Mighty Mouse facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Mighty Mouse |
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Late 1950s/Early 1960s depiction of Mighty Mouse used in the opening of TV prints of many cartoons.
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| First appearance | Mouse of Tomorrow (1942) |
| Last appearance | Cat Alarm (1961) |
| Created by | Paul Terry |
| Voiced by | Roy Halee, Sr. (theatrical cartoons) Tom Morrison (Mighty Mouse Playhouse) Alan Oppenheimer (The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle) Patrick Pinney (Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures) |
| Information | |
| Species | Mouse |
| Gender | Male |
Mighty Mouse is a famous American superhero mouse from cartoons. He was created by the Terrytoons studio.
This super mouse first appeared in 1942 in a short cartoon called The Mouse of Tomorrow. Back then, he was known as Super Mouse. His name changed to Mighty Mouse in 1944. He starred in many cartoons until 1961.
Mighty Mouse became even more popular when his TV show, Mighty Mouse Playhouse, started in 1955. It was a big hit on Saturday mornings! The character was brought back for new TV shows in 1979 and 1987.
Mighty Mouse also appeared in many comic books. He is well-known for his catchy theme song, "Mighty Mouse Theme (Here I Come to Save the Day)".
Contents
Super Mouse: How He Started
The idea for this superhero mouse came from an animator named Isidore Klein in 1942. He thought it would be fun to make a cartoon character that was a funny version of Superman.
Paul Terry, who ran the Terrytoons studio, liked the idea. But he suggested a mouse instead of a fly.
The character was first called "Super Mouse". His very first cartoon, The Mouse of Tomorrow, came out on October 16, 1942.
In a book called Of Mice and Magic, a writer named Leonard Maltin described how Super Mouse got his powers:
The city cats were making life hard for the mice. They set traps and chased the mice all the time. One mouse escaped a hungry cat and ran into a huge supermarket. He decided to change himself completely. He bathed in Super Soap, drank Super Soup, ate Super Celery, and dove into a giant piece of Super Cheese. From this, he suddenly became Super Mouse! He was no longer a tiny mouse. Now he was a strong, two-footed mouse with big muscles. He wore a costume like Superman's, with a red cape. His powers were similar too: he could fly and stop bullets with his chest. Super Mouse flew to help his fellow mice. He sent the bad cats flying to the moon! When he returned, his happy friends cheered him. The narrator said, "Thus ends the adventure of Super Mouse... he seen his job and he done it!"
The first voice for Super Mouse (and later Mighty Mouse) was Roy Halee, Sr. He was a singer who often sang on the radio.
In his next cartoon, Frankenstein's Cat (1942), Super Mouse made fun of scary monster movies. In another cartoon, Pandora's Box (1943), his origin story changed. Now, he became Super Mouse by eating vitamins A through Z! He made seven cartoons as Super Mouse before his name changed.
Mighty Mouse: New Name and Look
In 1944, Paul Terry found out that another character named "Super Mouse" was going to be in comic books. So, he changed his character's name to Mighty Mouse. The first cartoon with the new name was The Wreck of the Hesperus, released on February 11, 1944.
A few months later, Mighty Mouse's costume changed. At first, he wore blue with a red cape, like Superman. But in the June 16, 1944 cartoon Eliza on the Ice, Mighty Mouse appeared in a red costume with a yellow cape for the first time. This was also the first time he was shown living among the stars, flying down from the sky to save the day.
His final look appeared in the 15th cartoon, The Sultan's Birthday, on October 13, 1944. In this cartoon, designed by Connie Rasinski, Mighty Mouse looked bigger and stronger. He wore a yellow outfit with a red cape and red shorts.
Like Superman, Mighty Mouse has many amazing powers. He can fly, has super-strength, and is almost impossible to hurt. In early cartoons, he was a tough fighter. He would often fly under an enemy's chin and punch them many times to win.
