Episode 157 - Mickey Mouse (with David McGowan)
Clock Cleaners (Ben Sharpsteen, 1937).
The Fantasy/Animation podcast takes listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation. Available via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many of your favourite podcast hosting platforms!
For this new episode of the podcast, Chris and Alex try and do justice to the global stardom of perhaps the most famous animated character of them all - Mickey Mouse. They are joined by David McGowan, who is Lecturer in the Contextual and Theoretical Studies of Animation at the University of the Arts London, as well as author of Animated Personalities: Cartoon Characters and Stardom in American Theatrical Shorts (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2019), to explore Mickey’s enduring celebrity both on and off the animated screen as well as contradictory elements to his stardom that supported his move from cartoon protagonist to animated icon. Listen as the trio discuss Mickey’s shifting star persona and performance style across the three shorts The Karnival Kid (Walt Disney & Ub Iwerks, 1929), Mickey Steps Out (Burt Gillet, 1931), and Clock Cleaners (Ben Sharpsteen, 1937) to map the character in relation to several topics, including cartoon aesthetics and Disney animation’s shift from plasmaticness to hyper-realist registers of representation; romance narratives and the extra-textual coupling of Mickey with Minnie Mouse; the cartoon’s move away from self-reflexivity towards the rounding out of “personality animation”; Mickey’s musicality and modernity, as well as the character’s similarities to Felix the Cat and other animated celebrities of the period; and how Mickey’s links to values of sincerity, intimacy, and humanity perfectly position him as the quintessential animated star.
**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**
**As featured on Feedspot’s 25 Best London Education Podcasts**
Suggested Readings
Crafton, Donald. 2013. Shadow of a Mouse: Performance, Belief, and World-Making in Animation. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Holliday, Christopher. 2018. The Computer-Animated Film: Industry, Style and Genre. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
McGowan, David. 2018. “Monochrome Mickey: Modern Nostalgia Texts and the Animated Star Image.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 46, no. 4: 219–231.
McGowan, David. 2018. “Walt Disney Treasures or Mickey Mouse DVDs? Animatophilia, Nostalgia, and the Competing Representations of Theatrical Cartoon Shorts on Home Video.” animation: an interdisciplinary journal 13, no. 1: 53–68.
Wells, Paul. 1998. Understanding Animation. London: Routledge.
Wells, Paul. 2003. “To Affinity and Beyond: Woody, Buzz and the New Authenticity.” In Contemporary Hollywood Stardom, edited by Thomas Austin and Martin Barker, 90–102. London: Arnold.