February 7 - Wayne Allwine and Russi Taylor

On this day, in 1947, Wayne Anthony Allwine was born in Glendale, California. His professional career begins, like all great scripted careers do, in the mail room at the Walt Disney Studio in 1966. If we were indeed making a movie of this story, we would almost certainly have a scene in which the 19-year-old Wayne approaches sound effects guru Jimmy MacDonald who takes an envelope from Walt Disney and hands it to Wayne, just so we can get all three of them in the frame together. It’s a moment that probably never actually happened, even though Wayne and Walt’s times did overlap for several months, but it would be a scene the audience would later remember and say to themselves “Ah. Foreshadowing.”

Wayne moved up from the mail room and landed in the Sound Effects department, apprenticing under Jimmy MacDonald. He became a pretty good sound effects editor. You can hear his work on Disney films like Splash and Three Men and a Baby as well as films he did for other studios like Innerspace and Star Trek V. But in late 1976 he began apprenticing under Jimmy for an entirely different reason.

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Jimmy was nearing retirement at that point and was going to be leaving behind a large hole to fill. He’d been doing the voice of Mickey Mouse since taking over from Walt in 1947. An audition was held and his already protégé, Wayne, won the role. Jimmy began coaching him and Wayne made his debut as the Big Cheese recording the opening title bits for The New Mickey Mouse Club in 1977. From that point on, Wayne was the mouse for the next 32 years. He made his big screen debut in Mickey’s Christmas Carol and voiced the role in everything from Who Framed Roger Rabbit to The Lion King 1 ½.

Movies, television series and specials, parades, you name it and Wayne was kept as busy as he could handle doing it. He also did a handful of other voices (you didn’t think squeaking was his only talent, did you?) including a Henchman in The Black Cauldron and Thug Guard #2 (not to be confused with #1, completely different guy) in The Great Mouse Detective.

Image courtesy of historybyzim.com

On a personal note, life began to imitate art for Wayne starting in 1986. It was decided that Minnie Mouse would start talking again (she hadn’t had any lines for several years) and an audition was held. Russi Taylor won the role. She recalls meeting Wayne in a hallway one day and his excitement over having a Minnie for the first time. Both were in failing marriages (his third). After their not-so-wedded-blisses ended, they began hanging out together outside of the recording booth. They fell in love, just like the mice they played, and got married in 1991, not like the mice they played. They kept it quiet in order to make their nuptials about them and not their characters (people went a little crazy even back then when they heard that Mickey and Minnie were married), but they did live happily ever after for the next two decades.

Image courtesy of me.

Praised by many for bringing Mickey out of the world of bland falsetto and into nuanced deliveries and a multi-faceted personality, Wayne did some of his best work on the video game series Kingdom Hearts.  He was heard daily on the Disney Channel’s Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and can still be heard every fifteen minutes in the Mickey’s PhilharMagic attraction at the Magic Kingdom. In 2008, both Wayne and Russi were made official Disney Legends for their outstanding stewardship of Mickey and Minnie’s legacies. On May 18, 2009, Wayne passed away at his home in Los Angeles, California, finally losing a battle he’d been fighting for several years with diabetes. He was only 62.

 To date, Wayne is the person who voiced Mickey the longest of the four talents who’ve done it (regularly) so far and, with all the media outlets that exist today, the most prolific (Russi is, by far, the longest Minnie). Bret Iwan took up the mantle after Wayne’s death. Bret was hired because of Wayne’s failing health and was supposed to understudy Wayne, just as Wayne understudied Jimmy, but the two never actually got to meet. So far Bret’s doing just fine. Most people never realized that a change occurred and only time will tell if Bret hangs on to the gig longer than Wayne, or if the third voice really is the charm.

February 1 - Jimmy MacDonald

Image courtesy of wikipedia.com

On this day, in 1991, John James MacDonald passed away in his home in Glendale, California from heart failure. Born on May 19, 1906, Jimmy and his parents emigrated to America when he was one month old. After a fifteen day voyage across the Atlantic (I can only imagine how nerve wracking that was with a newborn) the family settled in Pennsylvania. As a young man, Jimmy showed an aptitude for music, especially the drums. He wound up getting a job as a musician on the Dollar Steamship Line (now known as American President Lines). Through his contacts there, he began performing on the recordings for the cartoons made by the Walt Disney Studio. In 1934, Jimmy became one of two people in Disney's newly formed Sound Effects Department, a job he would hold for the next 42 years.

Jimmy was a master at finding ways to produce the sounds that were needed for any given situation. Sometimes it was something as simple as flopping down in a chair in someone's office, liking the creaking noise the chair produced and commandeering the chair for his department. Other times Jimmy had to create gadgets in his workshop to get the sound he was looking for. He would build thousands of noise makers over the years to give life to everything from Evenrude's unique buzz in The Rescuers to the sound of the forest fire that take's the life of Bambi's mother.

