A brand new documentary called “Mickey: The Story of a Mouse” is making its premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival later this week on March 19th 2022.

Mickey Mouse is one of the most enduring symbols in our history. Those three simple circles take on meaning for virtually everyone on the planet. So ubiquitous in our lives that he can seem invisible, Mickey is something we all share, with unique memories and feelings. Over the course of his nearly century-long history, Mickey functions like a mirror, reflecting our personal and cultural values back at us. “Mickey: The Story of a Mouse” explores Mickey’s significance, getting to the core of what Mickey’s cultural impact says about each of us and about our world.

“Mickey: The Story of a Mouse” features Eric Goldberg, Mark Henn, Randy Haycock, Floyd Norman, Carmenita Higginbotham, Rebecca Cline, Kevin Kern, and Bob Iger. The documentary is listed as 93 minutes long.

The film’s director, Jeff Malmberg has told the Wrap, that the film will be coming to Disney+ later this year.  During the interview, Jeff Malmberg explained that this documentary will be covering some controversial issues including how Disney used Mickey Mouse during World War 2:

I think because we’d set a tone of like, “Hey, don’t get us wrong. We love Mickey, but there’s some interesting things that happened.” I mean, to me, one of the more interesting moments in the film that … and I didn’t know it beforehand, but we found it when we were doing the research, was the Mickey au Camp de Gurs comic book that person made in the camp. And you even see if you look, it says in French, “produced without the authorization of Walt Disney.” Even then, they’re playing with the idea of authorship or who owns what. Those moments really speak to the power of the character.

I can’t speak for them, but it’s like in that instance, although it is World War II and I had heard that they were sensitive to that, really what we’re trying to bring up is that this character has tremendous power in a positive way. I didn’t ever get a sense from them that was a problem.

Other topics included in the documentary cover the Copywrite issue with Mickey Mouse:

I remember being in high school or something, hearing about a school that had Mickey on their wall and they had to paint it over and it just blew my mind. I didn’t get it. As I became someone who was interested in art, Mickey was this weird third rail.

And so, from my perspective, things like Milton Glaser’s short “Mickey Mouse in Vietnam.” There are examples of off-brand Mickey art that inform and better the character, in my mind. And when you see on-brand Mickey now, you see a little off-brand. And when you see off-brand Mickey, you see a little on-brand. And I think that actually makes for a really interesting character and somebody that I wanted to understand a little bit more, what that was about. Definitely the copyright thing, to me, was… “I’m going to get them to talk about this.” Now you see how they talk about it, I think it’s an initial kind of, I’m not going to solve the issue, but I can push the ball forward.

The documentary also is being released with a bonus animated Mickey Mouse short called “Mickey in a Minute,” which is a kind of truncated “Into the Spider-Verse”-style short that goes through the different Mickey eras, that has been animated by Mark Henn and Eric Goldberg.

No Disney+ release date has been announced for the documentary, but hopefully, we find out soon.

Are you interested in a new documentary about Mickey Mouse?

Roger Palmer

Roger has been a Disney fan since he was a kid and this interest has grown over the years. He has visited Disney Parks around the globe and has a vast collection of Disney movies and collectibles. He is the owner of What's On Disney Plus & DisKingdom. Email: Roger@WhatsOnDisneyPlus.com Twitter: Twitter.com/RogPalmerUK Facebook: Facebook.com/rogpalmeruk

View all posts