Credit: D23Since entering the public domain, Mickey Mouse has gone from a beloved cartoon icon to a crazed killer and movie monster. However, Disney already beat the competition to the punch way back in the ’90s with Runaway Brain.
Mickey’s black-and-white persona is about to be covered in 50 shades of red as multiple horrific re-imaginings are getting ready to assault our screens. But while many are pleading for producers not to do this to such a beloved character, Disney has been keeping its secretly sinister version of Mickey under wraps for decades.
Related: Original ‘Peter Pan’ To Join Mickey Mouse in Public Domain
Although the idea of Mickey turning from our favorite animated mouse into the stuff of nightmares is making headlines today, there was a time when Disney made Mickey into both the hero and the monster of his own horror short. It was called… Runaway Brain (1995).
Runaway Brain: Disney’s Hidden Mickey Masterpiece
Although an HD version has yet to be released on Disney+, the short can still be seen in the YouTube video above. In the short, which absolutely oozes with ’90s cheese and that incredible Disney-Renaissance-era animation style, Mickey gets roped into a mad scientist’s experiment that puts his brain in the body of a kaiju-sized Pete. Unfortunately, some of the monster’s features warp Mickey’s body, resulting in a deranged-looking mouse (courtesy of Disney animator Andreas Deja).
Related: Minnie Mouse Will Be Drawn With Breasts for the Next Year
The short film was a labor of love, and it tried to give Mickey a new identity for a modern audience. Playing off the spooky success of movies like Hocus Pocus (1993), Chris Bailey directed the short under the gaze of the infamous Jeffery Katzenberg, and the results were indeed a different breed of mouse.
Bailey stated,
“Jeffrey wanted it to be really aggressive and didn’t want anybody to mistake it for anything that had been dug out of the vault…”
Inside the Magic asked the director for a quote on his time working on the short, to which Bailey replied,
“I am happy and grateful for the opportunity to direct a Mickey Mouse cartoon during my time at Disney. The look, animation and sound design was (and is) amazing.”
Ironically, the short has since been locked away in the fabled Disney Vault and has yet to see a modern release. Seeing how well projects like The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) were received is especially sad.
Related: Go on a 10-Minute Adventure with These Mickey Mouse Shorts on Disney+
In a time where the public domain has transformed Mickey into something truly terrifying, why shouldn’t Disney embrace this darker side and polish up the short for an audience that clearly wants it?
Special thanks to Chris Bailey for his input bringing this alternative version of Mickey to life.
Did this monstrous Mickey freak you out? Tell Inside the Magic what you thought in the comments below!