# Etymology of "mickeymouse" as adjective **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 17, 2001, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-mickeymouse-as-adjective/82106 "2001-09-17T05:52:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/df788c/32.png) [@Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ben)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-mickeymouse-as-adjective/82106/1 "2001-09-17T05:52:13Z")
So I was thinking just now about how when I was in high school, a lot of the time in class we would just be taking turns reading the textbook out loud. And I thought to myself, “Wow- that was pretty mickeymouse.” (Incidentally, what’s the deal with reading out loud in class? Even the good teachers made us do it. What’s the rationale, other than enabling the teacher to get away with having no lesson plan?) I frequently hear the word “mickeymouse” used to describe people’s Army experiences, too. I would say that a “mickeymouse” situation is one in which the authorities have laid down rules which seem niggling and ridiculous (and oftentimes childish, but not necessarily so,) but which they insist must be followed to the letter. When did Mickey Mouse first get attached to that kind of thing, and why? -Ben ---
**Author:** ![Corrvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bbce88/32.png) [@Corrvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corrvin)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-mickeymouse-as-adjective/82106/2 "2001-09-17T07:02:45Z")
Merriam-Webster gives 1936 as a date, but I’m not truly sure that they don’t mean the noun form; and they don’t provide a citation. Will someone with a GOOD dictionary please enlighten us? Corr, who is really truly considering a CD-ROM OED ---
**Author:** ![warmgun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecccb3/32.png) [@warmgun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/warmgun)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-mickeymouse-as-adjective/82106/3 "2001-09-17T07:54:41Z")
A wealthy man has a kid who is very big kid for his age. It’s Halloween and the father ask his son what he would like to be. The boy tells him he wants to be the most famous Disney character of all. Worried, the father is afraid he won’t be able to find anything that fits. After a long search, the father finally returns home and hands his son some documents indicating he now owned Microsoft. Confused the son asks for an explaination. Well, his father replied, it’s the biggest mickeymouse oufit I could find. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-mickeymouse-as-adjective/82106/4 "2001-09-17T07:58:31Z")
In the UK, it is used to describe something which is either make-believe (“I paid £50 for a printer on the internet, but it never arrived; turns out it was a Mickey-Mouse company”) does the job, but is not robust (“Now this is a _proper_ drill, not like that Mickey-Mouse thing you’ve got”) Can’t back this up, but I’ve always just assumed that it means ‘less-than-real’ (because cartoons are less than real). ---
**Author:** ![jinty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dbc845/32.png) [@jinty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jinty)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-mickeymouse-as-adjective/82106/5 "2001-09-17T13:27:41Z")
Len Deighton’s novel “Goodbye Mickey Mouse” is set in 1944. IIRC it starts with a slang dictionary definition of the MM term which notes it as being WW2 US military in origin. ---
**Author:** ![johnboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e47c2d/32.png) [@johnboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnboy)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-mickeymouse-as-adjective/82106/6 "2001-09-17T13:34:27Z")
I tried to deduct the cost of a trip to Disneyworld as a business expense but found that the IRS frowns upon Mickey Mouse deductions. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-mickeymouse-as-adjective/82106/7 "2001-09-17T16:25:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Corrvin \* > \*\*Merriam-Webster gives 1936 as a date, but I’m not truly sure that they don’t mean the noun form; and they don’t provide a citation. > > Will someone with a GOOD dictionary please enlighten us? > > Corr, who is really truly considering a CD-ROM OED \*\* Just as an interesting aside, Sinclair Lewis used \*\*_Minnie Mouse_ in a derogatory sense, in [It Can’t Happen Here](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0451525825/qid=1000742541/sr=1-1/ref=sc_b_1/102-4584146-6823308). This book, dealing with a fictional fascist victory in the American election of 1936, included an American analogue to the SS called the “Minute Men”, or MM’s. The dissident characters in the story took to calling them “Minnie Mouses”. ---
