I was researching a historical topic when I stumbled upon this website:
http://www.cid.army.mil/usacil2.html
Please correct me if I get this wrong: The official coat of arms of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation laboratory – which is a part of the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command – is Mickey Mouse, dressed up as Sherlock Holmes?!
Is this some sort of prank? This can’t possibly be serious! What’s the Straight Dope?
Pretty sure it’s real. I have a business card from somebody there with that logo on it. No idea why they picked it though.
That’s what happens when you let units choose their own patches.
It is hardly a coat of arms, a logo maybe.
It still seems a bit infra dig for such an august organization, but I don’t think it is quite so bad if you just think of it as a logo.
Click on it and you get a copy of the letter giving Disney’s permission to use it.
I guess we can segue this thread into “when did Mickey Mouse become a denigrating name?”
I suspect Mickey was a beloved symbol of all that was good and fun and wholesome in America… until about the mid-70’s, in college, where I started to hear exceptionally easy courses described as “Mickey Mouse courses” (when they weren’t being called “bird courses”).
I too like Walt Disney. My personal favourite since childhood days is Goofy. But I don’t think it would be appropriate to use this image:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a6/Goofy.svg
to represent the mission of, let’s say, the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command.
Wow, not only is is Mickey Mouse dressed up like Sherlock Holmes, it’s a really bad rendition of Mickey Mouse dressed up like Sherlock Holmes. Maybe they got Uncle Walt himself to do the drawing; he was apparently never very good at drawing Mickey, having stollen him from a more competent animator.
I want to know who in the 449 Bomb Squadron thought this was a good idea.
:eek: Some of those are downright disturbing!
Yeah, but the Air Force (from its US Army Air Corps days in the 40s) has a tradition of cartoony nose cone art, and these are squarely within that tradition. Mickey-as-Sherlock seems to come out of nowhere.
Click on the image. You can then read Disney’s 1966 licensing letter.
In WW2 Disney studios cooperated with the military branches on all sorts of character-themed projects including distinctive insignia like the one pictured, unit patches and aircraft decorations. The tradition clearly is continuing.
Then you obviously have never dealt with TRADOC. Seems very appropriate to me.
TheDisney ckey Mouse is authentic and was designed by Disney Studios and authorized by Wat Disney. The Crime lab has a copy of the letter f approval and should still be on file. There were only a few patches produced and were in the possession of the crime lab workers.
Actually, if you click on the logo in OP’s link, you’re take to this copy of that very letter.
Navy squadron that has “Felix the Cat” on it’s insignia patch.
Not only that, but Disney made propaganda films for the government during WWII, (some of which depicted images that today would be considered racist).
Hopefully if the 449 Bomb Squadron still exists, they are not still using that patch!
It’s just a monkey. Honest. Serious. nothing else. I swear. You’re reading too much into into. It’s not what you think it is…
