While Mickey Mouse has enjoyed perhaps the most significant legacy of any cartoon character ever, he’s hardly done it alone – Minnie Mouse also recently celebrated her 90th anniversary, having debuted in 1928’s Steamboat Willie. The polka-dotted heroine was a creation of Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks and has been a consistent partner of Mickey for the last nine decades.
Minnie’s design was based on that of “flapper girls” of the era, with her original outfit including a short skirt reminiscent of those sorts of dresses. And while it’s often been assumed that her legs are exposed, she’s actually wearing black stockings – also fashionable within the flapper culture of the time. Minnie, particularly during her earliest appearances, tended to sport shoes that were a little too big for her feet, leading to a variety of comedic situations in which she would slip out of her shoes or lose them completely over the course of the story.
Like Mickey, Minnie’s design was created by Iwerks with a focus on circles for the sake of making him easy to animate, though it was clear that the round appearance was also appealing to audiences from the get-go. Notably, the ears were (and are) always circular regardless of what direction she was facing; these ears on their own have since become quite iconic.
As Mickey and Minnie were created by Walt and Iwerks due to Universal opting to keep the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Iwerks began animating the original few Mickey and Minnie-focused cartoon shorts while still technically under contract at Universal. The first three cartoon shorts produced were Plane Crazy, The Gallopin’ Gaucho, and Steamboat Willie. Plane Crazy actually saw a small test screening in May 1928, though the audience was remarkably unimpressed with it, and Walt couldn’t find a distributor. Steamboat Willie, though it was the last of the initial three to be completed, was the first to meet audiences thanks to Walt finding a distributor, and Mickey and Minnie introduced to the world on November 18, 1928.
A scant few minutes long – clocking it at just seven minutes and 42 seconds – Steamboat Willie was a technical marvel for the time, as it was one of the first cartoons to ever feature synchronized sound. The story follows Mickey, who works on a steamboat under the stern captain Pete, as he gets up to antics on the boat. After picking up livestock at Podunk Landing, the boat also picks up Minnie Mouse, and Mickey and Minnie play music on the boat, even using some of the livestock as makeshift instruments. Pete, unamused by this, puts Mickey back to work, peeling potatoes.
Minnie was typically depicted as having a cute, traditionally feminine and flirtatious personality, generally playing the part of the girl that Mickey is simply trying to win the affection of. By the 1930s, however, she had turned into more of a damsel in distress – someone for Mickey to come to the heroic rescue of. She was often abducted by Pete, though she had also been trapped in burning buildings and also kidnapped by escaped zoo animals. By the late 1930s she appeared less often than before, due largely in part to the growing popularity of other Disney cartoon stars like Donald and Goofy.
Though she appeared in other Disney media, Minnie’s return to the silver screen wouldn’t be until 1983’s Mickey’s Christmas Carol, where she filled the role of Mrs. Cratchit. She also would make a small cameo in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and in 1988 finally received her time in the spotlight in the Totally Minnie NBC special; this would be the first time that Minnie was featured as the lead.
Minnie has been featured in numerous Disney television series, such as Mickey Mouse Works, House of Mouse, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and the most recent run of Mickey Mouse cartoons (which restored her classic “flapper” style outfit).
She’s also appeared in a variety of Disney-related video games, often back in that damsel-in-distress role (such as in Castle of Illusion) though she has also appeared as a playable character option several times as well (such as in Mickey’s Dangerous Chase). One of her more unique appearances in terms of video games is in the Kingdom Hearts series, where she is properly married to Mickey and serves as the Queen of Disney Castle. She is shown as a powerful sorceress that can fend off the invading Heartless; it is also implied that she’s the one ruling the kingdom instead of Mickey a few times across these games.
Minnie has also become somewhat of a fashion icon over the years, with Disney regularly celebrating her iconic original look with annual “Rock the Dots” events. She has also enjoyed collaborations with major fashion brands such as Kate Spade, Pandora, New Balance, Torrid, Dooney and Bourke, Coach, and dozens of others; Minnie herself has also appeared during New York Fashion Week.
Alongside Mickey, Minnie Mouse is one of the most recognizable characters in pop culture history. In 2018 she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, though she hardly needed the reminder of her impact across all forms of media. Minnie Mouse has proven to be a fashion icon and a heroine capable of standing on her own. Here’s to another 90 years!
