Mickey Mouse universe

Mickey Mouse's house at Mickey's Toontown, Disneyland

The Mickey Mouse universe is a fictional universe where cartoon characters created by The Walt Disney Company live, the most prominent of which is Mickey Mouse. It is coexistent with the Duck universe, a spin-off of the Mickey Mouse universe which centers around Mickey's friend Donald Duck. "Mickey Mouse universe" is not an official term used by Disney.

The actual city in which Mickey lives is often called Mouseton, according to Disney's Standard Characters publications guide and most North American Disney comics from 1990 onward. Donald's home Duckburg is typically seen as the city next door to Mouseton. According to traditional continuity, both cities are located in the fictional U.S. state Calisota, a portmanteau of California and Minnesota.

Mickey has occasionally been shown in real-world settings as in the film Mr. Mouse Takes a Trip (1940). At Disneyland, the Magic Kingdom, and Tokyo Disneyland, the attraction Mickey's Toontown is a recreation of the Mickey Mouse universe.

List of characters

Main characters

Chip 'n' Dale Clarabelle Cow Daisy Duck Donald Duck (family) Figaro Goofy Horace Horsecollar

Huey, Dewey, and Louie Humphrey the Bear Ludwig Von Drake Max Goof Mickey Mouse (family) Minnie Mouse Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

Pete Pete Junior "P.J." The Phantom Blot Pluto Scrooge McDuck (family) List of Duck universe characters

Butch the Bulldog

Butch the Bulldog appears mainly as Pluto's archnemesis. Butch first appeared in the Pluto cartoon Bone Trouble where Pluto tried to steal his bone. Ever since then Butch has been antagonizing Pluto. Sometimes, Butch competes with Pluto for the affections of Dinah the Dachshund. At one point Butch even antagonized Figaro the Kitten. Recently, in the episode "Pluto's Best" from the CGI animated series Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Butch's owner is indeed revealed as Pete. Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse, Fifi the Peke, Ronnie the St. Bernard Puppy, and Figaro the Kitten are all familiar with Butch. In the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode, Pluto's Bubble Bath, Pete reveals that Butch is a Labrador. In the series Disney's House of Mouse, in the cartoon short "Pluto's Arrow Error," it is revealed that Dinah the Dachshund is Butch's gal, which might explain her fickle nature on most other cartoon appearances she's had with Pluto and Butch competing for her affections.

Detective Casey

Detective Casey is Chief O'Hara's head detective, first appearing in the Mickey Mouse daily comic in the 1938 sequence The Plumber's Helper. The story was plotted and penciled by Floyd Gottfredson and written by Merrill De Maris. Casey disappeared from American comics in the 1950s, but was used frequently in Europe, especially in Italy, afterwards; from 2003, he returned as a frequent player in the American comics once again.

Despite his occupation, Casey is an impatient man of only average intelligence. Thus, while sometimes a successful detective, he is prone to bungling cases as well. Therefore, Chief O'Hara often recruits Mickey Mouse to help solve some of Casey's cases, much to Casey's general irritation.

Clara Cluck

Clara Cluck in the Disney Short Mickey's Grand Opera (1936)

Clara Cluck debuted in 1934 in the Mickey Mouse cartoon Orphan's Benefit. Since then she has appeared as a semi regular character in the Mickey Mouse cartoons. In the comic books she is shown in Duck universe as Daisy Duck's best friend. Clara has been a member of Mickey's original farmyard gang since the beginning of his career, although she is seen less often than Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar.

Clara's singing is meant to be a caricature of the Bel Canto style of Opera singing popular at the time of her appearance. Some of her arias are clearly modelled on those of Tosca. Her last major appearance was as one of the musicians in Symphony Hour. Curiously, although she is seen in the rehearsal scenes at the beginning, she is not seen in the performance scenes at the end.

As with most Disney characters, she was given small cameos in "Mickey's Christmas Carol" (1983) and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988). She had some appearances in Mickey Mouse Works (1999), where she is presented as Daisy Duck's neighbor. She appeared occasionally in House of Mouse (2001). In one episode of that series she fell in love with Donald Duck and aggressively pursued him by puckering her lips in front of him, forcing him to dance with her, wearing dresses and posing provocatively to lure him in. At one point she even grabs Donald and kisses him full on the lips. She almost tricked Donald into marrying her but Daisy stopped the wedding in time. In Disney comics on the other hand, she has been shown to date Gus Goose on very few occasions. She also had appeared to put Minnie Mouse in jail for driving her car through Daisy's house to deliver a famous apple pie of hers.

