Mighty Mouse (cartoon)

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Mighty Mouse (German also Oskar, the supermouse ) is a cartoon and animated character , which was created by the studio Terrytoons for the film company 20th Century Fox in 1942 as a drawn and animated superhero .

From fly to mouse

The first developer of the character, Izzy Klein, wanted to create a character called Superfly based on the successful comic book character Superman , but studio boss Paul Terry changed the character to a mouse. Very little money was made available for the weekly cartoons, which is evident from the quality of the production. Terry said of himself: "Disney is the Tiffany's in this business, and I am the Woolworth's." ("Disney is the Tiffany in the business, I am the Woolworth .") Terry hoped that the mouse figure would bring the incomparably more successful Disney - Studios to be able to take some income off with his Mickey Mouse . Other characters from the Terrytoons also included the chaotic ravens Heckle and Jeckle , Gandy Goose and Dinky Duck .

Mighty Mouse first appeared in the short film The Mouse of Tomorrow in 1942 as a parody of Superman, which is why he also heard the name Super Mouse in the film . Terry soon had to change this name because another cartoon character was named that way. Super Mouse also appeared briefly in Stories at Marvel Comics , nicknamed Terry the First as the first draft of the character . In the first heyday of 3D films in the 1950s, some comics and films by Mighty Mouse were also released in 3D.

characters

Like Superman, Mighty Mouse initially wore a blue costume with a red cape, but this changed to a yellow costume with a red cape. And like Superman, he had amazing skills with superpower and invulnerability. He once had an X-ray vision and was able to use a kind of hypnotic vision in various films , with which he could even bring inanimate objects to life. When flying fast, he pulled a kind of comet's tail behind him, which he could also manipulate.

Mighty Mouse was originally voiced by Roy Halee and later by Tom Morrison .

In the stories, Mighty Mouse is a fearless fighter against evil (mainly evil cats) in his hometown of Mouseville, who suddenly flies his much larger opponent to the chin from below and with his superpower throws him away for miles. Mighty Mouse had two girlfriends, Pearl Pureheart (in the cartoons) and Mitzi in the comics of the 1950s and 1960s. His archenemy is the villain tomcat Oil Can Harry , who appeared as a human in the first Terrytoons.

These characters appeared in the first cartoon films that parodied the cliffhanger scenario of the film serials . Instead of ending with a cliffhanger, the film began with a scene typically used as a cliffhanger, with the main actors Mighty Mouse and Pearl Pureheart often singing along with the story. Mighty Mouse's engagement usually began with the song Here I come to save the day! . Andy Kaufman made this song the main part of one of his skits in the 1970s .

Mighty Mouse was not more successful than Mickey Mouse, but was still the most successful figure of the Terrytoons, whose success increased particularly with the syndication of the films on television. Paul Terry sold his Terrytoons company to CBS in 1955, and from then on the Mighty Mouse films ran on their own show The Mighty Mouse Playhouse from the late 1950s and stayed on for nearly twelve years. Few new films were produced until 1961.

revival

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, several new films were made, produced by the film company Filmation , which also brought the chaotic ravens Heckle and Jeckle back to life in the joint show The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle , which also introduced a new character, a vampire duck named Quackula (which has nothing to do with the later Count Duckula vampire duck series ). From December 10, 1982 Mighty Mouse was even allowed to fly again in a movie, in Mighty Mouse in the Great Space Chase . In these new films he received the voice of Alan Oppenheimer .

The animator and director Ralph Bakshi ( The Lord of the Rings , 1978), who started his career with Terrytoons, created a new series of Mighty Mouse films during the 1980s under the title Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures . In this series Mighty Mouse got a secret identity like Superman or Spider Man , Mike Mouse (both voiced by Patrick Pinney ) and a funny sidekick , the little orphaned mouse Scrappy Mouse , voiced by actress Dana Hill . The stories of these new episodes were aimed more at adults than at children, who are unlikely to have fully understood the stories with their satirical undertones and humor. These episodes are already seen as collectors' items, because after two seasons this series was canceled after heavy discussions after Mighty Mouse sniffed a red flower in an episode that dissolved in powder. The so-called media guard Reverend Donald Wildmon linked it to sniffing cocaine .

After the publication of a ten-volume comic book series in 1990/91 by Marvel Comics with Mighty Mouse stories, nothing new has been released, apart from an Atari computer game and a short commercial, The Power of Cheese (2001), which was published in a New York-like city, in which chaos develops on the streets around Mighty Mouse. After the attacks of September 11th, the spot was canceled.

The rights to the Mighty Mouse character are currently split: CBS Operations holds the rights to the older cartoon films, Paramount Home Entertainment / CBS DVD has the rights to the video editions and CBS Television Distribution has the syndication rights for the television shorts ( which are currently not broadcast).

3D comics

In the 1950s, numerous comic characters ( Felix the Cat , The Hawk, Abbott and Costello , Noodnik, Little Eva, The Three Stooges , Batman , Superman and others) experienced adventures “ with glasses ” not only on the big screen , but also in comic books . The action of the 3D comics took place in the individual panels mostly on four to five levels, rarely on more and even more rarely with flowing transitions between the levels of action or elements protruding from the picture.

Four editions of Mighty Mouse were produced: Issue 1 from October 1, 1951 at St. John Publishing Co. with 32 pages in the 3-D illustrative process and the main story Men of Sola on 10 pages, then Issue 1 from October 1953 with the story of Jupiter Saboteurs drawn by Joe Kubert and Norman Maurer and then issue 1 of November 2, 1953, also with 32 pages by St. John Publishing, which also contained some 3D advertisements and the main story The Terror of the Deep on 14 pages . The fourth edition was published as Issue 1 on December 3, 1953 by St. John, again with 32 pages and the main story The World Beneath on 20 pages, with a one-page story with Heckle and Jeckle in 3D and one with Dinky in 3D .

For 75 pfennigs there was also a German edition of Mighty Mouse - the mighty mouse under the title Der 3-Dimensional Schlager - cheerful spatial picture stories for young and old and the enclosed red-green glasses. In collectors' circles, this issue is traded for up to 100 euros.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 3D comic
  2. ↑ Starlog photo guidebook: Fantastic 3-D (1982), page 63, ISBN 0-931064-53-8

Web links

In addition to various individual films from the 1940s at the IMDb, particularly noteworthy: