Dark Illustrations of Mickey Mouse & Friends Will Make You Rethink Your Childhood

Dark Illustrations of Mickey Mouse & Friends Will Make You Rethink Your Childhood

“Oh, I adored Mickey Mouse when I was a child. He was the emblem of happiness and funniness. You went to the movies then, you saw two movies and a short. When Mickey Mouse came on the screen and there was his big head, my sister said she had to hold onto me. I went berserk.” 

– Maurice Sendak

The Disney company is famous for creating animations and characters adored by children throughout the world and, indeed, across several generations. I mean, think of Sendak. He was old enough to be my grandfather and, statistically speaking, most of you peoples’ as well. But he loved Mickey Mouse as a child, we all probably know at least one person our age who was a Mickey fan, and children nowadays are still tuning into the Disney Channel to see his adventures.

The company is a success story, but it was definitely not smooth sailing through the decades, on its way to owning Lucas Film and Marvel.

The company was founded out of the “ashes” of Walt Disney’s previous attempt at creating a production company, called Laugh-O-Gram Films. It went bankrupt in 1923, and Disney moved with his brother, Roy O. Disney, to Hollywood and formed the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, which later changed its name to Walt Disney Studio.

Their first success was a series of Alice Comedies they did for M.J. Winkler Productions, who bought the series for 1,500$ per reel. After that, the studio created their first original character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, which featured in 26 shorts, before Disney lost the contract, and four of his primary animators to Charles Mintz’s animation studio, Snappy Comedies.

To recover from the loss of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney came up with the idea of a brand new character; one that would become virtually synonymous with the Disney Company’s identity. You guessed it! I am talking about Mickey Mouse; who was this close to being called Mortimer, if Disney’s wife had not disliked the sound of Mortimer Mouse.

(For the record, I think Mortimer Mouse looks way cooler than Mickey.)

The character’s first big hit was Steamboat Willie, and many people attribute this success to the fact that it featured synchronized sound. It was, in fact, the first ever cartoon to feature it, so you can imagine how awestruck audiences were.

Steamboat Willie’s success led to Columbia Pictures’ signing on as the distributor of the Silly Symphonies series of animations, the founding of the first Mickey Mouse Club, a Mickey Mouse comic strip, done by King Features in the New York Mirror, and Walt Disney Studios being reorganized as a corporation called Walt Disney Productions, Limited with a merchandising division.

In 1932, the studio released the first ever color cartoon, Flowers and Trees, as part of the Silly Symphonies series, and its popularity, together with that of Mickey Mouse, allowed the studio to start planning the release of its first feature-length cartoon.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney’s first feature-length, was released in 1937 and quickly became the highest-grossing movies at the box office. A position it held for an astonishing two years.

During the Second World War, most of the company’s staff was involved in creating propaganda and training cartoons for both the United States and Canadian governments. However, this period also saw the release of some of their best-known and most beloved animations, including Bambi, Dumbo, and Fantasia.

In the 1950’s, Disney made their first live-action film, Treasure Island. The success of Treasure Island inspired the studio to make more live-action movies during the 50’s, such as The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men and 20, 000 Leagues Under the Sea. All these successes eventually lead to the release of the Academy Award-winning Mary Poppins, in 1964.

Walt Disney died in 1966, and 1967 saw the release of the last two pictures made under his supervision, The Jungle Book, and The Happiest Millionaire. The studio continued releasing a number of comedies throughout the 60’s, including 1969’s highest grossing film, The Love Bug, and The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.

What followed was a tough 30 years for the company, with lawsuits, management changes, and box office bombs, but in the 2000’s Disney began its rise to the glory we know now.

Now it is time for a huge disclaimer on my half. I never really got into the classic Disney characters, like Mickey Mouse (perhaps if he was called Mortimer, after all…), Donald Duck, and Goofy Whatever-He-is-Supposed-to-be. I was always more of a Looney Tunes kind of person, and I think they are objectively better.

Looney Tunes had this great sarcastic humor and, as the years have gone by, it was plain to see for everyone that the Warner’s cartoons were making children laugh with slapstick, while engaging the adult audiences with links to “adult stuff”, at times perhaps being even a bit saucy.

I will not go into the racism debate, as both have made pretty big faux-pas in that direction.

But I digress. The idea of this article is showing you the Disney characters as you have never seen them before. So come one, come all, and marvel at Jose Durán’s incredible mug shot illustrations of beloved characters!

Dark Illustrations of Disney Characters

Image Source

Dark Illustrations of Disney Characters

Image Source

Dark Illustrations of Disney Characters

Image Source

Dark Illustrations of Disney Characters

Image Source

Dark Illustrations of Disney Characters

Image Source

Dark Illustrations of Disney Characters

Image Source

Definitely giving them a bit of an edge, there, Jose. I would definitely love to see these characters’ insidious lives, way more than I would their usual Disney adventures.

Anyway, that about concludes this article. I hope you enjoyed the pictures, as well as the brief history lecture on the company I gave. And I also hope you will scroll down the comment section, and share any thoughts you may have.

Which team are you on? Team Disney or Team Looney?

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