His powers could change depending on the story. Sometimes, villains would knock him out or stop him for a short time. But he would always get back up to save the day. In some cartoons, he could see through things with X-ray vision or move objects with his mind (psychokinesis). He even traveled back in time in the 1946 cartoon The Johnstown Flood. In other cartoons, like Krakatoa (1945), he left a red trail when he flew that he could use like a solid, bendable rope.
Paul Terry once said that Mighty Mouse's power was like a higher power helping out. He explained that when things were really bad for the mice, someone would ask, "Isn't there someone who can help?" Then, "Yes, there is someone; it's Mighty Mouse!" He would fly down from the sky and defeat the bad guys. Mighty Mouse became like a hero who saved all "mouse-kind."
Mighty Mouse usually fights cats. But sometimes, he battles special villains who only appear in one or two cartoons. During World War II, some early "Super Mouse" cartoons showed the cats as bad guys like the Nazis, trapping mice in ways that looked like concentration camps. Other villains included the Bat-cats (alien cats with wings) and a huge, strong cat named Julius "Pinhead" Schlabotka. He also fought human bad guys like Bad Bill Bunion. In The Green Line (1944), an evil cat tried to make cats and mice fight, but Mighty Mouse made them friends again.
Musical Adventures
In 1945, Mighty Mouse and the Pirates was the first cartoon where the characters sang their lines, like in a mini-opera. Other cartoons like Gypsy Life (1945) and The Crackpot King (1946) also used this style. Gypsy Life was very popular and was even nominated for an Academy Award.
These cartoons often had a romantic story. Mighty Mouse would save a beautiful mouse from danger. Then, the cartoon would end with him and the girl in a loving hug.
In 1947, a new type of musical cartoon started with A Fight to the Finish. In these, Mighty Mouse saved a character named Pearl Pureheart (or "Little Nell") from a sneaky, mustache-twirling cat villain called Oil Can Harry. These cartoons were like funny versions of old-fashioned adventure stories.
A Fight to the Finish started with a narrator setting the scene, pretending it was a continuing story. Oil Can Harry tied Pearl Pureheart to a railroad track with a bomb! Mighty Mouse had to save her from the train and then fight Harry. Pearl also got into trouble at a sawmill. The narrator would often ask, "Will Mighty Mouse arrive in time? See the following episode, next week!" But then, they would quickly show the happy ending.
Oil Can Harry and Pearl Pureheart appeared in many more cartoons over the next six years. One memorable cartoon was The Perils of Pearl Pureheart (1949). In this one, Oil Can Harry hypnotized Pearl to sing on stage while he stole money. Pearl kept singing even when Mighty Mouse and Harry were fighting all around her, even underwater!
To make things more exciting, the stories took place in different locations, like Italy, Switzerland, Holland, and even prehistoric or medieval times.
Mighty Mouse on TV
Mighty Mouse Playhouse
Mighty Mouse became very famous on television. In 1955, the Terrytoons studio was sold to CBS. CBS then turned the old cartoons into a popular Saturday morning show called Mighty Mouse Playhouse. The show ran from December 10, 1955, to September 2, 1967. They mostly used the cartoons that had already been made. Only three new cartoons were created after the sale.
Tom Morrison provided the voice for Mighty Mouse in the new parts of the TV show.
The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle
In 1979 and 1980, another company called Filmation made new TV cartoons starring Mighty Mouse. The show was called The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle. It also featured other Terrytoon characters like Heckle and Jeckle. New characters were added, like a vampire duck named Quacula and Oil Can Harry's clumsy helper, Swifty.
Each episode had two traditional Mighty Mouse cartoons. It also included a science-fiction story called "The Great Space Chase". The show also had cartoons with Heckle & Jeckle and Quacula. The "Space Chase" episodes were later put together to make a movie called Mighty Mouse in the Great Space Chase in 1982.
Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures
In 1987 and 1988, a cartoon producer named Ralph Bakshi created a new series for CBS called Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures. Ralph Bakshi had actually started his career at Terrytoons. In this series, Mighty Mouse had a secret identity named Mike Mouse. He also had a sidekick, a little orphan mouse named Scrappy Mouse. This cartoon was made for kids, but it also had a lot of funny jokes and hidden meanings that adults enjoyed.
One famous episode featured a crossover with another of Bakshi's creations, the Mighty Heroes. In this episode, the Mighty Heroes were grown-up accountants.
Later Years
Marvel Comics made a 10-issue comic book series about Mighty Mouse in 1990 and 1991. Not much new Mighty Mouse material has been made since then, except for an arcade game by Atari and a TV commercial in 2001. The commercial showed Mighty Mouse calmly eating cheese while chaos happened outside. It was quickly removed after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
The rights to Mighty Mouse were split between different companies for a while. But in 2019, CBS Corporation and Viacom merged again, bringing all the rights to Mighty Mouse back under one company, ViacomCBS.
Future Film
As early as 2004, Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies announced plans for a new Mighty Mouse movie. It would be a CGI animated film.
In 2019, writers Jon and Erich Hoeber joined the project for Paramount Animation. The film is now planned to mix CGI animation with live-action.
Comics
Mighty Mouse first appeared in comic books in Terry-Toons Comics #38 in November 1945. He was featured in several comic book series over the years:
- Terry-Toons Comics (1945–1951)
- Paul Terry's Comics (1951–1955)
- Mighty Mouse (1946–1959)
- The Adventures of Mighty Mouse (1955–1968)
- Mighty Mouse by Marvel Comics (1990), based on the new TV series.
- Mighty Mouse by Dynamite Entertainment (2017–2018)
In 1953, Mighty Mouse was in Three Dimension Comics #1. This was the very first comic book published in 3D! It sold a huge number of copies, 1.2 million, at a higher price than regular comics.
Video Games
- In October 2008, two pachinko games called CR Terry Toons – Mighty Mouse were released in Japan.
- On February 22, 2012, a video game called MIGHTY MOUSE My Hero was released for iOS devices, including a special HD version for the iPad.
- In early 2019, a Mighty Mouse Mini Claw Machine toy was released.
Cultural Impact
Mighty Mouse has influenced many things in popular culture:
- Japanese animator Osamu Tezuka said that Mighty Mouse inspired him to name his famous character Mighty Atom (also known as Astro Boy). He also copied Mighty Mouse's flying pose.
- Mighty Mouse was planned to appear in a deleted scene from the 1988 movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
- The famous guitarist Tom Scholz had Mighty Mouse featured on his guitar.
- A song by Jimi Hendrix called Astro Man includes a part of the "Here I come to save the day!" fanfare.
- Comedian Andy Kaufman had a famous act where he would stand still and only lip-sync the line "Here I come to save the day!" from the Mighty Mouse theme song. This act was shown in the 1999 movie Man on the Moon.
- Mighty Mouse was on the uniform of NASCAR driver Alan Kulwicki and on his race car in 1992.
Apple Trademark Dispute
On August 2, 2005, Apple released their first computer mouse with multiple controls. It was called the Apple Mighty Mouse. Apple kept using the name when they made a wireless version in 2006. Before its release, CBS (who owned the rights to Mighty Mouse) gave Apple permission to use the name.
However, in 2008, a company called Man and Machine, Inc. sued Apple and CBS. This company made computer mice for medical use and claimed they had been using the "Mighty Mouse" name since 2004. They said CBS didn't have the right to let Apple use the name for computer products. In 2009, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office agreed with Man and Machine. After that, Apple changed the name of its product to the "Apple Mouse".
Images for kids
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Late 1950s/Early 1960s depiction of Mighty Mouse used in the opening of TV prints of many cartoons.
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Mighty Mouse Playhouse.jpg
Mighty Mouse Playhouse title card
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Apple Mighty Mouse
See also
In Spanish: El Super Ratón para niños
