It’s official! “Steamboat Willie” (a.k.a. Mickey Mouse) is in the public domain. The cartoon, which turns 95 this year, was originally set to lose its IP rights multiple times throughout the 20th century, and it has finally come to pass, with predictable results—thanks in part to Adult Swim.
Instead of expiring as originally planned, its copyright was expanded again and again—that is, until Disney finally couldn’t get the U.S. government to lengthen its hold on the cartoon anymore. As of January 1, 2023, you can basically do whatever the hell you want with “Steamboat Willie.”
And boy, did Adult Swim do exactly that. In a bumper produced by the network, a grainy video shows the words “PUBLIC DOMAIN BITCH,” along with Steamboat Willie’s Mickey Mouse. Mickey moves back and forth, mimicking his whistling in the cartoon, but the movement is so fast that it looks like Mickey is humping the words on screen. Music plays in the background, matching Mickey’s thrusts, before finally showing the Adult Swim logo.
The promo short hit Twitter on Jan. 7, where it quickly gained over 3,000 retweets and more than 28,000 likes.
For the most part, Twitter agreed: This was a hilarious use of “Steamboat Willie,” and a clever one at that. “Lmaoooo I want this menace everywhere,” multimedia artist Jake Sloan tweeted. Despite all the cheap, shock value attempts out there to make use of “Steamboat Willie’s” public domain status for a quick buck, onlookers generally agreed this joke was pretty good.
Of course, a couple people felt Adult Swim’s shtick didn’t quite stick the landing. Adult Swim is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery after all, so Adult Swim’s bumper isn’t really the same as, say, some random Twitter user making the clip. Others felt the bit was crude on purpose, a reflection of aging millennial humor about “epic” jokes built on transgression and shock—which, yeah, pretty much checks out.
Personally, I just find it funny. It’s goofy, a bit of a middle-finger to Disney, and it has that right amount of “xD so randumb” energy that permeated late 2000s and early 2010s internet. Or as one Twitter user ironically put it: “Mickey would never do this I am shaking and crying public domain is the worst I know in his heart he wouldn’t do this.” Indeed, Mickey Mouse would never hump the words “PUBLIC DOMAIN BITCH” … until he did!! All thanks to the public domain, folks!
(featured image: Public domain)