Clara made a cameo appearance in the Timeless River world of Kingdom Hearts II with many other classic Disney characters like Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar as one of the world's citizens. She also makes an appearance in the Mickey's Boo to You Parade and for rare meet and greets at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom.

Originally voiced by Florence Gill, and later Russi Taylor.

Dinah the Dachshund

Dinah the Dachshund appears as Pluto's girlfriend although she sometimes dates Butch the Bulldog as well. She first appeared in The Sleep Walker.

In an episode titled Canine Casanova, she appears again with Pluto, who tries to woo her love and get to know her a little more. When she winds up in the dog pound Pluto saves the day, becomes Dinah's hero and the two start dating.

Then in In Dutch, set in the Netherlands, Pluto falls for Dinah and she becomes very attracted to him. In a lovely scene, Dinah gives Pluto a passionate kiss, which makes him feel great and causes him to want to rush the relationship. Instead, the two of them end up saving the day together when the water of the dam becomes unprotected and it almost engulfs the Netherlands. Her fur color is also a noticeably lighter brown in this episode.

In a romantic episode called Pluto's Heart Throb, Pluto falls for Dinah but is surprised to find out that she has two male dogs that she loves. It becomes obvious that Dinah is interested in Pluto because she loved him more, but Butch the Bulldog will not give her up. Butch demands a kiss from her, then pushes her into a swimming pool. Pluto hears her calls for help and comes to the rescue. When Dinah is saved, she finally makes her decision who she wants to be with, and dumps Butch.

In the final episode, titled Wonder Dog Pluto is rejected by Dinah when she sees the poster of a handsome circus pup named Prince. Pluto believes that he can prove to Dinah that he’s better than Prince and challenges Butch to a talent contest. Dinah is so entertained by Pluto that she falls back in love with him.

Dinah replaced Fifi the Peke as Pluto's girlfriend in the later Disney cartoons.

Dinah has since appeared in several cartoon shorts featured in the anthology series Mickey MouseWorks, and in the series Disney's House of Mouse. There, the cartoon short "Pluto's Arrow Error" treats Dinah as Butch's proper girlfriend and gives her no serious interest in Pluto, continuing the fickle nature of her affections from earlier appearances.

Eega Beeva

Eega Beeva

Eega Beeva, also known by his full name Pittisborum Psercy Pystachi Pseter Psersimmon Plummer-Push, is a human from the future, sometimes also referred to as an alien, and first appeared on September 26, 1947 in the Mickey Mouse comic strip storyline titled The Man of Tomorrow. Since then he and Mickey have been portrayed as good friends in subsequent stories. Eega Beeva wears short black trousers, which store a large number of useful items, often helping Mickey Mouse and Eega in difficult situations. Another trademark attribute of the character is his unique speech, adding a "p" at the beginning of every word that starts with a consonant.

Eega Beeva was created by Bill Walsh and Floyd Gottfredson. He was a recurring character in the American newspaper Disney comic strips for nearly three years until July 1950, but then Eega Beeva's notable presence abruptly ended for unknown reasons. The character was adopted to comics of Italian artists in the 1950s and has since then appeared in various European Disney comic book stories, especially in Italy. He is referred to as Eta Beta in Italian, and Gamma in German.

In his debut story, Mickey Mouse and his friend Goofy seek shelter from a thunderstorm and get lost in a cave. There, Mickey suddenly encounters an unusual humanoid who only says "Eega" at first. When Mickey and Goofy find the exit of the cave, Mickey invites the being to stay at his house, to which he gives the name "Eega Beeva", while the character himself states that his name is "Pittisborum Psercy Pystachi Pseter Psersimmon Plummer-Push." At first, Goofy refuses to believe in the existence of Eega Beeva and ignores his presence. In a series of events, two scientists conclude that Eega Beeva is a human from 500 years in the future. At the end of the storyline, Eega saves Goofy from a skiing accident, causing them to become friends.^[1][2]

In the next comic strip storyline starring Eega Beeva, Mickey Makes a Killing, his pet Pflip the Thnuckle Booh is introduced.^[3] Eega continues being Mickey's sidekick in the American comic strips until July 1950.^[4] In the comic strips featuring Eega Beeva, Goofy only makes very few appearances and Eega acts as Mickey's sidekick instead. In the first two strips of the storyline Mousepotamia in July 1950, it is explained that Eega is homesick. Therefore, he returns to the cave where Mickey found him. Afterwards, he did not appear again in the American newspaper comic strips for unknown reasons.^[1]

