Documentary Explores The Life And Legacy Of Mickey Mouse And His Creator

For nearly 100 years, Mickey Mouse has transformed from a hand-drawn black-and-white cartoon character to an international pop culture icon that is one of the most identifiable figures in the world. The creation of legendary animator Walt DisneyDIS
DIS
, Mickey Mouse evokes something different to each person.

Having delved into the life and legacy of children’s television show personality Fred Rogers as the editor of Morgan Neville’s award-winning Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Jeff Malmberg now takes viewers on an exploration of Mickey Mouse and the symbiotic relationship with his creator Walt Disney in Mickey: The Story Of A Mouse.

The documentary is set to premiere on Disney+ on Friday, Nov. 18, coinciding with Mickey Mouse’s “birthday.” November 18, 1928 is the date Mickey made his debut in Disney’s Steamboat Willie in theaters). That animated film was the first synchronous-sound film, and helped relaunch Disney’s then-flagging animation career.

Malmberg teams up with Neville, who serves as a producer along with producers Meghan Walsh and Chris Shellen, to explore the cultural significance as well as the controversies of the iconic mouse. The documentary is executive produced by Caitrin Rogers and features numerous experts and Disney animators sharing their knowledge about Mickey Mouse’s remarkable history.

Viewers are bound to learn something new about Mickey Mouse through the course of the film, including his remarkable connection to the prisoners held in concentration camps during World War II, as well as his influence on art and pop culture and even the counter-culture movement of the 1960s. Diving deep into the Disney archives, Malmberg and his crew emerge with a fresh perspective about how Mickey has evolved over the years, both in his design and in personality. He started out with a tail and no gloves, for example. Woven into the documentary is a behind-the-scenes look at a brand new short film titled Mickey In A Minute, created by a trio of veteran Disney animators whose labor-intensive hand-drawn process is documented, with their finished product depicting different iterations of Mickey walking down memory lane through a Walt Disney Studios hallway is sure to delight fans.

Malmberg and Walsh spoke about collaborating on the documentary and what they hope audiences can expect to discover in Mickey: The Story Of A Mouse.

Angela Dawson: Audiences may be surprised to learn new things about Mickey Mouse or Walt Disney himself in this.

Walsh: We hope so.

Dawson: Jeff, did you see parallels between Walt Disney with Fred Rogers, who both sparked children’s imaginations over several generations?

Malmberg: I hadn’t thought about it that way. The (two films) are after different things but they’re kind of playing in the same arena. The reason I worked on both of these films was because I really like sitting all day in stories about people creating things and what the creation of those things do. It’s hard to argue the effect that Walt Disney has had—largely positive—on our world. But, at the same time, it’s kind of a different avenue from where Fred went. The films are sort of cousins of one another in a certain kind of weird way.

Dawson: Meghan, speaking of learning new things, what was the most surprising moment in your research on this?

Walsh: What excited me about the filming process of this was just getting to watch the art being made—watching the animators create Mickey, watching the ink & paint process—that was really thrilling for us. As individuals who grew up on Disney movies, getting a front-row seat to watch the behind-the-scenes process was really exciting. The biggest highlight in the research for me was learning about Mickey’s presence in the Holocaust. That was such a huge revelation when found those images of Mickey Mouse in the Holocaust Museum. To see how prevalent Mickey was during World War II in Europe was enlightening. Obviously, you know those things are happening at the same time, but you don’t really put two and two together. For us to be able to show that archive, to show those illustrations, during such a dark time in human history was pretty overwhelming and important for us.

Malmberg: For me, it was exciting to track Eric (Goldberg) and everybody working on the Mickey In A Minute short. I was fascinated by the history of Mickey and a lot of it I didn’t know. To be there with Eric, Mark (Henn) and Randy (Haycock) while they were making the short, I always felt like we were getting a sense of Mickey there, in a present tense. That was really interesting to see because it has been almost 100 years now. So, that was really phenomenal to be able to see it take place.

Dawson: Was the Mickey In A Minute already planned prior to the documentary?

