In our beloved Disney comics, we see Donald Duck at work all the time (even though he doesn’t typically keep a job very long). However, we can’t really say the same about the Mouse, can we? What is he supposed to be doing for a living? I know, that, in some French stories from the early 2000s, he was presented as the editor-in-chief of the real-life Mickey-brand magazines, but that seems to be the exception. Does he have a job, if only vaguely hinted at, in the current “Italian continuity”?
(He could always be a journalist, of course, going by the long tradition of journalists that never seem to do anything established by Tintin and Spirou. )
There has been a serie where Mickey decided to became a professional journalist, and so he moved to the metropoli area of Mouseton. It was called Topolinia 20802. In this serie it seems that at the start MM isn't in a good economic situation, living in a small rundown apartment. So, either he owns his suburban house and didn't have any other big spending habit, or the house market in the New York-part of the town is so crazy that even with his own savings that allows him to rent said suburban house, Mickey can't afford something decent.
Generally speaking, the most recurring job shown for Mickey is the freelance photo-journalist. At lest in the Italian stories.
The implication in the 20802 series was that the rent in the center of MilanMouseton was sky-high. Also to note he was almost portrayed as owner of his classic suburban house.
That seems a general problem in Mickey Mouse Universe - only Horace Horsecollar seems to have a job; in some stories Mickey and Goofy have the Zoom Transportation, but in most he don't seem to have any job. I suspect that he have some peculiar professional relation with the Police Department, some kind of "consultant".
That seems a general problem in Mickey Mouse Universe - only Horace Horsecollar seems to have a job; in some stories Mickey and Goofy have the Zoom Transportation, but in most he don't seem to have any job. I suspect that he have some peculiar professional relation with the Police Department, some kind of "consultant".
Yes, The Police chief telephones Mickey in the middle of the night to come to The Police Station or the scene of a crime to help him interpret evidence, or to get his advice about a crime that just occurred. So, if his life is being interrupted in such a bothersome way, would the police actually be doing that often IF Mickey weren't compensated in some way? I think not. Also, Mickey only rarely owns a business. otherwise, he has no work-related activity other than consulting on Police crime cases, for which it is NEVER stated or implied that he does NOT get paid. We have to assume that Mickey is a private detective who has a regular consulting relationship with the local Mouseville Police, and probably also The Calisota State Police, and he must get paid a LOT of money for each crime case, as it seems to support him through his periods with no case to work on, in between. His forays into his side businesses partnering with Goofy are few, and far between, and don't seem to last too long.
Post by Dr Ivo G Bombastus on Aug 12, 2022 17:10:21 GMT
He's an actor. ZM 004 and YM 037 depict his filmmaking career.
He also does many odd jobs like Donald, formulaically getting pushed into working at various places by Minnie then quitting at the end of the storyline.
In YM 036, he loses the money he'd obtained from various treasure hunts in the stock crash, so he goes to a job office and lists his work experience:
Famously, YM 039 depicts him as a fully deputized member of his local police force, complete with badge.
In addition, we've seen him as: A fireman (YM 011) A cabinboy on the Potluck (YM 014) A newspaper editor (YM 026) An assistant art director for an advertising agency (YM 046) A bellhop (YM 043) A lieutenant in the French Foreign Legion (YM 030) A gas station attendant (ZM 015) The king of a small European nation (YM 034) A government agent (YM 057) A racing jockey (YM 018) A lumberjack (YM 047) An astronaut (YM 118) A ghost exterminator (H 92056) A miniature golf course proprietor (YM 003) A wizard in training (Kus/MMA 9B)
Yes, The Police chief telephones Mickey in the middle of the night to come to The Police Station or the scene of a crime to help him interpret evidence, or to get his advice about a crime that just occurred. So, if his life is being interrupted in such a bothersome way, would the police actually be doing that often IF Mickey weren't compensated in some way?
For what it's worth, this story made it very explicit he's just a civilian helping out his friend O'Hara, which led to the police force's new by-the-books forensics expert ordering him removed from the crime scene because "for all I know he might be the thief himself".
Yes, The Police chief telephones Mickey in the middle of the night to come to The Police Station or the scene of a crime to help him interpret evidence, or to get his advice about a crime that just occurred. So, if his life is being interrupted in such a bothersome way, would the police actually be doing that often IF Mickey weren't compensated in some way?
For what it's worth, this story made it very explicit he's just a civilian helping out his friend O'Hara, which led to the police force's new by-the-books forensics expert ordering him removed from the crime scene because "for all I know he might be the thief himself".