When Eega Beeva was still featured in the American comic strips, he made his first appearance in an Italian Disney comic. It is titled L'inferno di Topolino (lit. "Mickey Mouse's inferno"). The character was newly discovered and defined by Italian comics artist and writer Romano Scarpa with the comic Topolino e la nave del microcosmo (lit. "Mickey Mouse and the ship of microcosm"), published in Topolino issue 167 in July 1957. Rather than his whimsical attributes, this story focuses on the futuristic and fantastic aspects of Eega Beeva and his environment, as do later stories.^[1] Some of those stories star Eega Beega without Mickey.^[5] More than half of all comics featuring the character were produced in Italy.^[1]

Eega Beeva is depicted as a humanoid being with a wide head, mitten-like hands and a scrawny body. He wears short black trousers. His name is a pun on the idiom "eager beaver". In The Man of Tomorrow, the name is given to him by Mickey, since Eega Beeva originally only said "Eega."^[2] In the original conception of the character, Eega Beeva's look was attributed to him being a highly evolved human from 500 years in the future, namely from the year 2447. All humans would have Eega-like proportions.^[2] When the first American Eega comic strips appeared in Italy, however, translators unaccountably turned Eega into a man from 2000 rather than 2447. As this proved unconvincing for readers, Italian writers generally tried to explain away the unlikely "evolution" by recasting Eega as an alien from outer space.

In the most recent Italian stories (post-2000), Italian writers have generally reverted to Gottfredson's original conception of Eega as a future-man, though his precise year of origin is rarely mentioned. New Eega comics produced by Egmont, on the other hand, often refer to his hometown as being the Mouseton of 2447—just as in Gottfredson's original stories.

Doctor Einmug

Doctor Einmug is a scientist who was created by Ted Osborne (plot) and Floyd Gottfredson (plot and art) in the story Island in the Sky, published in the Mickey Mouse daily strip from November 1936 to April 1937. He is a large man who wears a big white beard and laboratory coat.

Doctor Einmug specializes in atomic physics and speaks in a German-like accent which was probably a nod towards Albert Einstein. His introductory story, Island in the Sky, raises many issues about the benefits but also the dangers of atomic physics just a few years before the first atom bombs were developed.

After that, Einmug did not re-appear in American comics for almost 50 years, but he was used in Italian ones, starting some 12 years later in 1959 when he appeared in Romano Scarpa's Topolino e la dimensione Delta ("Mickey Mouse and the Delta Dimension"). In this story he had discovered the means to travel to what he called the Delta Dimension, which was effectively an infinite void of nothing, just space.

Setting his laboratory up in the Delta Dimension, Einmug pursued his work and discovered that atoms were in fact living beings. He thus increased the size of one of them to that of a small boy and named him Atomo Bleep-Bleep (Italian: Atomino Bip-Bip). Atomo was highly intelligent and had many supernatural abilities, including turning metal into chocolate^[6] or estimating with absolute precision when a object was created.^[7] Atomo would accompany Mickey on several adventures as a kind of alternative Eega Beeva.

Einmug himself has also appeared in numerous European Mickey Mouse comics. He is often shown as less secretive and paranoid than in his original appearance, though his discoveries are still coveted by the likes of Pete and the Phantom Blot.

Einmug reappeared in American comics in 1991 in the story A Snatch in Time! in which he had developed a time machine. It was written by Lamar Waldron and drawn by Rick Hoover and Gary Martin. More recently, Einmug has also appeared in American editions of "The Delta Dimension" and other European-made stories.

In American comics, Atomo Bleep-Bleep speaks with a German accent identical to Einmug's, insofar as Einmug was presented as Atomo's language teacher.

Ellsworth

Ellsworth started out as Goofy's pet mynah bird but in later stories he became an independent anthropomorphic animal. His full name being Ellsworth Bheezer (occasionally misspelled Bhezer—"beezer" is old English slang for a big nose or beak). He was created for the Mickey Mouse Sunday pages, but has been used in longer comics as well, especially the ones produced in Italy, France, and Brazil.

Ellsworth usually wears a red-orange shirt and a green cap or beret. Reflecting a trait of mynah birds who can imitate human speech, he is extremely vain and self-centered, which was originally the spotlight and center of jokes in his stories. On the other hand, Ellsworth is also a bonafide genius with awesome tech and scientific knowledge—the "Y" on his shirt in earlier stories stands for "Yarvard" (a parody of Harvard), his alma mater.

