After a decade and more than 120 episodes, ‘The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse,’ previously known as ‘Mickey Mouse’ shorts, concludes its magnificent run with one last film, a walk down memory lane that pays homage to the one that started it all, premiering today on Disney+.
Since the Emmy Award-winning Mickey Mouse shorts series premiered in June 2013, followed up by The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse, which premiered November 18, 2020 - Mickey’s 92nd birthday – the famous, iconic Disney cartoon gang that also includes Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Goofy and Pluto has starred in 121 episodes, each a hilarious blend of slapstick comedy and wholesome – yet quirky – fun.
Both series were developed and led by animation veteran Paul Rudish, co-creator of Sym-Bionic Titan, who also helped develop and direct the hit series Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, and The Powerpuff Girls for Cartoon Network.
The shorts successfully blend wacky, stylized animation (produced by Mercury Filmworks) with one odd premise after another – nothing heavy, and the endings are always happy. But there’s a slightly subversive edge to the action that’s so satisfying, so fun, just because… well… it’s Mickey Mouse. The execution is brilliant – they’ve done the brand proud.
So, it’s sad to say, Rudish’s time at the helm of this incredibly successful 10-year Mickey Mouse short cruise has come to an end, at least for now, though he leaves us with the penultimate series finale, Steamboat Silly, premiering today on Disney+.
In what hopefully isn’t the last “new” Mickey Mouse short in the foreseeable future, Mickey takes a stroll down memory lane by watching some old home movies he finds in his attic. But he inadvertently unleashes hundreds of Steamboat Willie Mickeys from a film reel… havoc ensues… before he and the gang must stop the hijinks and save the town.
And so, for the third time since 2015, I had a chance to speak to Rudish, who shared his thoughts about the series and how he and his talented team of artists decided how best to pay homage to almost 100 years of iconic Mickey Mouse short film history to culminate his decade of zany fun.
Check out the trailer:
Also, feel free to read our previous interviews before enjoying our latest chat.
- Paul Rudish Talks the All-New ‘The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse’
- Disney Television Animation’s Paul Rudish Talks New ‘Mickey Mouse’ Cartoon Shorts
Dan Sarto: Having just watched the Steamboat Silly short, and having seen every single short in the two series you produced over the last decade and then some, you did a really great job with this “grand finale” if you will.
Paul Rudish: Thanks.
DS: It's everything it needed to be to stay true to the style and tone of the latest shorts while integrating well-known legacy characters from Disney’s 100 years.
PR: Thanks. Well, we had an amazing team of fantastic talent. I get to take all the credit for everything they did.
DS: Listen, take the kudos when you can. Let me begin by asking, what was the goal of the final short? What were you looking to capture and how were you hoping to kind of wrap up the most recent short series?
PR: Well, originally, we were wrapping up on the last episodes of the season, and we got a call from on high, saying, “Oh, the hundredth anniversary's coming. Can you do one more special just for that?” And so, we're like, “All right, everybody come back. We're not laying you off yet. We got one more.” So, we looked at what we could do to celebrate the history of Disney and thought, “Well, let's look back at the history of Mickey Mouse himself, and see if there is a way we can do some sort of time warp thing to bring older iterations of Mickey into contact with Mickey himself.” A surreal kind of Mickey looking in the mirror kind of a thing.
We always loved all the original shorts from the '20s and the '30s with their zany style, and we're like, “Let's really go for it this time.” We go all the way back to Steamboat Willie. And we're like, “Is there a way he can meet himself back in those days?” So, we devised a kind of trip down memory lane, where all of Disney history is packed away in Mickey's attic. He's going to dig up his own past, and then as he reminisces fondly about it, once he meets the reality of what that reminiscence means, he’s like, “Oh, maybe it was a little bit crazier than I remembered.” Be careful what you wish for.
DS: How did you arrive at the final storyline, and how on earth did you decide which characters in Disney animated history to hook in? There’s so many you could have chosen from.
PR: We first thought, “Let's hook it back to the very first incarnation. We've got this whole trip down memory lane we could take, but let's go to the source and revive the very first Mickey cartoon that we all know.”
DS: And as far as paying homage to characters like Dumbo and Mickey from The Sorcerer's Apprentice, how did you determine who and what you were going to use?