**Author:** ![Beruang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/77aa72/32.png) [@Beruang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beruang)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-mickeymouse-as-adjective/82106/8 "2001-09-17T17:28:58Z")
from the good folks at Random House: > **[Penguin Random House](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com?date=19991118)** > > Committed to publishing great books, connecting readers and authors globally, and spreading the love of reading. They credit it to Mickey being small and puny. They also say that in Australia, the term means “cheap and unreliable.” That is the sense I have always heard it in. The explanation given to my (by a high school religion teacher) was that when the first MM watches came out, they were very popular. Soon the market was flooded with cheap knock-offs. The bad performance of the knock-offs led to the negative adjective (and perhaps also to the sense of something you thought would be good turning out not to be.) – Beruang ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-mickeymouse-as-adjective/82106/9 "2001-09-17T19:09:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Incidentally, what’s the deal with reading out loud in class? Even the good teachers made us do it. What’s the rationale, other than enabling the teacher to get away with having no lesson plan? Can’t answer the OP, but I can answer that one – it’s a last-ditch measure for classes where most of the students either will not read the text on their own, or have trouble processing written information. In all too many high schools, at least one of these conditions is so widespread that text-reading becomes routine. (That’s the charitable explanation. Some teachers, of course, are indeed being lazy.) ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-mickeymouse-as-adjective/82106/10 "2001-09-17T21:36:28Z")
If you look at the very early Mickey Mouse cartoons, everything looks as though it’s on the verge of falling apart, so the term may be meant to invoke that motif. It also may be referring to something that’s done in a frivolous manner, since there’s nothing more frivolous than a Mickey Mouse cartoon. ---
**Author:** ![rundogrun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/5daacb/32.png) [@rundogrun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rundogrun)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-mickeymouse-as-adjective/82106/11 "2001-09-17T21:59:49Z")
When I quit my job with Disney last spring, I wrote how happy I was to be “leaving this Mickey Mouse operation” in my exit report. Ahhh…irony… ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-mickeymouse-as-adjective/82106/12 "2001-09-17T23:23:48Z")
I believe the earliest usage is by animators-- To “Mickey-mouse” the soundtrack means the animation is done first, and then the sound-effects and music are added to coincide. This “back-to-front” approach makes for less natural-feeling animation.(This is the way “Steamboat Willie” was done.) ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2001, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-mickeymouse-as-adjective/82106/13 "2001-09-18T03:30:23Z")
The earlies cite in print that Lighter can give to mean anything _remotely_ referring to something “insipid,corny,lacking importance”(M-W) would be from “1938,in Tamony _Americanisms_(No. 30) 4: Introduces an original style combining the precise tempos and rhythms of mickey-mouse-moosic with the _anything-can-happen_ type of swing and novelty numbers…A strictly _mickey mouse_ band is still box office.” The fact that it was in print in a Jazz meaning that indicated it was _mundane_ was certainly using it in a derogatory manner. **Larry Mudd’s** theory could perhaps be right about the animators, but can’t be examined without some cites. ---
**Author:** ![Nenya\_Elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ea5d25/32.png) [@Nenya\_Elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nenya_Elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2001, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-mickeymouse-as-adjective/82106/14 "2001-09-18T07:25:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Beruang \* > \*\*They also say that in Australia, the term means “cheap and unreliable.” That is the sense I have always heard it in. \*\* That is the way I always heard “mickey-mouse”, too–jerry-rigged, temporary, or substandard. A similar phrase comes to mind: “held together with chewing gum and baler twine.” 😉 Often used of equipment or organizations, as in, “We saved up and finally bought a real \_\_\_\_\_\_\_, not the mickey-mouse home-made one we’d been using” or “I don’t think you should donate to that group; they’re pretty mickey-mouse and don’t have the good administration to take care of the money.” I’ve lived in western Canada for most of my life, but this particular phrase I’ve heard most from my dad, who’s an American, born in Chicago but lived all across the lower 48. So I have no idea which regional meaning mine is…Dad’s got several other phrases that I haven’t heard anywhere else, as well. 🙂