Despite being more or less entirely humanized in more recent stories, Ellsworth retains his ability to fly, a unique trait among the central Disney funny animal cast.

In manner, Ellsworth is often sarcastic and condescending, typically addressing others with statements like "Let's not [do X], shall we?" He's also quick to call others by insulting nicknames. But when push comes to shove, he's genuinely fond of and defensive of his pals Goofy and Mickey.

Bruto (original Italian name; he has no English name) is Ellsworth's somewhat smaller adoptive son and Mickey Mouse's sidekick in numerous Italian stories. As of 2009, he has not appeared in American comic books.

Fifi the Peke

Fifi the Peke appeared as Minnie Mouse's dog and Pluto's girlfriend. In one cartoon Pluto and Fifi even had five puppies together. One of them was eventually named Pluto Junior. Later on Fifi was replaced as Pluto's girlfriend by Dinah the Dachshund. Fifi disappeared from animation but she appeared in the line of merchandise called Minnie 'n Me as Minnie's dog.

Gideon Goat

Giddy Goat in the 1930s Disney Old Maid card deck

Gideon Goat or Giddy Goat is an anthropomorphic goat, a supporting character in the Mickey Mouse comic strips of the 1930s. Gideon first appeared in the 1930 Mickey Mouse Book #1.^[8] He appeared in various American and European printed Disney comics until 1938. He was usually characterized as a farmer or the local sheriff. Gideon is married to a female anthropomorphic goat named Gertie (presumably Gertrude) who also appeared in many early Mickey Mouse comics, primarily as a background character.

Promotional materials for the 1935 animated short The Band Concert include Giddy Goat as one of the characters. In the released film, however, he was replaced by a dog trombonist character.^[9]

Floyd Gottfredson made regular use of the character in his comic strips, and later artists sometimes borrowed the character.

Arizona Goof

Arizona Goof (original Italian name: Indiana Pipps) is an archaeologist and a cousin of Goofy. Arizona has a weird habit of not using beds, doors, or stairs. Instead, he sleeps in a tent, enters and exits houses through windows, and climbs floors by a rope. Arizona is fond of a specific brand of liquorice candy (the brand is called Negritas in original Italian language version, Tuju in the Finnish language translation), which he never travels without and is addicted to the taste of, but which everyone else finds horrible. Arizona's car is an old jeep which he has named affectionately as Gippippa. Arizona has a rival archaeologist, Dr. Kranz, who is greedy and shameless, and not above resorting to criminal behaviour.

Arizona Goof received his English name in his first American comics appearance (1991). In a couple of 2005-2006 appearances, the character was inexplicably renamed "Arizona Dipp." But more recent uses (Disney Digicomics, 2009–2010) have restored his traditional English name.

The character Arizona Goof was created by writer Bruno Sarda and artist Massimo De Vita in 1988, as a spoof of the film character Indiana Jones.

Louie the Mountain Lion

Louie the Mountain Lion is a mountain lion who appears as an occasional antagonist of Donald and Goofy. He first appears in two Donald Duck shorts and later Goofy shorts. He is buffonish and sometimes speaks English grumbly. His first appearance was in Lion Down where he attempts to eat Donald. He recently appeared in an episode of House of Mouse.

Kat Nipp

Kat Nipp (not to be confused with Harvey Comics character Katnip), his name a play on the word catnip, is a villainous anthropomorphic cat. Kat Nipp is an often-drunk countryside tough guy who is a rival of Mickey Mouse.

Nipp made his debut in the animated short The Opry House (1929), in which he posed as a snake for a snake-charming act—continuing to smoke his pipe all the while. Nipp's other two appearances in animation also came in 1929, with When the Cat's Away and The Karnival Kid. The latter film introduced Nipp's habit of physically abusing Mickey, here by stretching out Mickey's nose to a ridiculous length.

Kat Nipp reappeared in a 1931 sequence of the Mickey Mouse newspaper comic strip (in which we also meet Kat Nipp's friend Barnacle Bill, a sailor who is an expert in untying knots). Kat Nipp was also used in the strips produced in Britain for the Mickey Mouse Annual. However, the character quickly faded away and has made only a handful of comics appearances since the mid-1930s.

Milton the Cat

Milton is a red ginger Siamese cat and a rival of Pluto. He often competes with Pluto for food. He made his first appearance in the short Puss-Cafe with his pal Richard. He next appears in the short Plutopia where he talks in Pluto's dream. He made a final appearance in the short Cold Turkey fighting with Pluto for a roast turkey but both of them ended up with nothing.

