Cranky Mickey, pt. 2

Continued from Cranky Mickey, pt 1:

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is what alerted Walt Disney to the finer issues of creative ownership.  That's right, copyright paranoia is perhaps the only thing the Disney company still actively uses that dates directly back to Walt himself.

In 1927, Walt signed with Universal Studios, headed by Charles B Mintz, to produce a series of shorts.  Together with his creative partner, Ub Iwerks, Walt came up with the character of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a lovable, impish rogue who got into a bunch of scrapes and worked his way out of them through sheer, floppy-eared charisma.  All went well for a year or so, and then
Walt requested a budget increase.  Mintz not only said no, but, apparently out of sheer spite, decided to cut the budget by 20 per cent instead.  Disney threatened to leave, and Mintz laughed and told him to go ahead, because Universal owned Oswald.  In his excitement at signing with a big studio and launching his career as a successful animator, Walt forgot to negotiate Oswald into his contract.  In an era before copyright in animation became a subject for obsessive paranoia (more on that later), it was a very savvy move by Universal.  Unfortunately, Walt never quite recovered from this copyright-related kick in the 'nads, and, an an act of undeniable irony, lost Iwerks to a rival studio over a very similar dispute over Mickey in 1930.  But I digress again.

Oswald's resemblance to Mickey is undeniable, and today Walt would have had his ass handed to him in claims court by Universal for plagiarism.  But Universal turned a blind eye, and Mickey went on to vastly greater success than his long-eared predecessor.  With an undeniable "fuck you, Mintz", Disney's future success ensured that Universal never caught up again in the animation department.  Which, really, makes it very credible that Oswald's Wii counterpart is jealous of Mickey's success.  Poor Oswald was stolen from his creator, and replaced with a newer, shinier model, who went on to achieve everything Oswald could have had.  It's like that one episode of Venture Brothers with the deformed clone.

In the game, Oswald reigns supreme over, and I quote again, a "'cartoon wasteland", where Disney's forgotten and retired creations live".  If that's not deliberate commentary, then the game designer's muse has one hell of a sense of humour.  Finally realised in gamespace, that wasteland is exactly how I envision the inside of the Disney vault.  All the characters beloved in the Silly Symphonies and early features and holiday-themed shorts and scenes from the original Fantasia...well, many - if not all of them - would be in the public domain by now if not for the Mickey Mouse Protection Act.  Disney used its corporate power to prevent them from being released, and instead relegated them to a kind of alternate dimension where no one but dedicated Disney aficionados ever really sees them.  Take Song of the South, for example?  When complaints about racism made their testicles retract, Disney decided not to release the movie on video, but, in the interest of maintaining copyright, refused to hand it over to someone with big enough balls to release it.  In consequence, how many kids even know of the existence of Brer Rabbit - who, incidentally, I hope to God is in the video game!

So, who better to rule this wasteland of lost and forgotten characters, than the one character Disney actually lost?  Presumably, after the expected amount of time, Universal let Oswald's copyright lapse and the lovable rabbit took his place in the public domain, right?

Yeah right.  I'm having trouble figuring out whether Universal jumped on the MMPA bandwagon in '98, so arguably some of Oswald's earlier shorts entered the public domain in 1955, but in 2006 the Disney Company swooped down and purchased the trademark of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, giving them exclusive rights to use his image for profit.  In a "fuck you, Universal" gesture that would have made Walt proud if he weren't dead, Disney stole Oswald right back.  And, since I can't determine to any degree of accuracy whether they've done anything remotely creative with Oswald since they got him, Oswald seems even more perfectly suited to rule a domain inhabited by characters Disney clings to for no other reason than to prevent anyone else from profiting by them.

So, to summarise: Cranky Mickey, representing not only the Disney corporation as a whole but Walt's own obsession with copyright and ownership, is the perfect poster-child for the active Disney character, able to be re-programmed at will for maximum commercial value.  This is true even in the game: depending on how catankerously you choose to play Mickey, you can actually change his appearance.  Cranky Mickey, kept a willing slave to Disney by what I can only assume is a combination of mind-control drugs, hypnosis and occasional electroshock therapy, must brave the vast limbo of the Cartoon Wasteland, accompanied by his literally and metaphorically eviscerated friends of old.  There, lost and forgotten characters are trapped in limbo by Yen Side (another longtime trademark of Disney, particularly their darker side), their bleak equilibrium disturbed only when Cranky Mickey (read corporate Disney) chooses to screw with them - by doing something like, say, retroactively extending their copyright.

Meanwhile, Oswald, Disney's original lost character, is the first resident of the Cartoon Wasteland, which he rules as other characters make their lost and confused way there.  When Cranky Mickey's intervention creates the Phantom Blot (which I choose to read as the Public Domain), Oswald is forced into hiding (his time at Universal and post-1955 slip into the public domain).  Cranky Mickey must defeat the Phantom Blot and save the Cartoon Wasteland, winning back Oswald's trust and persuading him to join forces with him.  Yes, in my favourite part of the entire plot, Cranky Mickey must literally bring Oswald back to Disney.  It's so beautiful, it's almost Orwellian.

So, accidental alignment or brilliant corporate commentary?  I don't know, but as soon as someone offloads a secondhand copy to GameStop so I don't have to endorse Disney, I'm getting me this game!

This is Copyright Cat, signing off.