"What! No Mickey Mouse?"

This was a popular saying in the 1930s to express displeasure of a movie house not playing a Disney cartoon before the main feature.

It may be a mantra worth taking up again.

Mickey and Minnie Mouse turn 75 this year. Kind of a big anniversary, don't you think? And yet with 6 months to go until the big day, there has been nary a peep from the Walt Disney Company to honor this milestone.

What happened to Disney's vaunted marketing machine? This is a company that sells direct-to-video sequels as "classics" and convinces guests at its theme parks that the addition of a new parade or show is worth scheduling an annual pilgrimage to its gates. They've been successful at more challenging promotions, so why no birthday celebration for the mouse who started it all in one of the most obvious years to promote him?

I was recently going through a bunch of old videotapes of Disney programs recorded in and around 1988. In case your math is a little fuzzy, 1988 was the year that Mickey Mouse turned 60. Yes, 60 is a round number, perhaps worthy of a celebration, but I wouldn't count it as one of the "big" anniversaries. And yet, the Disney Company did.

On one of my tapes was a Magical World of Disney episode celebrating Mickey's birthday. This hour-long program featured all of the hottest stars, actors and actresses of NBC programs synergistically included, coming together to help people remember the power of Mickey's magic. It was a fairly big production with new animation of the classic, Mickey, and the hot thing, Roger Rabbit. I remember that we sold animation art from the show at the Disney Store when I worked there in the 1990s. Will there be a show about Mickey this year?

At the end of all of the Buena Vista distributed programs that year, Mickey Mouse in a tuxedo (and sneakers) would appear with the reminder that it was his 60th year. It replaced the traditional castle logo of the television arm.

A special magazine was created - Mickey is Sixty. Sections of this publication ran in the biggest magazines - Time, Life, People - as advertisements.

An entire new land was created at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom - Mickey's Birthdayland (now Mickey's Toontown Fair) - to celebrate.

Ear Force One, a hot air balloon in the shape of Mickey's head, toured the nation. I saw it in New York that summer while on vacation. That night, office lights at the Pan Am building were turned off and on to create the familiar shape of Mickey's head in the windows of the building.

Another giant profile of the main mouse was created in fields of the nation's heartland, which could be seen by those in airplanes crisscrossing the nation.

Mickey's 60th birthday promotion was big. It was exciting. It was yearlong. What's happened in the past 15 years to discourage the Disney Company from launching a similar marketing campaign for Mickey's 75th?

Disney doesn't really sell mugs and towels and vacation packages and T-shirts and television programming. Disney sells magic. And Mickey Mouse is still a powerful marketing tool when selling something that no other company in the world can properly manufacture.

Perhaps some marketeers have become jaded about Mickey's popularity, seeing him outpaced by characters like Winnie the Pooh. Perhaps some of these same people think that Mickey Mouse isn't hip and happening. They run surveys and take polls and try to get a feel for the pulse of its customers at one moment in time.

But they miss the big picture. While combing through their metadata, they forget to factor in the magic. They need to spend more time looking at a child's eyes light up upon entering Disneyland and seeing the Big Cheese in person. They need to try booking a weeklong trip to the Walt Disney World resort and feel the excitement in planning it. They need to pull out one of the two Mickey Mouse DVDs that have recently been released and see how timeless his cartoons are, how they still can put a smile on your face.

A lot of Disney fans are bemoaning the perceived ball dropping happening right now at the Disneyland Resort for its monumental 50th anniversary. But it seems that there is just as great of a mistake in forgetting to celebrate and promote the beginnings of the Walt Disney Company in this special year.

Walt Disney remembered the significance of Mickey Mouse when he said, "I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing - that it was all started by a mouse."

It's too bad that the company that bears his name apparently doesn't understand the meaning behind these words.

What! No Mickey Mouse? Indeed.

In My Humble Opinion,
Matt

Posted

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