Chief O'Hara

Seamus O'Hara is the Chief of Police in the Mickey Mouse universe. He plays a supportive role in Mickey Mouse's comic book mysteries as a police officer who often relies on Mickey's help to catch characters such as Pete, Phantom Blot and the like. Known fellow officers include his friend, Detective Casey.

O'Hara also appeared on Mickey Mouse Works and Disney's House of Mouse.

The character was conceived by Floyd Gottfredson (and Merrill De Maris) for Disney as a stereotypical Irish cop. He first appeared in the newspaper strips in May 1939, in the serial "Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot". In the German translations of the comics, he is known as "Kommissar Albert Hunter" (Kommissar means commissioner in German), in the Italian version as "Commissario Adamo Basettoni", and in the Brazilian version as "Coronel Cintra".

In Italian stories O'Hara has a wife called Petulia.

Salty the Seal

Salty the Seal is a recurring character in the Pluto cartoons.

He is a seal who tends to show up in typical seal locations (the circus, the beach, the zoo, the arctic) and annoy Pluto into chasing him, causing Pluto to get into dangerous predicaments. Salty typically saves him, leading Salty and Pluto to become best friends—until Salty's next appearance, when the cycle begins again.

Salty's debut appearance came in Mickey's Circus (1936), in which he tormented Donald Duck. Pluto's Playmate (1942), Rescue Dog (1947) and the particularly famous Mickey and the Seal (1948) followed. Pluto's Seal Deal (1999) marked the first of Salty's more recent roles. Salty's most recent appearances are in Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Sylvester Shyster

Sylvester Shyster

Sylvester Shyster is a crooked lawyer and evil criminal mastermind who generally teams up with Peg-Leg Pete. The character has been described by some as a weasel or a rat (the latter being Gottfredson's own interpretation), but his ears suggest that he is rather an anthropomorphic canine. His name in Italian translations is Lupo, meaning Wolf, even though he is clearly not one.

He first appeared in the comic strip adventure "Mickey Mouse in Death Valley", the first real Mickey Mouse continuity, which was partially written by Walt Disney and drawn by Win Smith and other artists, before being taken over by Floyd Gottfredson (plot and art). In this story, Sylvester Shyster was a crooked lawyer who attempted, with the help of his henchman Pete, to deprive Minnie Mouse of her inheritance.

Shyster and Pete have been causing trouble for Mickey and his friends since then. Shyster is generally depicted as the duo's brain, with Pete acting as the brawn. He is probably the only person Pete will listen to without rebellion.

After Shyster's first appearance, Gottfredson made no further references to his profession as a lawyer, apart from his name; one might theorize, though it is not canon, that Shyster was disbarred due to his arrest and imprisonment at the end of "Mickey Mouse in Death Valley." Later creators occasionally referenced Shyster's role as a lawyer, with one story ("Trial and Error," 2007) forcing Shyster to defend Mickey himself in an overseas courtroom.

Shyster disappeared for a time after 1934, but made comebacks in 1942, 1950, and again in various 1960s Italian-created stories. More recently, publisher Egmont Creative A/S (in Denmark) revived Shyster as a regular character, a capacity in which he continues today.

In "Race to the South Seas" (March of Comics #41, 1949), a Donald Duck story by Carl Barks, a variant of Shyster appeared as Scrooge McDuck's lawyer, but his appearance differed from that in the Mickey Mouse strip and he was not depicted as a villain in that story.

The Sleuth

The Sleuth

The Sleuth is an anthropomorphic canine. He is an English private eye operating in 19th century London and employing Mickey Mouse as an assistant. The character was created by Carl Fallberg (plot) and Al Hubbard (art) for the Disney Studio Program and intended solely for foreign publication. The first story in the series is "Mickey and the Sleuth: The Case of the Wax Dummy". Unusually for material created for the program this story appeared domestically in the Procter & Gamble Disney Magazine giveaway and then was published by Gold Key in "Walt Disney Showcase" n°38 (1977). Given their historical setting, the "Mickey and the Sleuth" stories stand apart from other Mickey Mouse continuities. It is never explained if the "Mickey Mouse" working with the Sleuth is an ancestor of the present-day Mickey or if those stories are to be included in a totally different continuity. Apart from Mickey, no other prominent Disney characters are featured in the stories.

