Word: mickey
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Most balloon characters take the form of recent popular comics or cartoons, such as Underdog (1965), Kermit the Frog (1977), Barney (1994). Walt Disney got in on the action in 1934, with the first Mickey and Minnie Mouse balloons. But the character with the most balloons has been Snoopy. Charles Schultz' floppy-eared mutt has gone through six balloon changes since his debut...
...young animator named Fred Moore gave Mickey his first makeover. Earlier animators had drawn the mouse as a series of circles, which limited his movement. Moore - who later animated Fantasia's Sorcerer's Apprentice segment - gave him a pear-shaped body, pupils, white gloves and a shortened nose, to make him cuter. Mickey also appeared in color for the first time that year; The Band Concert's use of Technicolor was so innovative that critics still consider it to be a masterpiece. (Click here for a list of the All-TIME 100 Movies...
...Disney Studios was producing about 12 Mickey shorts a year, with Disney himself providing the mouse's high-pitched voice. Mickey became a football hero, a hunter, a tailor, and a symphony conductor. He accidentally sprayed himself with insecticide, rescued Pluto from the dogcatcher, crashed a car into a barn, fell behind on his rent, enlisted in the army, had his house repossessed, and lost Minnie to an innumerable string of muscular bad boys (although he always won her back in the end). The cartoons' vaudevillian overtones made liberal use of slapstick and puns, and Mickey's close association with...
...1950s, Mickey had theme park, a newspaper comic strip, and The Mickey Mouse Club, the hit television variety show that has launched the careers of teen stars from Annette Funicello to Justin Timberlake. But soon Disney feature films like Bambi and Sleeping Beauty began to rake in the accolades - and box office receipts - the mouse faded into the background. Between his last 1953 cartoon short, The Simple Things, and the 1983 Christmas special Mickey's Christmas Carol, the mouse that built the house of Disney would remain out of work for 30 years...
...despite Mickey's semi-retirement, his ears are still one of the most famous cultural icons of the 20th and 21st centuries. He has posed for photographs with every U.S. President since Harry Truman, save one (Lyndon Johnson never visited a Disney theme park). Disney claims that Mickey had a 98% awareness rate among children between ages 3-11 worldwide. Mouse-related merchandise sales have declined from their 1997 high, but they still make up about 40% of the company's consumer products revenue. Mickey returned to the big screen for a cameo in 1988's Who Framed Roger Rabbit...