Strung out Mickey

March 14, 2007 11:35 AM

My brain keeps insisting to me that somewhere, somehow, I once saw a frame from a mickey mouse film from the thirties or fourties (I think) in which mickey is reaching for a can labeled as opium. The image clearly depicted a scene of theJonez. Meanwhile, my google fu argues to the contrary. Does this sound familiar or did my memory make this up for me? Perhaps someone knows of the film it comes from.
posted by Fupped Duck to media & arts (10 comments total)

I did find this:

In A Chinaman's Chance (1933), Flip [the Frog] and his dog track down the notorious Chinese criminal, Chow Mein. While investigating in a Chinese laundry, Flip stumbles into an opium den, inhales the stuff via opium pipe, and begins hallucinating. (wikipedia)

Based on what it says here (another page I hit searching for "opium cartoon") you're probably looking for something a little older than the 40s--it sounds like cartoons about drug abuse wouldn't have been acceptable post-Hayes-act (1935)
posted by jepler at 12:05 PM on March 14, 2007

I wonder if you're thinking of a different character, such as Bosco?
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 12:19 PM on March 14, 2007

Small correction to the second site jepler links to: it wasn't the "Hayes act." It was the Hays Code: there weren't actual laws, the Production Code was voluntarily entered into by members of the MPAA (which was the whole film industry), basically to avoid legislation. They started enforcing it in '34. (See Wikipedia.)

If it WAS available, and it was actually Mickey Mouse, you'd think someone would have made a big deal of it and that information would be available online. (Bosco seems like a likelier culprit).
posted by SoftRain at 12:23 PM on March 14, 2007

Curious George and ether?
posted by unixrat at 12:32 PM on March 14, 2007

Probably not helpful: I bought a t-shirt from a street vendor outside the Foggy Bottom Metro station sometime around 1995. On it was a picture of Minnie Mouse, inebriated, high, or post-concussion. It wasn't an explicitly drug-oriented shirt (no paraphernalia, no bottles, etc.), just ... weird. I bought it because it was quirky. And because it was $2. I doubt it was pulled from a cel or print comic, but who knows.
posted by Alt F4 at 1:06 PM on March 14, 2007

This information might be helpful: all of the Mickey Mouse shorts are available uncensored, scattered across four of the Disney Treasures boxes--two for black and white and two for color. From watching those shorts I remember seeing Mickey Mouse drinking booze, smoking cigars, and being much more aggressively amorous with Minnie Mouse than she would have liked. But I don't remember him doing any harder drugs than alcohol or tobacco.
posted by Prospero at 2:38 PM on March 14, 2007

Of course, there's also Air Pirates Funnies, non-Disney art which is said to depict "the Disney characters engaging in adult behaviors such as sex and drug consumption".

Thanks for the correction to my earlier reply, SoftRain!
posted by jepler at 2:49 PM on March 14, 2007

There is an old Mickey Mouse comic strip in which he's depicted as pointing to cylindrical container labelled "OPIUM" and his "word balloon" says: "Look, opium!" My friend made t-shirts out of it a long time ago. I thought I had a GIF of it, but I can't find it.
posted by user92371 at 3:52 PM on March 14, 2007

yep thats it...
posted by Fupped Duck at 4:15 PM on March 14, 2007

User92371 is correct but the quote is actually "Good gosh, opium!" There's a pic of it on a tee-shirt here.

(By wild coincidence user92371 and I were hanging out in San Francisco on Monday. And I live in London. Small world.)
posted by Hogshead at 7:08 AM on March 15, 2007