# How did mice get such great PR? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 6, 2014, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030 "2014-01-06T15:17:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030/21 "2014-01-06T20:04:20Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Pet mice never seem to acclimate to being handled. They stay nervous, unlike rats or hamsters. Probably has something to do with being prey animals. Like, say, rats and hamsters? Needless to say, rats are [also](http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg62/witchyhoy3/000000/Cutest-Rats-13.jpg) [cute](http://amazingcentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/adorable-rat-pictures-4.jpg). Possibly even cuter than mice. (Plus, their fur is pleasant to stroke.) (Emphasis added to the quote, of course.) ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030/22 "2014-01-06T20:04:57Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > I disagree with Disney about “everybody’s frightened of a mouse” – many people, yes, but by no means all people. “Startled by” might have been a better way to express it than “frightened of”. Mice are inconspicuous until they move, and then they move _fast_. You don’t notice them, then there’s a blur of hard-to-identify movement. The part of our brain in charge of _ohcrap_ reactions isn’t very good at distinguishing “harmless fast-moving mammal that’s trying to escape” from “bitey venomous reptile that’s striking”. That’s enough to make most people jump a bit, even if they aren’t actually afraid. Of course, then there’s **Mean Old Lady** … 😃 ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030/23 "2014-01-06T20:19:31Z")
I think it comes down to this: most of us in modern America are VERY far removed from life on the farm or the frontier. So far removed that all kinds of things that seemed natural and uncontroversial to our rural ancestors seem unspeakably horrible today. To our ancestors, mice and rabbits were thieving varmints who theatened the crops. Hence, Great Grandpa didn’t think twice about shooting rabbits he found on his property, and was HAPPY when his cat killed mice. It’s only when we’re fat, happy and living in a nice clean suburban house that we have the luxury of looking at widdle mousies and bunny wabbits and thinking, “Awwww… how cute!” A friend who visited relatives on their station (ranch) in Australia told me that he and his kids were thrilled to see kangaroos hopping around outside. But when they pointed the critters out to their uncle, who owned the spread, he immediately snarled, “Bloody 'ell, where’s my gun?” Same principle. The farther you get from the farm, the easier it is to find pests adorable. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030/24 "2014-01-06T20:37:04Z")
Was Mickey the first popularized cartoon mouse? And if so is it simply that everyone after followed that lead? ---
**Author:** ![shantih](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f6c823/32.png) [@shantih](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shantih)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030/25 "2014-01-06T20:50:38Z")
> [@MacTech](#): > > Are you pondering what I’m pondering?.. I think so, **MacTech** , but this time _you_ put the trousers on the chimp. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030/26 "2014-01-06T20:56:09Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Was Mickey the first popularized cartoon mouse? And if so is it simply that everyone after followed that lead? I’m not sure that’s significant - he was pretty close to the first popularized cartoon _anything_. Animation was still a pretty new thing when he was invented. ---
**Author:** ![Glazer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a88e57/32.png) [@Glazer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glazer)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030/27 "2014-01-06T21:03:26Z")
Rats and Mice don’t usually live in the same structure. Back when people and their lifestock all lived together in the winter Rats were a much bigger threat. So when you saw Mice you knew you didn’t have rats. Lesser of two evils. ---
**Author:** ![OurLordPeace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e8c25b/32.png) [@OurLordPeace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OurLordPeace)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030/28 "2014-01-06T21:06:30Z")
> [@MacTech](#): > > Are you pondering what I’m pondering?.. I had a manager once who noticed that I was very good at making the “store closing” announcements over the intercom. He came back to my department so many times that one night he came back and asked “do you know what I’m going to ask you?” I replied “yes, but continue to ask me that question any way.” So, night after night, he would come back and ask “do you know what I’m going to ask you?” “I think so, but what will we do when she wakes up?” “I think so, but that’s not legal in this state.” “I think so. Shame on you.” “I think so, and it’s been an honor serving you. See you in hell.” “I think so, but Renee [incompetent store manager] will kill us!” ---
**Author:** ![OurLordPeace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e8c25b/32.png) [@OurLordPeace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OurLordPeace)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030/29 "2014-01-06T21:07:41Z")
> [@Glazer](#): > > Rats and Mice don’t usually live in the same structure. Back when people and their lifestock all lived together in the winter Rats were a much bigger threat. So when you saw Mice you knew you didn’t have rats. Lesser of two evils. George Orwell, in a trench during the Spanish Civil War, noticed that this old adage was not true when sufficient food was available for both types of animal. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030/30 "2014-01-06T21:36:21Z")
