Mighty Mouse

For other uses, see Mighty Mouse (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with Mighty Mouth.

Mighty Mouse
Mighty Mouse in Ralph Bakshi's adaptation
First appearance	Mouse of Tomorrow (1944)
Created by	Terrytoons
Portrayed by	Patrick Pinney
Information
Aliases	Mike Mouse
Species	Mouse
Gender	Male

Mighty Mouse is an animated superhero mouse character created by the Terrytoons studio for 20th Century Fox.

History

The character was created by story man Izzy Klein as a super-powered housefly named Superfly. Studio head Paul Terry changed the character into a cartoon mouse instead. Originally created as a parody of Superman, he first appeared in 1942 in a theatrical animated short titled The Mouse of Tomorrow. The original name of the character was Super Mouse, but after 7 cartoons produced in 1942-1943, it was changed in the 1944 cartoon 'The Wreck of the Hesperus' to Mighty Mouse when Paul Terry learned that another character with the same name was being published in comic books. Super Mouse appeared briefly in the Marvel Comics interpretation of the character and was nicknamed Terry the First, as he was the first version of the character.

Mighty Mouse originally had a blue costume with red trunks and a red cape, like Superman, but over time this outfit changed to a yellow costume with red trunks and a red cape, his most popular colors.^[1] As with other imitations of Superman, Mighty Mouse's super powers include flight, super strength, and invulnerability. He has demonstrated the use of X-ray vision in at least one episode, while during several cartoons he used a form of telekinesis that allowed him to command inanimate objects and turn back time (as in the cartoons "The Johnstown Flood" and "Krakatoa"). Other cartoons have him leaving a red contrail during flight which he can manipulate at will like a band of solid flexible matter.

The initial formula of each story consisted of an extended setup of a crisis which needs extraordinary help to resolve, after which Mighty Mouse appears to save the day. Mighty Mouse was originally voiced by Roy Halee, Sr., and later by Tom Morrison in some cartoons.

The early operatic Mighty Mouse cartoons often portrayed Mighty Mouse as a ruthless fighter. He would dole out a considerable amount of punishment, subduing opponent cats to the point of giving up their evil plan and running away. Mighty Mouse would then chase down the escaping cats, and continue beating them mercilessly, usually hurling or punching them miles away to finish the fight. A favorite move is to suddenly fly up to just under a much larger opponent's chin and throw a blinding flurry of punches that leaves the enemy reeling.

Mighty Mouse had two mouse girlfriends named Pearl Pureheart (in the cartoons) and Mitzi (in the comics during the 1950s and 1960s), and his arch-enemy is an evil villain cat named Oil Can Harry (who originated as a human from earlier Terrytoons as the enemy of Fanny Zilch). These characters were created for a series of Mighty Mouse cartoons that spoofed the old cliffhanger serials of the days of silent film, as well as the classic operettas of stage that were still popular at the time. The cartoons, beginning with "A Fight to the Finish" (1947), usually began with Mighty Mouse and Pearl Pureheart already in a desperate situation, as if they were the next chapter of the serial. The characters often sang mock opera songs during these cartoons (e.g., Pearl: "Oil Can Harry, you're a villain!"; Oil Can Harry: "I know it, but it's a lot of fun..."). Mighty Mouse sang tenor, Pearl a soprano, and Oil Can Harry an alto/bass. Mighty Mouse was also known for singing, "Here I come to save the day!" when flying into action. Mighty Mouse's home town is Mouseville, populated mostly by anthropomorphic cartoon mice.

Mighty Mouse fought other villains, though most of them appeared in only one or two cartoons. In at least two cartoons from 1949 and 1950 he faced a huge, dim-witted, but super-strong cat named Julius Pinhead "Schlabotka" (this cat's name was only spoken and never spelled out), voiced by Dayton Allen, whose strength rivaled Mighty Mouse's own. In another cartoon, titled "The Green Line" (1944), the cats live on one side of the main street of a town and the mice on the other, with a green line down the middle of the street serving as the dividing line. They agree to keep the peace as long as no one crosses it. An evil entity, a Satan cat, comes and starts the cats and mice fighting. At the end, Mighty Mouse is cheered by mice and cats alike.

In the episode "Krakatoa" (1945), Mighty Mouse lassoed the super-volcano Krakatoa, saving the island's inhabitants from the pyroclastic flow. Most memorably, a love-interest for Mighty Mouse makes her appearance, Krakatoa Katie. One line of her theme song is "Krakatoa Katie, she ain't no lady, when she starts to jump and shout, she's Krakatoa Kay!!!"

