Toy OTD: Wendy's Mighty Mouse - The New Adventures Premiums (1988)

Since I worked on Ralph Bakshi's The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse (and being my first job in animation), I was very excited about any merchandising tie-ins related with the show! Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot to be had (especially by today's standards), and most of it wasn't very good. The best of the lot - and the closest thing to action figures the show got - were the Wendy's kid's meal premiums.

I'm not sure I understand the play concept behind this line. Maybe the suction cups were simply intended to be bases - but it's not really used consistently, as you'll see. They're not exactly action figures, nor are they really window clings (like the enormously popular Garfield items were in the '80s), so the functionality of the toys is somewhat awkwardly conceived.

The character choices for the line make a lot of sense - since it was probably cooked up during the first season, all the toys are first season characters. Fortunately, they're all pretty prominent and popular. I wonder what Wendy's got to see from the show while creating the figures... partial episodes? Model sheets?

The sculpts are decent for a fast food premium. The characters are reasonably on-model, and some of the poses are asymmetrical. Unfortunately, the scale is all over the place: The Cow (the biggest character in the cartoon) is the smallest toy, and Scrappy's scale in the hierarchy is reversed, too. It's a shame, because individually the toys aren't too bad.

The paint work is pretty good, too - the colors are accurate and emphasize the sculpts' details well. The facial paint is reasonably clean and sharp. Mighty Mouse's eyelashes are fairly crisp, and bonus points for the highlight on Bat-Bat's sidekick, Tick.

There's no articulation at all, being the size the toys are, but at least the figures balance okay. I should say the standing figures balance well - which brings us to the bigger flaws.

All of the toys have a suction cup molded onto their feet, ostensibly to stick onto a surface like a dashboard or a window pane. The problem is that some of the figures are sculpted standing upright, while others are horizontal, in a flying pose. As a result, they don't display together well at all. Additionally, the suction cups don't stick very firmly, especially after prolonged use.

Like most fast-food premiums, the packaging is minimal and not all that compelling to look at. It's exactly what you'd expect - clear plastic bags decorated with some single-pass graphics. Inexpensive and practical, which makes sense for giveaways. Each toy did include a trading card of the character, which added a little more color.

Since these figures are over twenty years old, it may take a little while to get the whole set. You can get three of them (Bat-Bat, Pearl & Petey Pate still bagged) on eBay for $4.99 + shipping, and Mighty Mouse sells for $1.29 + shipping on eBid. At the moment, Scrappy isn't for sale online at all - odd, as I'd guess that he's the least popular of the characters. Good luck!

It's Mighty Mouse Drop Day!

That's right, the day I thought would never come has arrived - Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures comes out on DVD! You can get it at Amazon.com for $28.99 + shipping, or at your local DVD retailer.

You'll get all the original episodes, plus a new documentary featuring interviews with lots of the show's creators (including me - it was my first job in animation way back in 1987)!

After twenty-two years of waiting, why wait any longer? Pick up a copy today!

Toy OTD: Electric Tiki Teeny Weeny Mini-Maquette: Mighty Mouse (2003)

Electric Tiki just keeps those great pop-culture figurines coming! This is another spiffy one displaying the standard pluses and minuses of the company's products.

On the plus side, the character sculpt and posing really maintain the spirit of the cartoon! He's still got that oddly soft look. The only detail that I miss are the eyelashes - for some reason I associate them with Terrytoons denizens. They really stuck out to me on their characters, even though (as a design element) they were probably pretty common in that era.

The paint work is quite strong, right down to the airbrushed cheeks. Metallics and gloss paint are used sparingly, accenting details (like the eyes and nose) nicely.

The base is oddly industrial-looking, since most of the shorts were set in rural (or simple urban) environments. Still, it feels fine for the period.

The biggest minus - for me, it's a personal bugaboo - is the logo. As I've said so often before, I know who the character is (that's why I'm buying it), and I seldom like branding on my merchandise. Additionally, I think the logo could've been executed in a way to support the retro styling a little more.

The packaging is of a piece with most Electric Tiki boxes - it's got shelf presence, but the overall impact is a bit busy, swarming with text, logos and stills. I consider packaging design to be frosting (most of the time, I recycle all of it, since space is an issue), but I think there's a missed opportunity here to let the design reflect the old-school styling of the maquette. Minor in the big scheme of things, really.

This version of of Mighty Mouse is long sold out, and was popular enough to merit the production of another maquette of the character a little later on. I prefer the first version myself, but even the second statue is getting tougher to find. I can't find the first figurine for sale online at all right now, so you know what that means... eBay favorite search ahoy! Good luck...

Another Mighty Mouse Rough

Here's the other half of that unfinished T-shirt design. Enjoy!

Mighty Mouse Turns Twenty

Well, Ralph Bakshi's version of him, anyway. Yup, that's right, the second season (or half-season) of Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures was created in the summer of 1988. It was my first job in animation, and a pretty good one, at that! A bunch of future big shots worked on it, including Andrew Stanton, Bruce Timm, Rich Moore, John Kricfalusi, Vicki Jensen, and Jim Reardon. Tom Minton wrote some really funny scripts for the show, too!

Ralph let us vent our spleens on television, and the result was wildly uneven, but it had its moments. I got to get a lot of stuff out of my system early, so it wasn't as big a deal when I couldn't do it elsewhere. I got to trot out my smart-ass obsessions with UPA design, Hanna-Barbera kidvid, Warner Brothers and M-G-M shorts. I didn't know what I was doing, so I got to make a lot of mistakes, learn from them, and get paid at the same time! It was crazy and rewarding, but I'm glad I don't have to do that now. I remember nights at home with my hand cramping up as I cleaned up character designs. TV animation schedules are rough!

Unfortunately, the rights are owned by five different people who don't exactly like each other, so they'll probably never come out on DVD. Ultimately, that's not a tragedy - in the context of what was going on in animation at the time, it was fun and experimental, but compared to Adult Swim shows today, it's pretty tame stuff.

The drawing I'm featuring here was done long after the show ended, in 1991 - I had wanted to make an anniversary crew tee back in the day, but I never finished it. It was going to picture the Cow and Bat-Bat squaring off - I'm not sure how Mighty Mouse was going to figure into the design. It might be fun to do, if I could finish it before the year is out!

If you're a fan, bust out those VHS dubs (or bootleg DVDs), pop on your favorite episode, and remember. Thanks for watching it the first time around!

PS - Ralph's releasing a career retrospective book that'll hit stores this April. I can't wait to see it!