The Sleuth is a good-natured gentleman; wearing a deerstalker hat, smoking a pipe, and using a magnifying glass, he is an obvious parody of Sherlock Holmes, Mickey basically playing the part of Dr. Watson. Like his literary counterpart, he also plays the violin (albeit horribly). Unlike Sherlock Holmes, however, he is totally hopeless as a detective, being sometimes unable to figure out crimes that happen right in front of his eyes. Nevertheless, he always manages to solve his cases - hence ensuring a reputation as a great detective - either by sheer luck, or thanks to his foes' own incompetence, or simply because Mickey Mouse does all the actual detective work for him.

The Sleuth's constant foes are Professor Nefarious (a parody of Professor Moriarty), a London-based "teacher of crime", and his three henchmen-pupils Fliplip, Sidney and Armadillo. Their hideout is a rundown townhouse with the words "University of Criminal Sciences" written on its front door. While Nefarious is reasonably smart (although his own megalomania sometimes hinders his plans), his three accomplices are thoroughly inept comical villains. Mickey and the Sleuth imprison the gang at the end of each story, although Nefarious himself generally manages to escape.

Apart from Mickey - and of course, the reader - no one seems to be aware of the Sleuth's utter incompetence. Nefarious considers the Sleuth - not Mickey - as his greatest enemy. Why Mickey would keep being the assistant of such an inept detective is never explained.

Mickey and the Sleuth stories were produced up until the late 1980s.

Eli Squinch

Eli Squinch is an evil miser who sometimes teams up with Black Pete in the Mickey Mouse comics. He first appeared in "Bobo the Elephant" (1934) as the abusive owner of an elephant which Mickey later forced Squinch to sell him. In his second appearance, "Race to Riches" (1935), he teams up with Black Pete for the first time against Mickey and Horace Horsecollar.

Squinch has gone on to appear in additional Disney stories up to the present day, though generally only one story every couple of years—while a recognized character, Squinch seems never to have been one of the most popular villains.

Squinch's most recent United States appearance was in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #689 (2008), published by Gemstone.

Doctor Vulter

Doctor Vulter is a villain featured in Mickey Mouse comics. He was created by Ted Osborne (plot) and Floyd Gottfredson (plot and art) in the story Mickey Mouse and the Pirate Submarine, published in the Mickey Mouse daily strip from September 1935 to January 1936.

Dr. Vulter is an anthropomorphic ape, resembling a gorilla. He is a megalomaniacal pirate captain and mad scientist, somewhat modeled after Jules Verne's Captain Nemo character. Using a futuristic submarine and a small army of henchmen, he plagues the seas by stealing various ships which he aims to use for his plans of world conquest. His principal weapon is a machine in the form of a large claw which gives off magnetic-like energy: by placing it against a ship's hull Vulter can turn the whole metal ship into one large magnet which sticks weapons to the wall, making them useless.

Vulter's Germanic-sounding name, his uniform and monocle, as well as his plans of world domination and militaristic gang, are obvious echoes of the Nazi menace of the time.

After being defeated by Mickey, Vulter never appeared again in American stories. He was, however, used by Italian authors, starting with the 1959 story Topolino e il ritorno dell'artiglio magnetico ("Mickey Mouse and the Return of the Magnetic Claw") by Guido Martina (plot) and Giulio Chierchini (art). The character was further elaborated in this story by the claim that he never drew plans of his inventions but kept it all in his mind; this proved a bit of a problem when he suffered from amnesia. He returned occasionally and is still used from time to time by European authors.

Willie the Giant

Willie the Giant as he appears in Fun and Fancy Free.

Willie the Giant is a giant that appeared in the Disney cartoons Mickey and the Beanstalk (from the film Fun and Fancy Free, voiced by Billy Gilbert) and Mickey's Christmas Carol (voiced by Will Ryan). He has also made cameo appearances in Disney's House of Mouse and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. He is incredibly powerful, demonstrating amazing magic powers such as flight, invisibility and shapeshifting. Despite this, he is portrayed as immature and dimwitted, given his fondness for toys and inability to pronounce certain words, such as pistachio. His favorite dish is implied to be Chocolate Pot Roast with Pistachio, given his overweight appearance.

