MICKEY MOUSE is the crystalline, concentrated quintessence of that which is peculiarly the motion picture. He is at one with the Great Common Denominator of the great common art of the commonality in terms of expression, while in production he is a logarithmic derivative of the whole of screen technology. He is as simple as a dandelion and we do not know what makes it grow.
Mickey is most humbly superhuman. He is an evolutionary product with everything that ever was made for the screen in his ancestry and with Charles Chaplin as his closest human relative.
The irrepressible Mickey in charmingly typical expression of his own psychology, which is based on the principle of the triumph of the boob, the cosmic victory of the underdog, the might of the meek, has in a very certain sense paid tribute to Mr. Chaplin by becoming his successor in certain considerable sectors of the world of the motion picture.
Due to assorted forces, as variant as commercial demands and personal ambitions, to say nothing of human limitations, Mr. Chaplin who began and became famous by endless, continuous industry in single reels, on the screen every day in thousands of theatres the world around, has become consciously symbolic, esoteric, multiple reeled, rich and infrequent.
Mickey Mouse, like Mr. Chaplin used to, makes one reelers frequently, always sings something simple and scatters prints over the world across all linguistic and geographical boundaries, as lightly as he defies the law of gravity and all other laws thereunto pertaining.
In the four years of his rise Mickey Mouse has become in a world sense the most famous personality of the screen of the day, and is likely in fact to become as well known as his collateral ancestor Mr. Chaplin was in the period of 1916-1918, when he was, beyond doubt, known to more persons than any prior or subsequent figure of human history.
In his consistent and continuous screen performances at a high standard of quality, Mickey Mouse is today the screen's own best contributor to the creation and maintenance of the habit of attending the screen theatre. His success is a service to the industry. He stays on the job.
Mickey confers distinction and honor upon the motion picture by his peculiar and lone capacity to utilize and demonstrate all of those capacities of the camera and screen as an instrument which especially distinguish it from other media of expression.
In turn this amazing little creature of the cinema promises to share in the glory of the great fictional immortals, in a hall of fame with Santa Claus, Don Quixote, Leather Stocking, Paul Bunyan, Rip Van Winkle, Long John Silver and Odin, Wodin, Thor & Co.
Even as Chaplin was, Mickey Mouse is all things to all men. He is a gust of thoughtless fun to the casual, the lowbrow, the thoughtless. He is the voice and personification of the weltschmerz to the sophisticate and a blood brother to the philosopher.
Mickey is more of a man than a mouse and in all humility, not irony, we must admit that it takes a mouse to be Everyman.