Mighty Mouse Playhouse

Mighty Mouse was not extraordinarily popular in theatrical cartoons, but was still Terrytoons' most popular character. What made him a cultural icon was television. Paul Terry sold the Terrytoon company to CBS in 1955. The network began running Mighty Mouse Playhouse in December 1955. It remained on the air for nearly twelve years (and featured The Mighty Heroes during the final season). Mighty Mouse cartoons became a staple of children's television programming for a period of over thirty years, from the 1950s through the 1980s.

Despite the character's popularity on TV, Terrytoons produced only three further Mighty Mouse theatrical cartoons in the 1959–1961 time frame. The company evidently believed that the existing library of 80 episodes (including the first 7 'super mouse' cartoons) was enough to keep youngsters tuning in to CBS every Saturday morning.

Mighty Mouse was also featured on Tom Scholz's Les Paul guitar.

Some early vinyls credit the original 1955 Mighty Mouse Playhouse theme song to The Terrytooners, Mitch Miller and Orchestra, but recent publishing has generally credited The Sandpipers.^[2]

Comics

Several publishers put out Mighty Mouse comic books. There were two main titles: Mighty Mouse and The Adventures of Mighty Mouse.

Mighty Mouse

• Timely Comics #1-4 (1946)
• St. John Publications #5-67 (1947–1955)
• Pines Comics #68-83 (1956–1959)

The Adventures of Mighty Mouse (renaming of Terry's Comics, where Mighty Mouse appeared)

• St. John Publications #126-128 (1955)
• Pines Comics #129-144 (1956–1959)
• Dell Comics #145-155 (1959–1961)
• Gold Key Comics #156-160 (1962–1963)
• Dell Comics #161-?? (1963–??)

Mighty Mouse, Marvel Comics, #1-10 (1990), based on the Ralph Bakshi version (Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures)

Revivals

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Filmation made television cartoons starring Mighty Mouse and fellow Terrytoon characters Heckle and Jeckle (both voiced by Frank Welker) in a show called The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle, where two new characters were created: a vampire duck named Quacula (not to be confused with Count Duckula), and Harry's bumbling, overweight, but swift-running henchman, Swifty. The show premiered in 1979 and lasted for two seasons. It even spawned a limited theatrical release matinee movie, Mighty Mouse in the Great Space Chase, released December 10, 1982. In the Filmation series and movies, Mighty Mouse and Oil Can Harry were voiced by veteran voice artist Alan Oppenheimer, and Pearl Pureheart was voiced by Diane Pershing.

Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures

Stills from the Mighty Mouse: The New adventures episode "The Littlest Tramp". Top left: the flower is crushed by the rich man. Top right: Mighty Mouse receives the remains of the flower, which falls apart in his hand. Bottom left: Mighty Mouse thinks fondly of the girl, and brings out what's left of the flower. Bottom right: Mighty Mouse smells the flower, inhaling it in the process.

In 1987 and 1988, animator Ralph Bakshi created a new series of Mighty Mouse cartoons entitled Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures for the CBS Saturday morning children's lineup. In this series, Mighty Mouse had a real identity, Mike Mouse (both identities voiced by Patrick Pinney), and a sidekick, Scrappy Mouse (voiced by actress Dana Hill), the little orphan. Though a children's cartoon, its heavy satirical tone, risque humor and adult jokes have made the Bakshi Mighty Mouse series a collector's item for collectors of older TV series. The series lasted two seasons.

The New Adventures was the subject of media controversy when one scene was interpreted as a depiction of cocaine use. Throughout the episode a poor mouse girl is attempting to sell flowers, and is repeatedly harassed by a rich man who crushes her flowers.^[3] She runs out of flowers and makes new ones from sundry items she finds, such as tomato slices, but the man crushes these too.^[4] Mighty Mouse attempts to purchase the flowers with his chunk of cheese, and to avenge the girl, but she gives Mighty Mouse the crushed flowers and insists that others need help more than she does. After successfully saving several different characters, he is reminded of the girl, and attempts to smell the flowers she gave him (now a pink powder), inhaling them in the process. He then finds the man that has been harassing the girl, and spanks him. The girl is sympathetic to the man, and he is so moved that the two are married.