In Mickey and the Beanstalk, Willie serves as the primary villain. He kidnaps a golden singing harp, which sings to make people and animals happy, for his own amusement, and so that she cannot escape his clutches, he keeps her trapped in a box with a lock, although the harp seldom sings for her captor. When three poor peasants, Mickey, Donald and Goofy stumble across his castle via a giant beanstalk, Willie catches Mickey, who pretends to read his palm and discover his shape-shifting ability. Willie, delighted, offers to demonstrate this, and Mickey, spotting a nearby fly-killer, suggests that he turn into a pink-winged fly. Willie instead turns into a pink bunny rabbit, which he believes is more cute, and catches Mickey, Donald and Goofy with the fly-killer. Enraged, Willie grabs them, places them inside a small jewellery box, with the golden harp, but Mickey manages to escape, and with the help of the singing harp who sings to put Willie to sleep, makes his way into Willie's shirt pocket and steals the key, accidentally landing in a small box of dust and pepper, making him, and Willie sneeze and almost alerting him to his presence in the process. Mickey frees Donald and Goofy and they take the harp, but as Mickey tries to tie the sleeping Willie's shoe laces together, Willie spots him and follows them all the way to the beanstalk. As he climbs down, Mickey and Goofy chop the beanstalk and send Willie plummeting to his apparent death. However, the end of the short reveals that Willie is actually still alive and searching for Mickey. In one instance, he stumbles across the home of the short's narrator, Edgar Bergen, and asks about Mickey. Bergen, startled to see Willie, faints, and Jiminy Cricket promptly flees the scene. As Willie continues to search alone, Jiminy avoids being seen by him. On the 1963 television airing, Willie inquires about Mickey to Ludwig Von Drake, who also faints, and the instances where Jiminy watches Willie are omitted.

In Mickey's Christmas Carol, Willie is portrayed in a much more positive light than he was in Mickey and the Beanstalk, serving as a supporting protagonist rather than a villain. Here, he plays the role of the Ghost of Christmas Present and helps show Ebenezer Scrooge (Scrooge McDuck) the error of his ways by taking him to the house of his abused and underpaid clerk, Bob Cratchit (Mickey Mouse), and showing him that by paying Cratchit so little despite his hard work, Cratchit's son, Tiny Tim, will soon die of his illness. This revelation moves Scrooge to tears, but Willie disappears before he can ask him if he still has a chance to change his ways.

Willie the Giant makes a brief cameo in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit on a poster in a movie theater in Toontown.

Willie is also a minor recurring character in the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse children's series. Here, he is friends with Mickey. He still lives in the sky, only this time in a giant farm house.

J. Audubon Woodlore

Ranger J. Audubon Woodlore mimicking Humphrey the Bear's inane grin in "Grin And Bear It" (1954)

J. Audubon Woodlore is the park ranger of Brownstone National Park (a play on Yellowstone National Park), one of the features of which is a geyser named "Old Fateful" (a play on Old Faithful). He was originally voiced by Bill Thompson. Woodlore's name is an inside joke-reference to John James Audubon, the famous 19th Century ornithologist/naturalist/painter. He is currently voiced by Corey Burton.

He first appeared in two 1954 Donald Duck cartoons Grin and Bear It and Grand Canyonscope. (It is revealed in the latter that Woodlore was a postal worker prior to his Ranger days.) One year later, in Breezy Bear, he repeatedly admonishes Humphrey the Bear "You bathe too much!", not realising that the bear is really just hiding in the pond from the bees whose honey he was trying to steal.

Woodlore prides himself on running a tight ship, and is frequently oblivious to those (particularly Donald) who are humiliated and/or insulted by his constant scoldings and criticisms. Despite his somewhat authoritarian attitude, he cares about the bears as if they were his children...although he once bamboozled them into cleaning up the park for him (so that he could nap in a hammock) by singing the jazzy ditty "In the Bag":

First you stick a rag, put in the bag, bump bump

Then you bend your back, put it in the sack, bump bump

That's the way it's done, it's a lot of fun, bump bump Oh yeah

Cuttin' capers puttin' papers in the bag

When Woodlore's lazy motive became apparent, the bears irritably bagged him along with the litter.

Most of the bears are respectful of Woodlore, except Humphrey the Bear, whom the Ranger often lectures.

Woodlore's name appeared on the entrance sign at Disneyland's Bear Country land, as the resident park ranger.

Woodlore most recently appeared in an episode of Disney's House of Mouse.

Other aspects of the Mickey Mouse universe

Ajax Corporation

Ajax Corporation is a parody of the Acme Corporation made famous by Warner Bros. Ajax has appeared regularly on the shows Mickey Mouse Works and House of Mouse.

An early appearance of the Ajax Corporation can be seen in the 1937 Mickey Mouse short "Lonesome Ghosts," starring Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy. In this short cartoon the trio are working in an office with a door labelled Ajax Ghost Exterminators; Day & Night Service. A gorilla named Ajax also appeared in various Donald Duck cartoons during the 1940s. The Ajax brand also appears in some non-Disney cartoons, such as the 1946 Tom and Jerry short Trap Happy.