Sorry to be contrary, but I just don't believe Mickey regularly has his private life stopped, and risks his life helping out his local police to fight criminals (often in dangerous organized crime syndicates) for only a pat on the back by his friend, Chief O'Hara. I choose to believe that he is an undercover officer for The Calisota State Police, or an undercover consultant, more valuable not being known as a regular police officer. His being an agent of the state would allow him to be involved in State crime cases, as well as being eligible to help out in serious crimes under the City of Mouseville's jurisdiction, and in addition, could be commandeered to help out The US Federal Police, on large scale crimes for which they request help from individual states. Otherwise, how could he survive all his downtime when out of work. Unemployment insurance lasts only a matter of months, and only passes one year in unusual economic emergency situations on the state or national level. He has no super-wealthy uncle to keep him from losing his suburban self-owned house. So, how does he maintain his suburban, middle class lifestyle when working so seldom? He lives off his high consultant fees the state and city governments pay him to solve high profile criminal cases that they can't solve on their own. And what we don't see in the comic books are a lot of night jobs he does for those agencies, spying on suspects, during periods we think he is not working at all.
Sorry to be contrary, but I just don't believe Mickey regularly has his private life stopped, and risks his life helping out his local police to fight criminals (often in dangerous organized crime syndicates) for only a pat on the back by his friend, Chief O'Hara.
Well, it's how this story portrays it. I doubt it's some editorial stance agreed upon by all publishers, but it's clearly how Mognato interpreted Mickey. Doesn't mean other writers have to agree.
(the "just to help his friend" was me misremembering the dialogue a bit though, he says in that scan I posted that he helps the police "because of his sense of duty")
Yes, The Police chief telephones Mickey in the middle of the night to come to The Police Station or the scene of a crime to help him interpret evidence, or to get his advice about a crime that just occurred. So, if his life is being interrupted in such a bothersome way, would the police actually be doing that often IF Mickey weren't compensated in some way?
For what it's worth, this story made it very explicit he's just a civilian helping out his friend O'Hara, which led to the police force's new by-the-books forensics expert ordering him removed from the crime scene because "for all I know he might be the thief himself".
Another story that explicitly shows Mickey as a private citizen who collaborate with the police through no formal contract is Topolino... sulla scena del crimine. Here the scientific team chats about how every case they investigate is swooped from under them by Mickey. They explicitly says "He is a dude that investigate! But not for profession! To him, it is a kind of... hobby!" ("Be', è un tizio che investiga! Ma non per professione! Per lui è una specie di... hobby!"). And the chief storms how having an amateur is inaccettable.
A more recent story to highlight how Mickey isn't a policeman, nor is a professional private detective, is Topolino e lo strano caso di Villa Ghirlanda. Here the new inspector, who arrived to substitute Casey after he arrested the chief of police, taunts Mickey about how he is an "amateur detective".
Sorry to be contrary, but I just don't believe Mickey regularly has his private life stopped, and risks his life helping out his local police to fight criminals (often in dangerous organized crime syndicates) for only a pat on the back by his friend, Chief O'Hara. I choose to believe that he is an undercover officer for The Calisota State Police, or an undercover consultant, more valuable not being known as a regular police officer. His being an agent of the state would allow him to be involved in State crime cases, as well as being eligible to help out in serious crimes under the City of Mouseville's jurisdiction, and in addition, could be commandeered to help out The US Federal Police, on large scale crimes for which they request help from individual states.
Him being an undercover agent doesn't work very well with what we have been shown of him as a character. Maybe in his very first stories he could, but now he has received so many prices and celebrations to havng saved the world, or solved some impossible case. He is more often than not said to be a well-known detective, a kind of celebrity, with his likeness often appearing on journals and TV news. So, not exactly the the low key person that would fit an undercover agent. His ties with the Mouseton police are well known to everyone have heard of him.
Regarding how he can spend so much time investigating with no apparent income, there are some possible answers.
1) MM has a highly flexible work: in at least one story he is shown working on a manuscript, and there is also the already mentioned journalist carrier (which depending on the serie can give him a lot of time between one article and the other. For example the new serie Topolino Giramondo has Mickey going around the world for articles about the local culture. Each of those travels take him a lot of time, so it is plausible that between missions he has equally long period of relax, where he is free to help his friends in the police department, the history museum, ecc);
2) in some stories Mickey is shown working in investigation agencies, generally for a limited time (it is the whole premise of MMMM, and of the story the Crazy Crime Wave and its sequel Topolino e l'ultimo caso);
3) Mickey is an amateur detective, not working for the police, but he is payed by the reward those crimes he solves have. Either the bounty a criminal has, or the victim of the crime is so happy once it is solved that reward themselves MM. I can't show any specific story, but I distinctly remember both outcomes happening in multiple stories.