A family in Kentucky saw the episode and reportedly interpreted the scene as Mighty Mouse snorting cocaine. The family called the American Family Association in Tupelo, Mississippi. The group demanded Bakshi be removed from production of the series.^[5] Bakshi and CBS denied the allegations, Bakshi stating the whole incident "smacks of McCarthyism. I'm not going to get into who sniffs what. This is lunacy."^[6] To defuse controversy, Bakshi agreed to cut the 3.5 seconds from the episode. Rev. Donald Wildmon claimed that the editing was a "de facto admission" of cocaine use, though Bakshi maintained that the episode was "totally innocent".^[7]

It's because of Fritz that they're going after Mighty Mouse. I grew up in Brownsville in Brooklyn and attended High School for Industrial Arts. I remember teachers who quit. Because of McCarthyism they weren't able to teach what they wanted. This is the same thing. Mighty Mouse was happy after smelling the flowers because it helped him remember the little girl who sold it to him fondly. But even if you're right, their accusations become part of the air we breathe. That's why I cut the scene. I can't have children wondering if Mighty Mouse is using cocaine.

—Ralph Bakshi, New York Times^[8]

Later years

Mighty Mouse has not been seen since Marvel Comics' 10-issue comic book series (set in the New Adventures continuity) in 1990 and 1991, except for an arcade game by Atari and a 2001 "The power of cheese" TV commercial. That commercial, set in a city not unlike New York, shows Mighty Mouse dining calmly on cheese in a restaurant while utterly unconcerned with a scene of chaos and terror visibly unfolding in the street outside. The chaos and terror come in the form of an invasion by a fleet of flying saucers. The commercial was hastily pulled off the air in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.^{[citation needed]}

Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies are currently working on a CGI Mighty Mouse feature film (scheduled to release some time in 2013, according to IMDB), with Barry E. Jackson providing conceptual art, and with screenwriting by Maurice Chauvet and Christopher Vail. A CGI TV series will follow the film. A Mighty Mouse history book is in the works and will be released to tie-in with the movie.^[9]

The rights to Mighty Mouse are now divided as a result of the 2006 corporate split of Viacom (the former owner of the Terrytoons franchise) into two separate companies. CBS Operations (a unit of the current CBS Corporation) owns the ancillary rights and trademarks to the character, while Paramount Home Entertainment/CBS DVD holds home video rights. The first official release of Mighty Mouse material has been announced and what is now CBS Television Distribution has television syndication rights (the shorts are currently out of circulation). They were also being used under license by Apple Inc.'s Apple Mighty Mouse, but following CBS' loss of the trademark for "computer cursor control devices, namely, computer mice,"^[10] Apple dropped the product name and it is being used by Man & Machine Inc., instead.^[11][12]

At least one episode of Mighty Mouse, "Wolf! Wolf!" has fallen into Public Domain and is available at the Internet Archive.^[13]

DVD releases

• Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, the first official release of Mighty Mouse material, was released on January 5, 2010.^[14]
• The animated short "Wolf Wolf", the only Mighty Mouse cartoon in the public domain, has been released on low-budget DVDs and VHS tapes numerous times.

Bibliography

• The Animated Movie Guide by Jerry Beck, Chicago Review Press, October 2005, ISBN 978-1556525919
• Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi, Universe, April 2008, ISBN 978-0789316844

References

1. ^ Mighty Mouse in his yellow/red costume
2. ^ Sandpiper Stuff, news from me (Archives), January 18, 2004
3. ^ http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8j5TAAAAIBAJ&sjid=VIQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5837,3789168&dq
4. ^ http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=DFFPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9gIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2198,2938995
5. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/26/nyregion/mighty-mouse-flying-high-on-flowers.html
6. ^ http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=DFFPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9gIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2198,2938995
7. ^ http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=eShUAAAAIBAJ&sjid=q40DAAAAIBAJ&pg=3344,6988718
8. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/26/nyregion/mighty-mouse-flying-high-on-flowers.html
9. ^ New Mighty Mouse CGI Movie, The Official Ralph Bakshi Website, March 20, 2005
10. ^ http://www.trademarkia.com/company-man--machine-inc-761485-page-1-2 (visited: December 5, 2010)
11. ^ McCracken, Harry (Oct 9, 2009 11:18 pm), "Apple Mighty Mouse Caught in Trademark Trap", PCWorld, http://www.pcworld.com/article/173422/apple_mighty_mouse_caught_in_trademark_trap.html, retrieved December 5, 2010 
12. ^ See further at Apple Mighty Mouse#Name
13. ^ The Public Domain episode "Wolf! Wolf!"
14. ^ Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures official site

External links

• Mighty Mouse at IMDB
• Mighty Mouse at TV.com
• Mighty Mouse at TVShowsOnDVD.com
• [1] at toontracker