Seed: The Mouse From U.N.C.L.E.
And speaking of dysfunctional accumulations of kin, sooner or later everyone gets around to wondering just what the hell is up with Mickey Mouse’s family. I can’t tell you how many hours of sleep I’ve sacrificed to this problem—it’s a real three o’clock in the morning booger--but you probably know exactly what I’m talking about.
Okay, Mickey has two nephews, Morty and Ferdie. Actually, he has at least three other nephews--Monty, Morrie, and Marmaduke--and a niece named Maisie, but there is no indication that these four are brothers and sister of Morty and Ferdie and their appearances in Mickey’s adventures are rare. I suspect that when they refer to Mickey as “Unca Mickey,” the name is more a sign of affection, an endearment. Or they could be the offspring of a member of the Mouse family with whom the film studios chose not to associate, like the lesser Baldwin brothers.
Now, Morty’s and Ferdie’s mom is Mrs. Amelia Fieldmouse. Notice that her last name differs from Mickey’s. This means that she is Mickey’s biological sister married to a Mr. Fieldmouse. If she were married to Mickey’s brother, her surname would also be “Mouse” and not “Fieldmouse,” unless, of course, Mickey shortened his name when he went into the movie business (not unknown in Hollywood). But if Mickey has a brother, who is he and why have we never seen him? Was he killed in WW I? Did he sell out to M-G-M and change his name to “Jerry”? Was he eaten by Felix the Cat?
Research has led most investigators to believe that Amelia Fieldmouse is, in fact, Mickey’s sister; but that being the case, why does Mickey always call her “Mrs. Fieldmouse”? What has happened between these siblings that forces one of them to address the other so formally?
And then there is the alternative, the Hollywood Babylonian theory as to what is really going on.
Rumors abound that documents still exist proving that Amelia Fieldmouse and Minnie Mouse, Mickey’s long-term girlfriend, were roommates when they both attended classes at Ratcliffe College in the early 1920s. Mickey’s pre-1928 history, before his starring debut in the film “Plane Crazy,” is obscure, but his frequent co-star, Goofy (real name Dippy Dawg), drunkenly let slip at his Oscar Watch Party in 1944—“How to Play Football” lost to the patriotic fervor of “The Yankee Doodle Mouse”—that Mickey had worked as a groundskeeper at Ratcliffe while the girls were enrolled there. Before Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow could hustle the besotted Goof away from the prying ears of the press, he hinted that Mickey and Amelia had carried on a brief but passionate affair and that Mickey’s “nephews” were in fact nothing of the kind.
When reporters called on Mickey the next day, he slammed the door in their faces while yelling “No comment!” They rushed to see Minnie, who put them off with a shy, girlish giggle.
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, who had been slated for stardom with Walt Disney before being sold off to another producer due to high salary demands and who never scaled the heights of fame his replacement with Disney, Mickey Mouse, achieved, tried to tell anyone who would listen about the Mickey/Amelia scandal, but the thugs Pegleg Pete and the Beagle Boys, who worked for Disney, made sure that Oswald was ignored by spreading false and slanderous gossip about Oswald and Screwy Squirrel, thereby ruining the rabbit’s credibility and both careers. Pete and the Beagles were rewarded with small and villainous film roles.
Minnie Mouse, who certainly has the looks but not the smarts or talent necessary for a prolonged career in motion pictures, is said to have been richly rewarded for helping to maintain Mickey’s “good guy” image for nearly 80 years.
Whew. Sorry to have taken up so much of your time with this thing, but the obvious oddness in Mickey’s relationship with his “nephews” and their mother has been of primary concern to me since childhood and I just had to get some of this stuff off my chest.
Now, just don’t get me started about Donald, Huey, Dewey, Louie and Uncle Scrooge . . .
Labels: cheap sarcasm, dysfunctional family, Hollywood
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