Well, I won’t say she STARTED the trend, but Beatrix Potter made bunny wabbits and mousies very popular with kids decades before Disney did, in stories like _ **Peter Rabbit** _, \*\*\*Two Bad Mice _ **,** _ Benjamin Bunny \*\*\* and _ **Mrs. Tittlemouse.** _ And Kenneth Grahame’s \*\*\*The Wind in the Willows \*\*\*had a rat as its hero in 1908. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030/31 "2014-01-06T21:38:39Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I’m not sure that’s significant - he was pretty close to the first popularized cartoon _anything_. Animation was still a pretty new thing when he was invented. Not sure if _that’s_ significant. So he invented lots of the tropes because he was first, e eryone else is still doing it because they repeat what they see the public accepts and likes. The Mouse worked. The public accepted the mouse as the hero. Once that is out there in the public’s sense of the cartoon world are _you_ going to be the new cartoonist making mice as bad guys? If Disney had first brought a cute cockroach successfully as the big animation star (say a take-off on Archy) we’d be seeing multiple decades of cute cockroaches too. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030/32 "2014-01-06T21:44:19Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Well, I won’t say she STARTED the trend, but Beatrix Potter made bunny wabbits and mousies very popular with kids decades before Disney did, in stories like _ **Peter Rabbit** _, \*\*\*Two Bad Mice _ **,** _ Benjamin Bunny \*\*\* and _ **Mrs. Tittlemouse.** _ > > And Kenneth Grahame’s \*\*\*The Wind in the Willows \*\*\*had a rat as its hero in 1908. Indeed. And to the point, the Potter creations actually looked like the animals (albet, wearing clothes). Mickey is of course very stylized. ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030/33 "2014-01-06T21:47:40Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > One thing I love about Itchy and Scratchy is the total reversal of that idea. ``` Homer: Which one's the mouse? Bart: Itchy. ``` Homer: Itchy’s a jerk. Bart: Yeah. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030/34 "2014-01-06T21:51:13Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Well, I won’t say she STARTED the trend, but Beatrix Potter made bunny wabbits and mousies very popular with kids decades before Disney did, in stories like _ **Peter Rabbit** _, \*\*\*Two Bad Mice _ **,** _ Benjamin Bunny \*\*\* and _ **Mrs. Tittlemouse.** _ > > And Kenneth Grahame’s \*\*\*The Wind in the Willows \*\*\*had a rat as its hero in 1908. And, of course, Aesop wrote “The Lion and the Mouse” some time around 500 BC. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030/35 "2014-01-06T22:01:53Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Was Mickey the first popularized cartoon mouse? And if so is it simply that everyone after followed that lead? The “funny animal” genre was established in comics before animation, and it included mice…but not necessarily in sympathetic roles. _Krazy Kat_, which dates back to 1913, features Ignatz Mouse. The comic appeared in animated form in 1916, more than a decade before Mickey was created. Ignatz, however, is an aggressive antagonist who goes to great lengths to bean Kat–who, contrary to typical cat-mouse relationships, does not try to eat or otherwise harm the mouse–with bricks. Of course, funny animals are a long tradition. One fabled mouse was depicted as far back as the Middle Kingdom period of Egypt (~2050 BC - 1650 BC), in the story of the Mouse Who Became Vizier. Again, he was not the most sympathetic of talking mice, as he was a hotheaded judge and was eventually punished for his rulings. The earliest sympathetic mouse character I can think of is the mouse in Aesop’s fable of the Lion and the Mouse, which puts it back to at least the 600 - 500 BC period, and which fits the clever underdog character type. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030/36 "2014-01-06T22:41:06Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Not sure if _that’s_ significant. So he invented lots of the tropes because he was first, e eryone else is still doing it because they repeat what they see the public accepts and likes. The Mouse worked. The public accepted the mouse as the hero. Once that is out there in the public’s sense of the cartoon world are _you_ going to be the new cartoonist making mice as bad guys? > > If Disney had first brought a cute cockroach successfully as the big animation star (say a take-off on Archy) we’d be seeing multiple decades of cute cockroaches too. How many specifically mouse-related tropes did Mickey Mouse pioneer, though? If you think “cartoon mouse,” you generally think of perfect little arch-topped mouseholes, an obsession with cheese, and a perennial conflict with a cat. There’s none of the first two in Mickey Mouse, so far as I’m aware, and while Mickey’s most common antagonist was Pete, who was apparently a cat of some sort, the conflict isn’t so much “cat and mouse” in nature, as “big jerk and plucky little guy.” It’s more Popeye and Bluto than Tom and Jerry. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030/37 "2014-01-06T22:52:52Z")
Good points Balance and Miller. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2014, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030/38 "2014-01-07T00:37:29Z")
We wouldn’t even have Mickey is Disney had been able to keep Oswald. In any case, pretty much from the beginning, Mickey was more man than animal. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2014, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030/39 "2014-01-07T01:06:44Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I don’t disagree with your analysis - but oddly, rats are very common pet. And yet, I’ve never seen anyone with a pet mouse. > [@DrFidelius](#): > > Pet mice never seem to acclimate to being handled. They stay nervous, unlike rats or hamsters. Probably has something to do with being prey animals. Until I had to give them away when I moved into a house with cats, I had pet mice. Given time and patience, fancy mice can be perfectly handleable and trainable, especially if you start when they’re young. They do seem to have gone out of fashion in recent years, but they used to be very common as schoolboys’ pets, and pop up very often in classic kids’ books. Rats seem to have taken over now. ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2014, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030/40 "2014-01-07T01:52:20Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I don’t disagree with your analysis - but oddly, rats are very common pet. And yet, I’ve never seen anyone with a pet mouse. I had two pet mice as a kid - that the shop had carefully sexed and matched so I would only ever have two. Then I caught a brown field mouse and put it in the same cage…:smack: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-mice-get-such-great-pr/678030.md?page=3)