There have been a bunch of super-powered funny animal characters over the years, but I think the first that made an impression on me was Mighty Mouse. As I kid I loved watching Warner Brothers and Disney cartoons, and here was a cartoon who was also a superhero! Sure, Daffy, Bugs and Donald had all put on a super suit for an episode, but Mighty Mouse was a hero full-time, not for just a single short. They didn't play a lot of MM cartoons in my area when I was growing up, so it was always a treat to get to see one.
"Here I come to save the day!"
ReplyDeleteOnly Mighty Mouse could pull off singing. I loved those 'toons as a kid.
It just occurred to me that MM remains the only "super" cartoon to play off the "Wagner" operatic motif of a singing hero (and sometimes singing villains). That was genius! And yet I never thought about until reading AirDave's comments.
ReplyDeleteSidenote: In the '40s, there were three Woody Woodpecker cartoons that incorporated abstract art and obscure Russian/Cossack folk singing. There were many frustrated writers and artists during that period who could only find work in animation, and many influenced the cartoons of that era!
Fantastic team-up! I remember watching both the original cartoon and Ralph Bakshi's attempted revival.
ReplyDeleteI've generally thought it would be cool to team MM up with Underdog, though. Since Underdog generally speaks in rhymes, they could have a musically-themed adventure, with Mighty Mouse singing and Underdog rapping.
Or you could make an alternate "Zoo Crew" out of it, with Atom Ant, Darkwing Duck, and a fifth that I can't come up with offhand.
Either one could be trying to stop a certain pair of genetically-altered lab mice from taking over the world.
(PS: I think you need a comma after the word "watch" in Mighty Mouse's dialogue. It's the difference between telling CC to watch Mr. Whiskers, which is what you have, and calling CC Mr. Whiskers and telling him to watch, which is what I think you intended.)
He's saying Watch ME Whiskers. It's the actual balloon from the original cover.
ReplyDeleteLove this team-up. Animal characters are always fun. I agree with Bob about Underdog, and like his team idea. How about Hong Kong Phooey on that team? Or Dyno-mutt sans Blue Falcon?
ReplyDeleteWell, Underdog, HKP and Dynomutt are already in a team together - Ace and the Dogs of War!
ReplyDeleteAh, from the original cover... that would explain (at least partially) why I misread it. That, and I've started to grow accustomed to people miswriting stuff -- though you're generally really good about that, at least on the covers.
ReplyDeleteI guess it was just an argument, well, spoken.
Oh, and I didn't include HKP and Dynomutt in my list because I'd already mentioned Underdog, and those two are also dogs. I wanted to give a whole different species. (It's too bad there are only two images extant of Suicide Squid!)
ReplyDeleteYou've been pretty good about including anthropomorphics occasionally, but I haven't seen Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse. Frankly, I don't think that there were any comics for them and they weren't interesting enough on their own to inspire the kind of pairings you usually come up with but they wouldn't be bad in a group, sort of like Crimson Avenger and Wing or Mr. Scarlet and Pinky.
ReplyDeleteNow let's have a Mighty Mouse and Spider-Ham team up!
ReplyDelete