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Article: U.S. Icon Mickey Mouse Set to Turn 75
- Article from:
- AP Online
- Article date:
- November 17, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Associated Press. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Associated Press. (Hide copyright information)
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MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press Writer
AP Online
11-17-2003
Dateline: ORLANDO, Fla.
Mickey Mouse arrived on the world's cultural stage 75 years ago Tuesday as a scrawny but buoyant black-and-white product of the Jazz Age.
He was a symbol of American pluck in his screen debut, "Steamboat Willie," on Nov. 18, 1928. The film at New York's Colony Theatre showed an irreverent rodent who takes Captain Pete's steamboat on a joyride and woos Minnie Mouse by making music on the bodies of various farm animals.
The years have dulled Mickey's personality, a result of him becoming the corporate face of a multibillion-dollar entertainment empire. In the process, Mickey also has become a cultural Rorschach ...