Mickey the Wasteland Overlord

In their ongoing effort to burn down and raze every last vestige of our childhood (What on God's good earth is an Ace Bunny and a Danger Duck?), the powers that be seem to have set their heights on that most hallowed of hallowed grounds: the Disney Empire.

I never much cared for Mickey Mouse. I thought him bland and unnaturally cheerful. He struck me as the sort of person who would voluntarily go to his own lobotomy.

I'm a Donald Duck man, myself. I very much enjoyed his angst and uncontrollable rage blackouts. He was a much more interesting character. The whole Disney menagerie, in fact, held far more water than Mickey -- the folksy wisdom of Goofy, the resourcefulness of Chip 'n' Dale, Rescue Rangers, and Uncle Scrooge's unwavering greed and eccentricities.

But now, as the apocalypse approaches, Disney wants to retool the characters to give them more of an edge. Let's go to our paper of record:

For decades, the Walt Disney Company has largely kept Mickey Mouse frozen under glass, fearful that even the tiniest tinkering might tarnish the brand and upend his $5 billion or so in annual merchandise sales. One false move and Disney could have New Coke on its hands.

Way to subtly refer to Walt Disney's cryogenically frozen body. The implications of this statement are very disturbing: Are we meant to infer that, just like the pharaohs and their servants in ancient Egypt, upon his death Walt Disney had his characters shut in and buried with him in the Disney Vault? (Shudders).

Also, when are we going to stop using New Coke as the go-to joke for failed brand re-imaginations? We need a replacement (how ironic). May I nominate The Jay Leno Show?

Now, however, concerned that Mickey has become more of a corporate symbol than a beloved character for recent generations of young people, Disney is taking the risky step of re-imagining him for the future.

Oooooh. Future Mickey? This is awesome. I wonder if he'll run into Wall-E. And then find that all of his friends have died in the zombie apocalypse.

The first glimmer of this will be the introduction next year of a new video game, Epic Mickey, in which the formerly squeaky clean character can be cantankerous and cunning, as well as heroic, as he traverses a forbidding wasteland.

Oh crap! They are sending Mickey to the zombie apocalypse. I love the pitch of this video game. Mickey Mouse meets Cormac McCarthy's The Road. I wonder if the Beagle Boys will play the role of the cannibal den. No wonder Mickey will be "cantankerous and cunning."

In Epic Mickey, the foundation of which a group of interns dreamed up in 2004, the title character still exhibits the hallmarks that younger generations know: he is adventurous, enthusiastic and curious. “Mickey is never going to be evil or go around killing people,” Mr. Spector said.

"But if people try to kill him," Mr. Spector continued. "Mickey will answer will deadly force. He will cut up those bitches like a chef at a Benihana."

But Mickey won’t be bland anymore, either. “I wanted him to be able to be naughty — when you’re playing as Mickey you can misbehave and even be a little selfish,” Mr. Spector said.

Oh my God! Naughty Mickey? It's a Japanese cartoon artist's wet dream. Parents, hide your children.

In many ways, it is a return to Mickey at his creation. When the character made its debut in “Steamboat Willie” in 1928, he was the Bart Simpson of his time: an uninhibited rabble-rouser who got into fistfights, played tricks on his friends (pity Clarabelle Cow) and, later, was amorously aggressive with Minnie.

"Amorously Aggressive" might be the worst euphemism I've ever heard. I will adopt it forthwith. "Your honor, I was not sexually harassing the plaintiff. I was merely being amorously aggressive. As established in the landmark Mouse v. Mouse, this kind of behavior is non-actionable."

Epic Mickey, designed for Nintendo’s Wii console, is set in a “cartoon wasteland” where Disney’s forgotten and retired creations live. The chief inhabitant is Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a cartoon character Walt Disney created in 1927 as a precursor to Mickey but ultimately abandoned in a dispute with Universal Studios.

Fun fact: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was traded for Al Michaels (yes, the Al Michaels) a couple of years ago. This was so that Michaels could call football games on NBC. It is yet unclear as to whether NBC primetime is the barren wasteland referred to as the Epic Mickey setting.

In the game, Oswald has become bitter and envious of Mickey’s popularity. The game also features a disemboweled, robotic Donald Duck and a “twisted, broken, dangerous” version of Disneyland’s “It’s a Small World.” Using paint and thinner thrown from a magic paintbrush, Mickey must stop the Phantom Blot overlord, gain the trust of Oswald and save the day.

This might be the craziest paragraph in history. Let's break it down:

1. A "disemboweled, robotic Donald Duck?" Dear sweet baby Jesus! They killed Donald! Is this an example of what happens to you when you piss off the new Mickey and he cuts you? What did Donald do that made Mickey gut him? Hit on Minnie? On the plus side, it seems Cyborg Donald is the new Disney's version of the terminator. Oy.

2. A "twisted, broken, dangerous" version of "it's a Small World" differs from the original incarnation in that the new one, America is represented only by Detroit and the tram cars are made by Ford.

3. Mickey's weapon of choice against cyborg Donald is paint and thinner? Has he joined Charlie and begun huffing glue? Seriously, paint thinner is dangerous. I can't wait for the first liability suit stemming from some kid dumping a full can of thinner on the school bully.

Consumers will not be able to buy the game before fall of next year. Anticipation is intense. “Wow! This is amazing,” said Eli Gee on GameInformer.com. “I’m really... REALLY excited."

That Eli Gee of GameInformer.com does not start all his sentences with "Gee!"is a wasted opportunity of the highest order. I mean, he works for GameInformer.com. He's not getting laid anyway.

Considerable effort has gone into instilling a backdrop of choice and consequence. Players can either behave in an entirely happy way and help other characters — and have an easier go of it in the wasteland — or choose more selfish, destructive behavior with a harsher outcome, including a Mickey that starts to physically resemble a rat.

Ah! There we have it! You can be good and beat the game! Or you can be evil and turn into a rat!

What a complete and utter cop-out. They're not retooling the character at all. They're only conditioning children into pursuing the Disney way of life willingly. In essence, to beat the game, you either behave the way Mickey has always behaved and win, or you give him an edge and turn him into Mickey Rat. All they've done is add the illusion of choice into the brainwashing.

And if you don't believe that, perhaps you also believe that the priest in The Little Mermaid had a weird pleat in his pants.