You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy!
Coke? Microsoft? Nike?
Mickey freaking Mouse is right up there, Jack!
The Walt Disney Co. owns the Mickey Mouse Motif and it has kept the Mouse happy go lucky for decades.
Why tinker with success right? What could go wrong?
Can you say NEW COKE? Can you say an Army of One? What was wrong with BE ALL YOU CAN BE?
Now a report out of L.A. that corporate idiots are trying to fix something “which ain’t broke”
The L.A. Times is reporting that Mickey Mouse will undergo a personality shift in a video game that is scheduled to be released next fall. Apparently the video game will highlight Mickey’s darker side, which he has obviously suppressed in his rat hole for the past 75 years.
According to the published reports, Bean counter and Mouse-kateer maniacs are concerned that this latest generation of kids don’t relate to the Mouse.
The video game that will unleash the inner Mickey is called: Epic Mickey, in which the formerly squeaky clean character can be cantankerous and cunning, as well as heroic, as he traverses a forbidding wasteland.
That doesn’t sound so bad, right?
But it makes you wonder why you would F-Up an established symbolic icon like MICKEY MOUSE? Why risk it? You want more dangerous and cutting edge characters? Here’s an idea for you Magic Kingdom; create it! Make some characters and then put the marketing muscle of Cinderella’s Glass Slipper behind it.
The report indicates that the Einsteins at the Mouse Kingdom plan to retool the way Mickey walks and talks to the way he appears on the Disney Channel and how children interact with him on the Web — even what his house looks like at Disney World.
I mean what are we talking here?
Is Mickey Mouse going to bend Minnie over and slap that ass!
Is he going to go out drinking with the boys and slide his wedding ring into his mouse pocket?
Is he going to smoke a little ganja and drive with his seat belt undone?
According to the article: “The effort to re-engineer Mickey is still in its early stages, but it involves the top creative and marketing minds in the company, all the way up to Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive.”
I’m no Company man Mr. Iger, but I say be thankful you have the most recognizable corporate logo on the planet and move on.
Here’s a paragraph that may trump everything I just wrote:
Domestic sales for the Mickey Mouse Brand have declined: of his $5 billion in merchandise sales in 2009, less than 20 percent will come from the United States.
I don’t care. I think you ride the Mickey Gravy train. He is wholesome and fun. What the hell is so wrong with that. Everyone is trying to pull down their pants now a days and piss on someone elses parade.
Why does Mickey Mouse suddenly have to be a manic depressive who likes to lick the sharp side of the knife.
Chill out Disney, leave the Mouse alone.
If you don’t that’ s crazy!