Nearly 96 years after its original appearance in “Steamboat Willie,” The Walt Disney Company's copyright of its first iteration of the iconic Mickey Mouse has expired.
With the copyright expired, anyone can use the beloved black-and-white cartoon character without fear of reprisal from Disney including the city of Durango.
In a YouTube short published to the city’s social media accounts, the city advertises open applications for the new Community Development Commission and encourages residents to apply.
In the video, captions overlay a dancing and whistling Mickey Mouse and several other “Steamboat Willie” characters. They say joining the Community Development Commission is “almost as much fun as 1928 Mickey Mouse entering the public domain.”
It reminds viewers the application deadline is Monday.
The short ends with the city of Durango’s official logo hovering above Mickey Mouse’s head as Mickey, piloting the steamboat, cheerily whistles, rocks his hips and taps his feet. The final frames of the clip with the city logo bouncing above Mickey punctuate the unlikely crossover.
City spokesman Tom Sluis said the short clip was a timely way of attracting people’s attention to open commission seats on a new board. The video has received around 4,000 views combined across platforms.
“It’s a way to try to generate interest in what could be viewed as kind of a run-of-the-mill to-do with boards and commissions,” he said. “Obviously, there’s been a lot of interest (in boards) lately. But I think any way that we can generate interest in some of these boards and commissions, the better.”
The city has embraced popular culture in other social media posts. On July 8, 2023, the city acknowledged some residents’ dissatisfaction about an Independence Day drone show.
The light-spirited posts serve a purpose other than being entertaining. They are an effort to humanize interactions with the city, an inherently bureaucratic organization, Sluis said.
“One of the things that we’ve really found out is that when you make a humorous social media post, you make it very engaging for the public,” he said. “And we found that the public has a high demand for this kind of engagement, just to show that we’re not a bunch of faceless bureaucrats.”
He said showing a lighter side and a sense of humor makes the city more approachable. And the city has become more open to admitting mistakes – perhaps like a lackluster drone show – than it has been in the past.
“And that applies to every department in every division. From everybody who’s out in the snow plows to the people at the front desk who are helping people with paying the bills, and pretty much everything in between, it just makes the government more relatable,” he said.
cburney@durangoherald.com
