Everyone's favorite sweetheart from the Disney cartoons is getting her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as part of Mickey and Minnie's 90th birthday. To help celebrate, here is a nice little history about Minnie Mouse. Keep in mind that this blog is objective, unlike Oh My Disney, which I don't recommend. These are facts, not biased "OMG I love Disney" comments, with some opinions here and there (but don't worry, most of them are good opinions).
Minnie, along side Mickey Mouse, debuted in Steamboat Willie in 1928. It was the first animated cartoon to use complete synchronized sound. It also put Walt Disney on the map.
In 1929, the cartoon The Karnival Kid revealed Minnie's name for the first time "Minnie the Shimmy Dancer". This also marks the first time both Minnie and Mickey spoke. Walt Disney originally voiced the two, but in 1930, an inker named Marcellite Garner took over as the voice of Minnie. She's that high pitched voice we all remember her for.
For the most part of the 1930's, Minnie Mouse would co-star with Mickey as his lover. Mickey would always try to find ways to woo her and almost always in the end he gets his girl. As a matter of fact, Mickey's first theme song was all about Minnie (Minnie's Yoo Hoo).
As new characters such as Donald and Goofy came in, Minnie's presence became less and less. She still was Mickey's sweetheart, but with the popularity of The Three Stooges, it was only natural to just have Mickey, Donald, and Goofy together in the shorts.
As the Disney cartoons became more refined, so did Mickey and Minnie. They were given more detailed pupils in 1939 (though at times realistic mouse ears and mouse teeth would appear in the first few years). Sadly, this would become Minnie's final curtain call for now. With the success of other cartoon studios' new style of popular characters like Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, and Tom and Jerry, Mickey Mouse would be used even less to make way for more Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto cartoons, let alone Minnie being used less.
Minnie would appear in a few Pluto cartoons as his caretaker, but there was never any Minnie Mouse series theatrically, so her appearances were limited to Pluto, a handful of Mickeys, and a rarely seen series called Figaro (the kitty cat in Pinocchio). Her last co starring role was in 1950.
It wasn't totally the end of Minnie though. Repeats of Mickey's older adventures continued to be released. Minnie was also with Mickey in the Ice Capades, Disneyland, and merchandise such as toys and comic books. Sadly, that's all we saw of Minnie. She was considered old hat because cartoons were changing. In fact during the 70's, all of Disney was considered ancient despite trying to make new product. Oh sure, the characters were still iconic, but not as much exposure as they were back then and what they are today. Mickey would come back, but Minnie was still just a background character.
But then came the 80's. As part of Disney's new way of coming back, they decided to bring Minnie back for a new generation of girls with the Totally Minnie line. This includes new toys, new shows at theme parks, new fashion sense for Minnie, a new special, and since it's been a long time since she spoke, a new voice. Already voicing Miss Piggy and Gonzo for Muppet Babies, Rusi Taylor auditioned for the role and got the part which she continues to play to this day. At one point when she started working with Wayne Alwyne who was voicing Mickey Mouse at the time. It went from a mutual friendship into one of Disney's sweetest stories ever: they were married and remained married until Alwyne's death in 2009; Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse were a real life couple for a long while.
Minnie had since been featured in many Disney merchandise geared towards girls and women, and always wasn't too far behind when it came to any animated reboots of Mickey and his friends just like it was in the 1930's. A handful of series had Minnie in a starring role for the first time ever. She had a few of her own cartoons for Mickey Mouse Works and the House of Mouse. There's also been a few Minnie Mouse cartoons as part of the recent Paul Rudish Mickey Mouse short series in the 2010's. Minnie's Bow Toons showcases Minnie selling and making her bows and help problem solve, and more recently Minnie's Happy Helpers which consists of the second half of Mickey and the Roadsters.
90 years after the debut of Steamboat Willie, Mickey and Minnie are still as iconic as they were in their heyday. Times have changed, the Disney company has changed, and Minnie and Mickey changed a lot too in order to help better represent the company, but as Walt said, "I hope we never lose sight on one thing, that it was all started by a mouse", and Minnie, along side Mickey, represents that important piece of Disney, animation, and even American...no....WORLD history. It took some time for Minnie to get her star, but at long last her dream come true. Congratulations Minnie Mouse!! You deserve it!
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