Image via Wikipedia

by Guest Blogger Arch Longwill

The fact is, this guest post is appearing today because I owe Jen a favor. While I’m a sucker for any sort of analysis of the human condition -- be it baseball stats, personality inventories or Strauss and Howe’s sociological meisterwerk Generations – the tiny historian’s voice inside me cautions a step-back to put things in perspective and remember that we’re all people and we all share the planet, blah, blah, blah, and when you were born probably doesn’t mean all that much. But I owe Jen. She sacrificed to help me out in a writing pinch a few months ago, so how can I refuse an old friend calling in a chit?


Whatever!
I’m not sure what to make of all this generational stuff. It all seems so fluid...on a continuum rather than clearly marked generational lines. Worse, I never really felt like I belonged with Generation X. Born in 1966, I’m squarely within the Gen X boundary lines, but I never associated with many of the hallmarks of the generation as defined by the media. So, I’m probably not the best person to guest blog for Jen. When people talk about generations I usually just shrug and say, “Whatever.”

Boomer Wage Drones and Gen X in Iraq, Afghanistan
I had written a bunch of high-minded stuff. The first one was about how astoundingly productive Gen X workers are in spite of the slacker tag put on us by Boomer wage drones. The second was about what fantastic leaders Gen Xers have made in Iraq and Afghanistan, the annoying myth of the “Greatest Generation” and why an entire generation of people is lionized for their ability to follow orders unquestioningly. If you accept Strauss and Howe’s generational archetypes, then it’s obvious the best generational story to come out of World War II are the rambunctious renegades who famously lead those sheep – MacArthur, Eisenhower, Halsey, Nimitz, Patton. They were all from the same archetype as Gen X. In the end I didn’t think military history played well on mommy blogs and Jen has a fondness for the Greatests anyway.

Disney – Another Tragic Episode in the Sad Tale of Generation X
Then I remembered that a Boomer co-worker recently brought up the Disney universe wondered aloud about Mickey Mouse’s family situation. But the topic of Disney is yet another tragic episode in the sad tale of Generation X's childhood. It's well-documented that we were neglected by our parents. The Boomers had stay-home moms and the derivatively named Generation Y at least had daycare centers while we had only the keys around our necks as our guardians. Yes, we were neglected even by Disney. From the time I entered first grade to the time I entered college, there were exactly two new Disney animated movies - The Fox and the Hound and The Rescuers - neither of which featured a certain mouse. No, we had Jodie Foster and Paris Hilton's aunt as the face of Disney.

Boomers were steeped in Disneyana. There were, of course, all the classic movies but there were also the Mickey Mouse Club and Wonderful World of Disney shows on television and maybe even shorts shown before features in theatres which starred the squeaky rodent. And forget the comics. The scant comics rack we had was stocked with Archie and the DC and Marvel universes -- no topless mice on those pages. Gen Y experienced Mickey's reappearance in Mickey's Christmas Carol and the return of the blockbuster starting with Little Mermaid. And of course Mickey’s daily performances on the early incarnation of the Disney Channel not to mention widely available videos of his oeuvre. Being pre-cable and pre-video, we didn't have those.

Mickey Mouse and the Wilderness Period of 1960-85
I don't even know the mouse, let alone the details of his possibly sordid past or his sketchy family background. It is certainly an intriguing situation. No, my question has always been, where in the hell was Mickey during his wilderness period from, say 1960 to 1985? I'm not kidding, the whole time I grew up Mickey was very rarely seen and only then in a historical context. Was he killed in an industrial accident at the studio? Did Pegleg Pete or one of the Beagle Boys go too far and extinguish his tiny little life? I hate to think he was snuffed out in a fit of passionate rage by Donald or Minnie following an interspecies tryst with Clarabelle or Daisy. Either way, there's been a studio coverup.

Himalayas? Kathmandu?
I've often wondered if he had taken the path so many chose in the 60s and gone to the Himalayas on some spiritual quest only to be lured into the soporific stupor of the poppy. I sometimes imagine Goofy and Pluto tracking him down in some back alley Kathmandu opium den -- bursting in just moments before he succumbs to the demons chasing him in the form of bucket-toting brooms.

I suspect the answer is that Mickey truly was the avatar of Walt Disney and that he was frozen the whole time until modern technology found a way to somehow download Walt's brain into the little mouse. They don't call it suspended animation for no reason. So now he's still kickin' it everyday on House of Mouse or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or whatever his show is called now.

Looney Tune Loyalty
To be honest, though, Mickey always annoyed the hell out of me. I'm not sure if it was Looney Tune loyalty or the voice or the confusion over the fact that he didn't wear a shirt and Donald didn't wear pants. I have always rooted for the Beagle Boys where Mickey was concerned.