Those three options doesn't contradict one another, so it is possible that it is a mix of each. In my opinion Mickey isn't a cop or an official assistant of them (except for the brief story where he is), but he collaborate with them, in a way that isn't properly following the rules of no civilians interference, but the police department close an eye on it except when a new, precise detective arrive and butts heads with MM. He earn money through bounties or rewards offered by the victims (which the policemen can't claim), and he also have a variety of different jobs on the side, flexible enough to allow him going in all his crazy adventures: foreign journalist, writer, private investigator (this last one allow him to unify together his hobby of solving crimes and a paying job), ...
Topolino e il mondo delle spie also has a scene where the villains run a background check on Mickey and discover that he is "an amateur detective". That term comes up a lot.
Sorry to be contrary, but I just don't believe Mickey regularly has his private life stopped, and risks his life helping out his local police to fight criminals (often in dangerous organized crime syndicates) for only a pat on the back by his friend, Chief O'Hara.
Well, it's how this story portrays it. I doubt it's some editorial stance agreed upon by all publishers, but it's clearly how Mognato interpreted Mickey. Doesn't mean other writers have to agree.
(the "just to help his friend" was me misremembering the dialogue a bit though, he says in that scan I posted that he helps the police "because of his sense of duty")
Thank you. MY canon for Mickey ends in late 1955, after several months of Gottfredson's first part of his permanent, forever-after gag-a-day non continuation stories (which still were drawn so well by him that I wanted to keep them in, whereas by 1956, the gags were too much the same, not so interesting, and his artwork started to decline). So, that all those later Italian stories are NOT in my canon. Most of The Italian Mickey stories that I like were drawn and written by Romano Scarpa from his start through 1956 or so. And, I don't think they declare definitively that he can NOT possibly be paid by The police for his detective services, or prove that he has a regular full income from other sources. So, regardless of any kind of "proof" or hinting implications to the contrary from later foreign, or even later US comic book Mickey Mouse stories, I will go on believing that he is compensated monetarily from his detective work, and THAT explains how he supports himself in the suburban US middle class lifestyle. That is not to say that if I write and storyboard a Mickey Mouse story for Dutch Disney (DPG), I would show Mickey getting paid by The Police Department, as I am sure that would not allowed. But, I will not change my mind as to what I believe. And it is clear that Gottfriedson never wanted to make the answer to that question clear in his stories. I don't believe that the writers of Murry's drawn stories ever made that clear. Like superhero stories, it is much too much to believe that someone would seemingly dedicate his life to helping the local police solve crimes as a complete amateur, over and over again, hundreds of times, making the local police departments look terribly incompetent, constantly getting police chiefs and chief detectives fired from their jobs, and causing their families to have to move to the slums. Such a do-gooder would eventually become #1 on ALL the organized crime hit lists, and be rubbed out (murdered). Sherlock Holmes did the same thing, but, at least, he took money for his services. Again in that situation, Arthur Conan Doyle didn't broach the subject of whether or not Scotland Yard compensated him for his help on cases when they approached him, asking for help. I'm sure they didn't pay him for any help provided when he butted in on his own volition (unless they felt compelled to reward him for solving a long-running unsolved case that was giving them bad publicity, even after their first telling him to stop butting in, and to keep his nose out of their business.)
I’ve always viewed Mickey as living comfortly off his adventures, recieving rewards for catching criminals and so on. He has enough that he doesn’t need a regular job and can do as he pleases.
Goofy, who comes from a large excentric family, I like to imagine living on a big inheritance that he recieves yearly payments from. He manages to keep himself from starving and going homeless, but otherwise quickly squanders the money on his whims.
I’ve always viewed Mickey as living comfortly off his adventures, recieving rewards for catching criminals and so on. He has enough that he doesn’t need a regular job and can do as he pleases.
Goofy, who comes from a large excentric family, I like to imagine living on a big inheritance that he recieves yearly payments from. He manages to keep himself from starving and going homeless, but otherwise quickly squanders the money on his whims.
If Mickey is living a suburban, middle class existence on money regularly obtained from various governments' police departments, and wealthy private citizens over a period of many years, then he was, effectively, de facto, a consultant, running a business, according to income tax laws' minimum income levels required to pay income tax, and required to file for being on the tax roles. He must indicate his business type on the tax forms, and list his employer or that he is self-employed. IF he would not list "self employed" and running a particular business, the tax examiners would do that for him, likely choosing "private detective", or "business consultant".