PR: We picked ones that really kind of stand out or represent certain eras. The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a classic Mickey thing, and just like I said, just kind of throwing in images that we thought represented certain stages along Mickey's evolution. So even if it's not necessarily the most famous Mickey cartoon, there's a little bit from The Nifty Nineties, which was an old short from the '40s [1941]. But that had a unique look, that Freddie Moore design with the ears that actually worked in 3D. It was a very specific look we found as part of his evolution. So, we wanted to drop that one in there. And The Band Concert tornado. There was so much to choose from. But we really had to edit it down, and those are the ones we landed on.
DS: You not only landed on these older shorts, you also integrated their characters and visual styles so cleanly in the new film. You riff through so many different looks in a very short period of time. It’s really fun and entertaining.
PR: We pulled clips and archival stuff, even repurposing some of the original animation. We found little dance cycles and things that we replicated; we really put in the effort to highlight the different styles and make sure that little clip or that little dance cycle felt accurate to its source material, just out of reverence.
DS: To avoid any spoilers, the third act of the short, for want of a better phrase, is quite spectacular in how everything appears to finally calm down, and then… it doesn’t. Tell me a little bit about how you arrived at the big finale, and how difficult that was to produce compared to the first part of the short, let alone other shorts in the series?
PR: Yeah, we needed a climactic explosion for our story’s finale, so we were like, “Let's just throw the whole pot of soup at it.” Let's scoop up all the Mickey reference we've been looking at and just throw them all into the pot. To make a big splash. But production-wise, it wasn't terribly challenging. We came up with this big climax. And then through approvals, there were some things that we needed to edit out, just to shrink it down a little bit. But like I said, we had so much good research and access to the archives, that we could really collect our references. We sent clips to our animation team, and everyone was excited to do it. So, it wasn't a production nightmare. It was more fun for everybody to go, “Yeah, let's play with all the toys.”
DS: There's an irreverence in all 10 years of the shorts that has always surprised me in its boldness, but which I’ve always greatly appreciated. We spoke of this previously, how you’ve brought such a modern, cartoony, zaniness to these iconic characters that breaks the mold in some respects while remaining so respectful of this venerated franchise. You’ve managed to straddle so many different fences so deftly with regards to the essence of the craziness of Mickey Mouse and his friends, their storied history, creating a visual style and a type of crazy narrative that covers all these different bases for a new audience. What are some of the non-Disney cartoons that have influenced you, that you can see a bit in the style, both from a visual standpoint and from the actual animation and action standpoint, of how you've made these cartoons?
PR: Well, definitely Looney Tunes cartoons, all the classic Bugs Bunny shorts and whatnot. But I think a lot of... there are also other Disney influences, as far as looking at Mary Blair art direction… and Walt Peregoy was kind of influential on a lot of our background styles. But as far as non-Disney things, I think it was just kind of things that permeated into our way of ingesting film.
I don't know that there's a whole lot of direct influence that you can point to exactly, but we grew up watching anime too. And so that kind of filmography, that kind of filmmaking, seeps into our heads as well. There are certain camera moves, types of techniques, and other things that probably pulled from anime.
The formula has always been, we love the early Mickey Mouse cartoons from the '20s and '30s. We want to capture that kind of vibe, that kind of zaniness, that kind of surreal pantomime and physical humor. But we didn't want to copy or replicate a cartoon from 1932. We wanted to step off from those sensibilities, then with the natural quality of being a modern artist, use all the tools we've learned along the way. And reverence towards the old stuff will feel new, not by design, but because we are new. It's kind of almost too simple, but it’s going to take on its own vibe and its own personality just because we are a team of modern artists working in the modern age, with all the new tools and tricks at our disposal.
DS: Last question. Are there any new plans for continuing this wonderful new legacy of Mickey Mouse shorts?
PR: As far as continuing with Mickey, I'm not sure, because that's above my pay grade. That's up to the company and what they want to do. But I'm certainly game and would love to do more Mickey. I feel like our team has a lot more Mickey hidden inside that they'd be willing to squeeze out.
DS: OK, this is the last question. Are you satisfied with this substantial body of Mickey shorts work you’ve done? Were you able to take these shorts places you’d hope to go?
PR: I'm very proud of all the work we've done. I'm satisfied with the finished products. I'm very satisfied with the relationships that were founded and evolved with my team. But I wouldn't say satisfied in that I'm done and that's a chapter I can move away from. I mean, I can if it is. But if there should be a want for more, I know that there's more than we could do, and we'd be happy to do it. And over the 10 years we were talking about, one of the best things is bringing in new talent and sparking new ideas and getting fresh takes from fresh artists. Once these artists are allowed into Mickey's sandbox, they go bananas, and we get great stuff.
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
