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Monday, June 24, 2013

Mickey Mouse Gets Shot in Vietnam

Back in 1968 Milton Glaser (National Medal of Arts 2009) and Lee Savage create a crude one-minute cartoon, “Mickey Mouse in Vietnam,” which recently showed up on YouTube:



Salon has a few remarks HERE; Glaser is interviewed in BuzzFeed HERE.

Given that this little gem went on the web in late April, I'm wondering why DisneyCo hasn't ordered it taken down. Here's what Glaser said in the BuzzFeed interview:
Disney is very protective of their intellectual property. Did you ever hear from them after you screened the film? 
MG: No… There was some talk about Disney suing us, but I think the consequence of that — everybody realized — would have been negative for Disney and would have no benefit. And obviously no profit was made out of the utilization of the character or the film, so nothing ever happened.
He's talking about the situation back in '68, but things really haven't changed all that much. No one's taking any money out of Disney's corporate coffers through this little short from 45 years ago, but the PR consequences of kicking up a fuss would be just as bad now as they would have been back then. And perhaps worse, given widespread anti-copyright sentiment and the existence of social media.

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