Entertainment
‘Babes in Toyland’ Marks the Only Time Walt Disney Licensed Mickey Mouse to a Competing Studio
What in the world was the Disney cartoon character Mickey Mouse doing in the 1934 non-Disney musical Babes in Toyland, starring opposite the comedy team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy?
Walt Disney himself approved it back in the days before he realized how well he could monetize the character, and Mickey was unnervingly played in full rodent regalia by a capuchin monkey with an oxygen tank hidden inside a fake mouse tail so it could breathe.
The simian’s jerky movements gave the Hal Roach Studios movie, later titled March of the Wooden Soldiers, a disquieting quality, and it marked the last time the character was ever licensed out to a competing studio.
