Michael & Mickey Supposed To Team Up For Music Video In The 80s? Profiles In History Has Proof

Bonnie Lamrock July 30, 2013 News

Just a quick heads-up to all you animation & theme park history buffs out there: Profiles in History is holding an animation art auction on Wednesday, July 31st that you really don’t want to miss.

Joseph Maddalena and his PIH team always manage to chase down some truly amazing items. Rarer-than-rare pieces like this early concept painting of Snow White back when Walt was considering making “The Fairest in the Land” a blonde.

Or this “Brer Rabbit’s Splash Mountain” booklet that the Imagineers put together in the mid-1980s, back when Walt Disney Parks & Resorts was trying to persuade McDonalds to come be the sponsor of this still-yet-to-be-built flume ride.

That’s what so great about the animation art auctions that the Profiles in History people put together. The entertaining & eclectic mix of items that Maddalena & Co. always manage to put together. Weird period promotion items like this cell which shows Donald Duck dressed as the Coachman from Disney’s “Pinocchio “

.. or how about the ultimate pool toy? Which would be a couple of deep sea diver figures from Disneyland’s Submarine Voyage ride.

But if I had to pick the one item from Wednesday’s animation art auction that is the true gem, that one thing which Disney enthusiasts & pop culture fans are going to completely lose their minds over, I’d have to say that this is Item No. 374. Which is a set of 12 storyboards for a never-shot music video which was to have started Michael Jackson & Mickey Mouse.

Back in the late 1980s, the King of Pop wanted to do what his idol — screen legend Gene Kelly — had never been able to do. And that was dance with the world’s most famous mouse.

For those who’ve never heard this story before: Back in 1944 when Kelly was still putting together the dance routines that he wanted to do in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s new musical, “Anchors Aweigh ,” he reportedly reached out to Walt Disney and asked for his permission to use Mickey Mouse in a musical number that would mix live-action footage and animation.

As the story goes, Walt allegedly initially gave Gene permission to use Mickey in this soon-to-begin-shooting MGM musical. But then Roy O. Disney reportedly nixed the idea, arguing that since the Studio still owed millions to the Bank of America for earlier production loans, it just didn’t make sense for Disney to lend out the Studio’s biggest star to the competition for free.

So since Gene now couldn’t use Mickey in “Anchors Aweigh,” Kelly was forced to make a creative compromise. Which is why he then wound up dancing with Jerry the Mouse of “Tom & Jerry” fame in this movie instead. But to hear Michael tell this story, whenever these two legendary entertainers got together to talk about Hollywood history, Gene would always moan about how Roy O. Disney had ruined his chance to work with Mickey Mouse. Which is why he had to settle for Jerry the Mouse instead.

Now jump ahead to September of 1986. When “Captain EO” had just opened at Disneyland Park. Which — to Michael Jackson’s way of thinking, anyway — meant that The Walt Disney Company now owed him.

And given that Michael was already developing “Moonwalker ” at this point (i.e., a “Fantasia ” -like concert film that Jackson dreamed of building around some of the songs featured on his soon-to-be-released album, 1987′s “Bad “), he reportedly reached out to Michael Eisner and personally pitched Disney’s then-CEO about Michael & Mickey possibly teaming up to do a dance routine together in this yet-to-be-shot movie.

Now as I understand it, it was Jackson himself who hired a former Disney artist to put together the storyboards that were used for this pitch. Which started out with the King of Pop telling the kids that he was babysitting that it was now time for bed.