Mickey Mouse is 94.
The pipsqueak rodent in oversized shoes who went on to spawn a billion-dollar industry, featuring the likes of a dog in a suit walking its pet dog on a leash…well, you get the Disneyesque picture.
MM’s milestone birthday is major news, not least for creatives and merchandisers worldwide, for it signals the rat’s entry into public domain.
Meaning the vermin’s copyright protection has expired ; bye-bye intellectual property laws, you and I can reproduce, use and share Mickey Mouse in any form without payment, without permission, from its creator.
Alarming prospect isn’t it, a global flood of those meeces (Minnie et al)…I hope Sylvester the Puddy Tat (79 years) is equally rampant.
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More to the point though, how does this critter keep his looks? He’s 94 landssake, I mean, talk about Frozen! MM is practically the grandfather of the rest of the stable of cartoon characters, so how does he retain his bouncy-castle crease-free life?
Wouldn’t we love to have his fountain of youth formula, knowing full well that wishing on a star alone won’t cut it.
You can thank me later. There is no secret recipe to resisting the passage of time. To have Mickey Mouse’s unwrinkled immortality, you have to become — a Steamboat Willie toot here — a CARTOON!
Yes, be a cartoon, as Jackie Chan has done, 20 years ago now, in his Jackie Chan Adventure series. He’ll live for eternity there.
As could you, in a virtual universe, your avatar.
Serena Williams is one of a clutch of celebrities set to become a virtual influencer. Via her daughter Alexis’s favourite doll, Qai Qai. (In Invisible Universe, ai-ai-ai, Google lah.)
Little did Shakespeare realise when he penned those immortal words :
“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale,
Her infinite variety.” (Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, Scene II)
how uncannily possible it all is, and without invasive surgery too.
“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale,
Her infinite variety.” (Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, Scene II)
how uncannily possible it all is, and without invasive surgery too.
(I’ll have you know people on the street recognise me from my cartoon, perhaps caricature is closer to the truth.)
We mortals learn of the existence of Immortals in Greek mythology.
Another path to immortality — a la mode Mickey Mouse — is to be tapped on the shoulder by some senior member of British royalty.
Take for example lads like Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney, vain enough to desire and accept the Sir title bestowed. (Keith Richards, a die hard rocker true to his strolling bones, declined.)
Forever after to be immortalised as a ceramic jug collecting dust on the mantelpiece. I must confess to having bought an Elvis Presley clock.
Artificial intelligence has put paid to stories like The Picture of Dorian Gray, lamentably. You have only to watch the last Indiana Jones where Harrison Ford was rejuvenated several times over.
The singular exception I can think of, for reverse immortality, would be Pinocchio. Where the wooden puppet could have lived forever, instead wished to become a real life boy.
And now for the best news of all, regarding public domain, and a short lease on immortality, this could be your year. To write and produce a musical or crime drama, any genre really.
Because you have at your imaginative disposal, much material that is in the public domain. In 2024.
Just picture it.
The House at Pooh Corner, Tarzan Lord of the Jungle, Peter Pan the Boy who wouldn’t Grow Up, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and Mickey Mouse!
With songs you can use free of copyright, I Wanna Be Loved By You, Mack the Knife, Ramona, etc.
Toss it all into your juicer called AI, and see what it produces.
You didn’t suspect Lady Chatterley’s Lover is Tarzan?
