every little boy wants to be a hero
every little boy needs to believe in a hero
that’s why we exist, to inspire dreams

very few little boys get to be heroes
ask yourself, how many mice are heroes;

now, ask this question
does a mouse dream of being a hero?

what is a hero but
a superior being?

to be a hero is much more than just
the right place at the right time
it’s knowing this is your time
your time to step up, no more timid
fearful running from the shadow
The Mouse is in the House!

that is what drives me; no more timid
no, I don’t know about any of the girls
have you talked to Minnie?

(A strange, and I think, largely unrehearsed last conversation with the Great One. He popped up beside me as I was strolling. I believe it was a coincidence. I’d like to believe he had been thinking about our prior interviews. GG)

OK, look, last time we probably didn’t get off on the right foot
I didn’t mean to sound the way I did, some days are
harder than others, and I guess you caught me
on one of those days, So, let’s start over. You want
to know the background story, right? What it‘s like
inside the character? Smart angle. OK, I’m an actor
all I’ve ever cared about was a steady paycheck
and the opportunity to do good work. What you have
to understand is there was no guarantee the Mouse
was going to work. Oswald was huge, a bigger audience
I think that was in part what drove Mr. Disney to make
my character strive to be better; it was a thing between him
and Oswald. You could tell it was personal.

I couldn’t be as funny as Oswald, I mean watch him
he’s a natural, but Mr. Disney encouraged me to be
myself, “show us the courage that keeps you going
Mouse! remember! you’re tough as any alleycat …
and twice as good.” He always called me Mouse.
No one else called me that if I had anything to do about it
but when he called me Mouse — it made me feel special
I think that comes through in a lot of the performances
the sense that Mickey is important because of who he is
the common mouse capable of being a hero — think about it
the Mouse is the first superhero — those are big boots to fill
but that was all Mr. Disney’s vision, that, and his belief in me
from the start he told me I was the one. Because of that
I knew he expected me to live up to that belief.

Me? I’m an actor, I show up every day, read my lines
do what I can to help, then collect my pay cheque
at the end of week, nothing more, nothing special.
I could have been any mouse … but now that I say that
I’m not sure of that; anything I did was a result
of a bond between Mr. Disney and me. In fact,
now that I say that, I don’t believe anyone else
could have been the Mouse, no one other than me.

(I receive a phone call directing me to go back to Mr. M’s mansion to speak to him again. GG)

That was my fucking mountain they used in Fantasia.
You know why Minnie is my fucking girl — she does what she’s told.
Not like that fucking duck that can’t keep 3 nephews in line.
As that miserable fucking long eared road kill rodent would say, “what a Maroon.”
I keep Pluto because fucking Goofy is an abomination, and I like to rub it in his nose.
What I need is a big fucking pill to take all my problems away.
What I really need is a complete re-write of Jessica Rabbit — we’ll start by making her a fucking mouse.
Walt fucking Disney can shine my rosy posterior with his nose.

(I have to admit I arrived at the Mansion without announcement. What I didn’t expect was for himself to answer the door. Aloof, inscrutable, I won’t attest to his mental state at the time, nonetheless, his charisma and presence was undeniably The Mouse.
He first appeared in Steamboat Willie in 1928, and nothing has been the same since. GG)