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Early on in his tenure with Disney, Jimmy began providing voices as well as sound effects. As he put it, the studio could save money by not hiring actors since he was already there and getting paid anyways. It started out with some laughter here and a few barks there. Eventually he just kept getting asked if he could voice something particular, he'd say I don't know, they'd have him try it and he was usually great. For instance, during the long production process on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, it was decided at one point to have the dwarfs yodel during their party song. Jimmy was sent into the recording booth to test out a whole bunch of different yodels. Some professional yodelers were brought in for the official soundtrack. When a bunch of changes were made to the scene, rather than bring the professionals in and pay them again, Jimmy was sent back into the booth to record the new stuff. This sort of versatility lead to continuously bigger roles.

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The story of how Jimmy landed his biggest role is just as casual. While production was going on for Mickey and the Beanstalk, a short that eventually became part of Fun and Fancy Free, the crew called Walt in to record Mickey's lines. Walt claimed that he just didn't have time for this sort of thing anymore (although his smoking habit was making it increasingly difficult to produce Mickey's falsetto) and they should just call Jimmy. Someone did and said Walt needed to see him. Jimmy tried to think of what he'd done all the way to Walt's office. When he got there, Walt asked him if he'd ever tried to do Mickey. Jimmy said of course not. Walt said give it a try right now. Jimmy worked up his best Mouse and said "Hi Walt, how are you?" Walt said sounds good, gave him a few pointers and sent him off to the booth. He would be the voice of the Boss until 1977.

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There have been plenty of other times you've heard Jimmy. For features, he did both Jacques and GusGus in Cinderella, the Dormouse in Alice in Wonderland, the wolf in Sword in the Stone and the hyena in Bedknobs and Broomsticks. In shorts, he played all sorts of animals, from Delores the Elephant to Humphrey the Bear. He only appeared twice in live action parts. He was the Circus Band Drummer in 1960's Toby Tyler and he is seen in silhouette as the timpani player in Fantasia. Outside of work he joined Ward Kimball's jazz band, the Firehouse Five Plus Two, as their drummer.

Image copyright Disney

Fans of the Monster Sound Show, the original sound effects show at the Disney-MGM Studios, might remember seeing Jimmy. The pre-show that played in the queue area was a piece he did with David Letterman, showcasing many of the homemade noise makers he'd made over the years. He even did a little bit of Mickey, even though by that point he'd handed those reigns over to Wayne Allwine (who also started out as a sound effect man). Jimmy had officially retired from the company in 1977. And by retired, I mean there was often several weeks in a row when he didn't come into the studio to consult on a project. In fact, when he passed away fourteen years later, he was preparing sounds that would be used in Splash Mountain. In 1993, Jimmy was posthumously declared an official Disney Legend, even though he was truly one of the few people who are widely regarded as such long before their final curtain.

September 10 - Bret Iwan

On this day, in 1982, Bret Iwan, the fourth person to officially give voice to Mickey Mouse, was born in Pasadena, California.

 When Mickey Mouse was first created and needed a voice because sound had come to the movies, the Disney Studio didn't have to go far to find someone to do it. Walt himself stepped up to the mic and falsettoed his way through dozens of shorts and even a few features. It was always a source of pride for Walt that he shared a voice with his little mouse.

By 1946 however, the demands of leading a growing company meant that Walt just didn't have time to spend in a recording studio anymore. After the "Mickey and the Beanstalk" segment of Fun and Fancy Free, Walt had to hand squeaking duties off to someone else.

A sound effects master and veteran musician for the company, Jimmy MacDonald became Mickey's second official voice. You might remember him if you ever saw the pre-show video to the sound effects show at Disney-MGM Studios. Jimmy gave voice to most of Mickey's words from 1946 until he retired in 1977. I say most because occasionally Walt would still sneak in a voice over before his death.

Another sound effects man took over from Jimmy, Wayne Allwine. The fun part about Wayne doing Mickey's voice is that his wife, Russi Taylor, started doing Minnie Mouse's voice in 1986. And Mickey still didn't pop the question. Wayne did the Big Cheese up until his death from diabetes complications in 2009.

Thus enters young Bret Iwan, a greeting card artist and official voice number four. The crazy thing is that Bret had been hired to understudy Wayne as his health declined. Unfortunately, Wayne died before Bret ever had a chance to meet him. Bret did received Russi's blessing though and continues to work with her right up to the present. And since Bret turns the ripe old age of 36 today, I'm guessing he'll be performing M. Mouse for decades to come.