning the short film a place in the Library of Congress and inclusion on a list of the 50 Greatest Cartoons compiled in 1994.
Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse to replace Oswald the Lucky Rabbit after Universal Pictures gained control of his image. Although Oswald was featured in 27 cartoons produced by Walt Disney Studios, Mickey Mouse went on to become one of the most iconic cartoon characters of all time.
And now, 96 years later, Steamboat Willie – or at least a creepy likeness of his – is set to “star” in a horror movie as a knife-wielding maniacal killer. “Mickey’s Mouse Trap” takes advantage of Steamboat Willie being released into the public domain by turning him from a lovable cartoon character into a slasher film villain.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Nightmare Forge just released a trailer for a video game called Infestation 88 featuring an even more sinister Mickey Mouse. Not to be undone, Director Steve LaMorte is planning to produce a horror-comedy this spring in which the “sadistic mouse will torment a group of unsuspecting ferry passengers.”
Sounds too bizarre to be true? Sounds too sick to be real? Sounds too gruesome to be genuine? Well, guess again.
Official Hollywood and wannabe filmmakers alike will stop at nothing to make a fast buck… cultural icons and societal mores be damned. In fact, that’s exactly what these money-grubbing cretins did last year when Jagged Edge Productions, a U.K.-based indie film studio, developed a slasher movie titled, “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey.” This macabre makeover of the beloved bear created by A.A. Milne and E.H. Shepard was a new low in motion picture history… and that’s really saying something.
I realize that patents expire and eventually all good things – and some bad ones – become part of the public domain. But, at least to me, some things should be sacrosanct, and some areas should be off-limits.
Starting with an animated bear and an animated mouse that have entertained literally billions of children worldwide for the past century.
