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Who are you again?
“Epic Mickey” was a video game that, while enjoyable, suffered from multiple problems. One of them was that it perhaps catered to too narrow of an audience. It was chock full of Disney history – and I mean old school, black and white short cartoons Disney history – but it was a video game. How many gamers also get a thrill from references to Mickey’s most obscure cartoon companions? I imagine that there isn’t too much of an audience overlap.
Of course that’s not to say that no one enjoys the two; the game’s developer himself moots that theory. Lauded video game designer Warren Spector created “Epic Mickey.” His personal interests show in the game; he did a master’s thesis for the University of Texas on a critical history of cartoons.
While I completely sympathize with Spector for creating the video game that perhaps he would most want to play, and while I thought I was really into Disney history, it was hard for me to relate to characters like Clarabelle Cow. I was much more excited when playing through “Kingdom Hearts” to interact with Winnie the Pooh and Jack Skellington.
But today I want to look at all of the elements of Disney history in “Epic Mickey,” something I didn’t have space for in my review of the game. I hope this might intrigue some of you enough to give the game a try.
Obviously the most famous element of Disney history in “Epic Mickey” is the inclusion of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit as a central character. The Walt Disney Company actually had to buy back the rights to the character from Universal a few years ago when the game was in development, in order for them to use him.
Oswald’s journey in the game is interesting, perhaps even more so than Mickey’s (who goes from his troublemaking short-cartoon version of himself in the opening animation to the famous stalwart hero before the player is even given control of his character. He has to atone for and fix his mistakes, but because he feels guilty from the beginning he doesn’t really have that much actual character development). Oswald created Wasteland as an alternative Disneyland in which he and his fellow forgotten figures could live. Before the Shadow Blot ruined things, it was a cheerful copy of the original, not always a dark mirror house version.
Oswald hates Mickey because he feels that Mickey stole his rightful place at Walt Disney’s side (one location in the game even contains the famous statue of Walt holding Mickey’s hand from Disneyland, only Walt grasps Oswald’s hand instead). But as he interacts with Mickey he begins to sway, and the game ends with them as caring brothers.
The other most interesting bit of Disney history has also been mentioned: Walt Disney’s apartment. But “Epic Mickey” contains so much more. Just about every Mickey short, not only all the classic black and white ones but a few more modern ones, are represented as the settings for the miniature platform levels players much traverse when getting from one area to another in the game.
The world is populated by forgotten characters: the already mentioned Clarabelle, the gremlins from Disney’s World War II public service announcements, Horace Horsecollar, the Lonesome Ghosts, Ortensia (a feline love interest for Oswald from his old cartoons), The Mad Doctor, and so many more. I hadn’t even heard of most of these characters before playing. It’s basically an obscure Disney history fan’s ultimate dream. Now if we could just have a sequel to “Epic Mickey,” one that keeps all of the good stuff from the original but fully lives up to its potential.
Related Articles:
Is It Time for Mickey Mouse to Get a Facelift?
Rare Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Cartoon Discovered
Walt Disney and the U.S. State Department
*(This image by meshmar2 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.)
