'Steamboat Willie' Mickey Mouse products explode with horror films, video games, new comic

Well, that didn't take long. Looks like plenty of people were just waiting for the clock to tick past midnight on New Year's Day to take advantage of the first version of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse entering the public domain this year.

And, aside from about a billion Steamboat Willie T-shirts, posters and coffee cups on Etsy, most of the Mouse productions right out of the gate seemed determined to explore the twisted, bloody side of Disney's famous mascot.

On Jan. 1, the trailer dropped for a comedy horror film, "Mickey's Mouse Trap," depicting a knife-wielding maniac in a Mickey Mouse costume chasing college students around an arcade, with the same tongue-in-cheek feel of perverting your childhood memories as last year's "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey." Another movie, as yet untitled, has been announced by Steven LaMorte, director of the Grinch horror-parody "The Mean One," a horror parody of the Grinch.

But the first Mouse-based horror movie actually released was "The Vanishing of S.S. Willie," a low-budget, 9-minute silent film from Night Signal Entertainment in the form of a newly-discovered black and white documentary posted to YouTube on the first day of the year. In it, first-person accounts and "found footage" tell the tale of an unnamed mouselike crew member who went slowly insane and killed the crew.

Wait, Mickey Mouse is public domain now?

A very specific version of him is. The first film starring the character who would become Mickey Mouse, a back-and-white cartoon called "Steamboat Willie," entered the public domain as of Jan. 1, 2024. It should have become public years ago under previous copyright law but Disney and several other entertainment companies successfully lobbied to have copyright protection extended to the “life of the author plus 70 years” or 95 years after publication, whichever ends earlier, a move which became somewhat cynically known as the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act."

That extended time has run out, and "Steamboat Willie" has now chugged out into the open where anyone can use it.

But that doesn't mean you can make all the Mickey Mouse content you want. Only the version in the cartoon, a lankier one without white gloves, is fair game. Disney still holds the copyright to all the later versions and is famously litigious on anyone encroaching on the face of their company.

Newly public domain Mickey Mouse gets violent in video games

Video games also were quick to go dark.

The first-person shooter game "Inverse Ninjas VS. The Public Domain," in which public domain characters such as Sherlock Holmes, Winnie the Pooh and Alice Liddel (of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" fame) use a variety of weapons to kill an endless supply of ninjas, added Mickey on day one as a free update with a harpoon "that might be SLIGHTLY overpowered."

But that violent-but-kinda-cute game pales in comparison to "Infestation: Origins," an episodic cooperative survival game where players must exterminate "twisted versions of classic characters and urban legends" including a familiar-if-horrific-looking mouse as the final boss.

The game, in development for PC, has already had to deal with controversy after people complained the original name, "Infestation 88," was a Nazi reference. The creators quickly apologized and renamed the game. "Infestations: Origins" is supposed to launch sometime this year.

While not strictly a Steamboat Willie take, Fumi Games announced a "gritty, jazz-fueled shooter" called "Mouse" with the same sort of animation style in which your private detective blasts his way through an army of gangster foes who all look a lot like Mickey, or at least his less-reputable relatives.

Not all of the new Mickey creations are determined to mine Mickey's dark underbelly, though.

Indie game designer WackoMedia released "Steamboat Willie Live!," an immersive PC game that puts you on the boat where you can talk to Mickey, watch the cartoon with him, and "get to know your new pal!"

Mickey gets mystical in 'Steamboat' Tarot cards

Since September of last year, comic book author Mark Andrew Smith has been planning a "Steamboat Willie" inspired Tarot deck to 'encapsulate the pioneering spirit and whimsical charm of the 1928 classics ‘Steamboat Willie’ and ‘The Gallopin' Gaucho.’ " The cards, illustrated by Lisa Kubia and Danelia Montesi, depict Mickey, Minnie and all their public-domain friends in various identities of the major and minor arcana of the classic Tarot symbology.

He was hoping to raise $10,000. Since the Kickstarter launch on Jan. 1, the deck has raised over four times that, with $42,000 pledged as of Jan. 8 and three weeks still to go.

New 'Mousetrapped' web comic continues the spirit of 'Steamboat Willie' cartoon

But if you want new family-friendly Mickey content based in the "Steamboat Willie" era, check out the new free webcomic "Mousetrapped" by R. K. Milholland, the creator of the long-running comic "Something*Positive" who took over the official Sunday Popeye comic strips in 2022.

In "Mousetrapped," Mickey is once again the sad sack he started as. The strip begins as the cartoon ends, with the lovable loser getting kicked off the steamboat and having to take stock of his life. Other public-domain characters from other strips also have started making appearances, such as early Minnie Mouse and Pete the Pup from the creator of Woody the Woodpecker. In the blog posts accompanying the strips, Milholland has been sharing historical tidbits about the cartoon and the early Mickey Mouse comic strips.

Milholland, a fan of classic animation who has been bringing many old and nearly forgotten characters back into the Popeye strip, said he plans to take it darker within the next couple of weeks.

"Disney Comics were a huge part of my childhood reading. I still enjoy them greatly. So getting to work with, well, only a couple of the characters is nice. And I want to just tell fun stories," he posted. "Will there be some darker tones? At times. Some horror? Everything I do tends to at least dip into horror, but I’d want it to be stuff appropriate from the 1920s.

"Plus, my kid watches me draw these and she really enjoys it, so I’m not going to draw anything that would upset her. But she’s also a Halloween kid who absolutely loves spooky stuff, so take that how you will."

In a sea of gleeful, how-gory-can-we-make-this-beloved-childhood-icon products, "Mousetrapped" stands out as a loving tribute. "I just realized I might be the only person doing a Mickey Mouse anything that's not, 'Yeah, now I can twist or mock the character,'" Milholland said on X (formerly Twitter).

Milholland said he plans to write the strip for at least a couple of months, "I guess til I'm done or bored."

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Mickey Mouse entered public domain and creators were eager and ready