Whereas the Acme Corporation manufacture surreal cartoon gadgetry, the Ajax products tend to be more down-to-earth in nature, such as paint, bubblegum, lightbulbs, and chainsaws. Ajax also branches out in a number of services that usually employ Disney's standard characters, such as the Ajax Ghost Exterminators, Ajax Locksmiths, Ajax Door Fixers, Ajax Hairbow Wear Sale and the Ajax Lost and Found. These services are more commonly seen in the more recent Mickey Mouse Works and House of Mouse cartoons.

Non-Mouseton continuity

While Mickey's hometown is most often seen as Mouseton, there are a few traditions in which it bears a different name.

In some 1920s and 1930s Disney press releases and magazines, Mickey was described as living in Hollywood—even though the rural setting of the actual cartoons and comics had little in common with the actual Hollywood.

In 1932, Mickey's town was called Silo Center in the comic story "The Great Orphanage Robbery."

In the film Mr. Mouse Takes a Trip (1940) Mickey and Pluto live in the real world city of Burbank, California, home of Walt Disney Studios.

From 1939 to the late 1980s, occasional American comics used the name Mouseville for Mickey's town. The name was changed to Mouseton in 1990 to avoid confusion with Terrytoons' Mighty Mouse franchise, which regularly features a city called Mouseville—and used the name much more frequently than Mickey Mouse comics had done up to that point.

In Germany, the Netherlands, Brazil and Scandinavia, local tradition has it that Mickey's hometown is simply a different district of Duckburg. In Disney theme parks, the Roger Rabbit-inspired Toontown, a district in Los Angeles specifically for cartoon characters, is presented as Mickey's home.

In Kingdom Hearts and its sequel Kingdom Hearts II, both the Mouseton and Duckburg characters live in a realm called Disney Castle.

The Walt Disney Parks and Resorts modeled Mickey's hometown and birthplace as Mickey's Toontown. This same location would be the home for the Mickey Mouse Universe in all non-comic appearances.

See also

• Duck universe

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Fuchs, Wolfang J., ed (August 2006). "Gamma - Der Mensch der Zukunft [Eega Beeva - The human of the future]" (in German). Heimliche Helden - Band 4: Gamma [Clandestine heroes - Volume 4: Eega Beeva] (1st ed.). Egmont Ehapa. pp. 4–12. ISBN 3770406931. 
2. ^ ^{a b c} "60 Jahre Gamma - Das Wesen aus der Zukunft! [60 years of Eega Beeva - The being from the future!]" (in German). Egmont Ehapa. http://www.ehapa.de/comicnews/charactere/gamma.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 
3. ^ "Pflip Index". INDUCKS. http://coa.inducks.org/character.php?c=Pflip. Retrieved 2009-07-31. 
4. ^ "Gamma [Eega Beeva]" (in German). Micky Maus-Magazin. http://www.micky-maus.de/mein-entenhausen/einwohner/gamma.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 
5. ^ "Search results (stories featuring Eega Beeva but not Mickey Mouse)". INDUCKS. http://coa.inducks.org/comp2.php?code=&keyw=&keywt=i&exactpg=&pg1=&pg2=&bro2=&bro3=&kind=0&rowsperpage=0&columnsperpage=0&hero=Gamma&xapp=&univ=&xa2=Micky+Maus&creat=&creat2=&plot=&plot2=&writ=&writ2=&art=&art2=&ink=&ink2=&pub1=&pub2=&part=&ser=&xref=&mref=&xrefd=&repabb=&repabbc=al&imgmode=1&vdesc2=on&vdesc=en&vde=on&sort1=auto. Retrieved 2009-07-31. 
6. ^ Topolino e la dimensione Delta ("Mickey Mouse in the Delta Dimension") by Romano Scarpa, published in 1959
7. ^ Topolino e Bip-Bip alle sorgenti mongole ("Mickey Mouse and Bleep-Bleep go to the Mongo Sources") (1959) by Romano Scarpa (published in English as "The Sacred Spring of Seasons Past")
8. ^ COA I.N.D.U.C.K.S. World-wide database about Disney comics
9. ^ "Our "Mouse-tro" Takes the Baton!". D23: The Official Community for Disney Fans. 2010-02-25. http://d23.disney.go.com/articles/022510_NF_FEAT_BandConcert.html. 

External links

• The Mickey Mouse "Universe" Guide by David Gerstein (1996)
• Mickey Mouse Comic Universe at TV Tropes
• Characters: Mickey Mouse Comic Universe at TV Tropes