Comments

  1. jrkrideau says

    He was never the same afterwards.

    And I probably would not be either. That is an evil pair of mice. Cohn probably considered himself lucky not to have been eaten.

  2. blf says

    Whilst it’s not impossible the child is Roy Cohn — he was born in 1927, so in that (allegedly) 1939 picture, he’d be c.12 (fuller versions show the child is on his knees) — just a caution that that claim (presuming it’s not a joke) has not been sourced in the OP.

  3. nomdeplume says

    The child almost looks as if he is wearing a hominid version of the mouse masks! But oh, what stuff of nightmares those two are (three if that is Cohn)!

  4. Larry says

    I’m 65 and those things terrify me! They’re straight out of a Stephen King nightmare.

  5. says

    From what little I could learn online (none of it from an authoritative source) these were homemade fan costumes from some time in the thirties. I found no explanation for the kneeling child apparently being held hostage by the two.

  6. says

    Steven J. Gould wrote an essay, illustrated with Mickeys from various decades, tracing the role of neoteny in the “evolution” of Mickey Mouse’s appearence. Obviously not juvenile but adult rats/mice.

  7. hemidactylus says

    Terrifying Minnie and Mickey would fit right into the cast of the recent Banana Splits movie. I really didn’t see that one coming. Gratuitous gore.

  8. dianne says

    Look at those eyes. They’re forward facing for stereoscopic vision. Predator eyes. They’ve just caught lunch.

  9. wzrd1 says

    After due consideration, I’d probably want Godzilla to radiation breath me a few hundred times than to see that as a child.
    But then, I was born in the early 1960’s, Obama is only slightly older than me.

  10. says

    I have seen this photo before and have heard, though it’s probably untrue, that these were costumes created for Disney but when Walt Disney saw this photo he said it liked like one that would be sent along with a ransom note and ordered the costumes redesigned.

  11. woozy says

    You know….. I am becoming convinced every three years are so someone comes in and replaces all the old photographs and video footage with different images just to make them look weirder.

  12. says

    tedw
    Yes, this was the essay I had in mind, read it in a collection of SJG’s essays, no idea it was available online as a PDF!
    Thank you
    Maxwell