ter.ri.to.ri.al.i.ty n. The behavior of a male animal that defines and defends its territory. cu.ra.to.ri.al.i.ty™ n. The behavior of a curator that defines and defends his collection and its history.
This is a tough one. When I take groups through the museum, I always say that one gallery in particular serves as our focal point, the lynchpin in our story of American pop culture. The period including the Great Depression and World War II represents that focal point; it’s an era so important to our modern conception of ourselves as a nation and a people that the characters who were either first introduced then or reached their popularity peak at that time still resonate today. They are global icons, powerful symbols of American independence and invention, and embody all the ideals to which we most aspire.
The reason this is tough, though, is that this is a big, important era, filled with so many of the characters who also recur later in our timeline and still mean so much to so many of us now, regardless of whether you’re 8 or 80. Can we cover it all in just one installment of this series? Possibly not, but let’s find out! Set your temporal coordinates for 1928-1945 and prepare for the arrival of a maverick mouse and a not-so-mild-mannered Man of Tomorrow!
WHEN HEROES UNITE: 1928-1945
In the previous gallery, we offered a small tribute to one of the real-world historical figures that we consider honorary “characters” in their own right. Charles Lindbergh’s historic transatlantic flight not only served as a watershed moment in American and world history, but presaged a new movement in pop culture that led directly to the debut of two towering icons in our unfolding story.
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The first was a cartoon mouse named Mickey, created by Walt Disney to replace the recently lost Oswald the Rabbit and taking to the air in his first cartoon short, Plane Crazy. Emulating Lindbergh was the ‘in’ thing at the time, so Mickey’s monumental success story built on the inspiration that Lindy gave to a generation of children fascinated with flying into the clear blue skies. Many credit the November 18, 1928 premiere of Steamboat Willie as Mickey’s debut, but before he took to the rails, he had already appeared on May 15 of that year in a cockpit in the (initially) silent Plane Crazy. After another silent romp titled The Gallopin’ Gaucho, the mouse finally spoke (with Disney’s own voice) in Steamboat Willie and sound was retroactively added to his previous two appearances. The rest, as they say, is history, and Mickey was soon joined by a veritable pantheon of cartoon characters such as Minnie Mouse, Pluto, Goofy, and of course Donald Duck, whose 1934 debut in The Wise Little Hen introduced the world to Mickey’s greatest rival for popularity.
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Mickey’s edgier, prankster-like qualities were softened into the family-friendly mouse we know today. His fame spread far and wide, and Disney’s creation became not just a beloved character entertaining children and adults, but the center of a swiftly growing corporate empire that generated a mountain of related merchandise. Decades later, when the mouse headlined his own television show, just his two big black ears were all anyone needed to instantly recognize the “leader of the club that’s made for you and me.” But that’s a story for another gallery…
During its period of rapid development into a fixture of the modern American childhood, the Disney company didn’t rely on just its core characters to succeed. Its 1932 three-strip Technicolor short, Flowers and Trees, won the first Academy Award for Best Short Subject, Cartoons. Other short cartoon adaptations of classic children’s tales like The Three Little Pigs, The Grasshopper and the Ants, and The Tortoise and the Hare scored big with audiences, while feature animation became one of Disney’s enduring pop culture legacies through films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (their first full-length effort in 1937), Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi, Fantasia, and so many more. Disney also won the hearts of American audiences during World War II through productions that rallied support for the war effort and proclaimed our superiority in the battle against the Axis forces. Even Donald Duck himself got in on the action, confronting Nazis in Der Fuehrer’s Face.
I knew it; our time is almost up and we’ve only talked about Mickey and the many other Disney characters that share a spotlight in this gallery. But what about Superman? What about the whole rest of the room? Told you this was a tough one. Don’t worry, though, we’ll give this one the space it deserves.
In the next installment, we’ll return to 1928-1945 one more time to take a look at the all-pervasive influence of radio, the proliferation of kids’ clubs offering premiums and giveaways galore, and the first big round-up of dusty desperadoes and heroes from the Old West. Oh, and Superman.
This is a guest article. The thoughts and opinions in this piece are those of their author and are not necessarily the thoughts of the Certified Collectibles Group.
