"Mickey Mouse turns 80 years old today, and there's not a gray hair on him. Sure, he's a little rounder, a little squatter, and he's been wearing the same clothes for decades, but all in all he looks pretty good. Sure, Mickey hasn't had a movie in two years (his last one went direct-to-video), but his cheerful face remains one of the most recognizable images in the world, even beating out Santa Claus. Disney threw a big party for the mouse's 75th birthday, so this year's festivities will be comparatively subdued. But TIME has been following the adorable mouse since the beginning, and 80 years is still a big number to us." - Anna Haro from Bookmarklet

"By 1937, 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)." - Anna Haro

"The cartoons' vaudevillian overtones made liberal use of slapstick and puns, and Mickey's close association with children required that he always remain upstanding and moral (leaving the cantankerous Donald Duck to get into all the trouble)." - Anna Haro

Many Happy Returns Micky! ;-D http://uk.youtube.com/watch... http://uk.youtube.com/watch... - Jason

haha +Jason - Anna Haro

One of many instances in business history where a company thought it knew better in making a stupid business decision and got left behind in the end. Or how often do you watch one of those Universal Oswald cartoons? Another instance that comes to mind is Atari being all high and mighty and not accepting an offer by Nintendo to make it a video game system. So Nintendo makes it itself and instead of playing the Atari Wii right now, - Chris Reed

steamboat motherfuckin willie still going strong after all these years! - Cee Bee

Mickey should be public domain. - Chris Hollander

agreed chris.... - Live4Emma (L4S)

Donald Duck got me into a lot of trouble as a kid. - Just Katie