Malmberg: We were all kind of sitting around—Megan, myself, Chris Shellen, Eric Goldberg and the other animators—and it just came up that since we were making this film, we should be doing some sort of animation with Mickey so (making a short film about Mickey) blossomed out of that. As Eric and them were pitching concepts, the idea of this Mickey short came up. It was interesting to be able to follow that whole thing that came about organically. It was a nice thing to help meter out the whole movie to allow audiences to see the process of this short being made, and to see the different Mickeys (through his evolution).

It’s one thing to see Eric talk about it, but to see him drawing the various Mickeys is really interesting. I couldn’t think of a better person to guide the audience through Mickey’s history than Eric Goldberg. That was just a joy every day.

Walsh: I was lucky to be on that same path as Jeff. For us, it was fun to see how 2-D animation in 2022 is made the same way it was in the 1920s. We got the historical beat for it but we also got to follow how a 2-D animated short would be made today, and that was really thrilling for us.

Malmberg: I always thought that those of us in the documentary world had a strange process but hand-drawn animation is just another level of particular strangeness. I still don’t quite get it, but I understand it a little better than I did when we started out. It’s such a weird combination of math and artistry and all these things. It’s just neat. I love that it’s done today the way it was done 100 years ago.

Dawson: How much leeway did you get from the Disney organization to address some of the issues of offensiveness of some of the early cartoons? What was the discussion like with former Disney CEO of the Walt Disney Company Bob Iger about it?

Malmberg: It was one of our first moves when Morgan and I were talking about making it. It’s sort of naturally sitting there and so important and yet it’s been sort of ignored. We all entered into this as Mickey is a joyous thing but there’s stuff that needs to be talked about. It was a kind of a line in the sand for us. We weren’t going to focus completely on that—it’s a Mickey Mouse documentary—but that door needs to be open and those things, at least from a Disney perspective—needed to be on the record as existing. Our job was to work from the inside out. Get it on the record and get the conversation going.

Walsh: It was important to us to tell the full story. We love Mickey Mouse; it’s why we wanted to do the film but we can’t ignore the damaging parts to his history. It wouldn’t be a fair portrait of this character. To their credit, Disney did allow us to go there with this film, which they’ve never done before. We were trying to push it open a little bit and, hopefully, that continues the conversation forward, and future films will be able to dig in deeper.

Dawson: You also delve into how Mickey inspired the counter-culture artists of the 1960s like Andy Warhol. Why was it important to you to include this aspect of “the other Mickey” and his influence on pop culture and art?

Malmberg: Honestly, that was one of the things I always liked about Mickey. As a fan of art, I love the Warhol Mickey. I love (graphic designer) Milton Glaser’s (16mm anti-war film) Mickey Mouse In Vietnam. You look at on-brand Mickey and there’s a bit of off-brand Mickey now, and you look at off-brand Mickey and there’s a bit of on-brand Mickey. It points to the fact that he’s part of us a little bit. We can take him and use him and we know exactly what we’re talking about. When I interviewed Milton Glaser (who has since passed away), he said, “Of course I used Mickey because Mickey at that time was the most powerful symbol that existed.”

That’s what we’re all doing as artists—to take symbols and use them as short-hand so that we can quickly come to ideas. So, in my mind, it was always as important as talking about things can be created outside the Magic Kingdom that have value in them. When you look at the (Mickey Mouse) comic book at the concentration camps, it’s staggering. It’s on a whole other level from anything else that’s discussed in the film.

If you look at the cover of the comic book made in the 1940s, you see that it was produced without the authorization of Walt Disney. So, even then that was in the air. I had a feeling that Bob Iger felt the same way. He owns one of the Warhols. What Morgan and me were vibing on were all the permutations of and all in celebration. Mickey’s also an easy character to use and twist in another way. But often it’s done in a really clever way so we wanted to focus on that part.

Dawson: If I ask you, “Mickey is?” how would you finish that sentence?

Malmberg: I would say he’s joy.

Walsh: It changes for me every day. I’d say right now: nostalgia.