The Haunted Mouse

By Gordon Hopkins All good things come to an end. That's why milk has an expatriation date. Among those good things that eventually ends is copyright. For those who create, whether it be stories or movies or comics or songs, what they create is protected by something called copyright. If I create a really great character, one that catches the imaginations of the public and enriches the culture, copyright protects my intellectual property rights. Intellectual property is the term for something I made up and you can't use.But, eventually, copyright ends. And just like milk, when the expatriation passes, intellectual property can go bad.Really bad.On January 1, 2024, a lot of intellectual property became public domain. Evelyn Waugh’s first novel, “Decline and Fall”; director Carl Theodor Dreyer's silent flick, “The Passion of Joan of Arc”; and Bertolt Brecht’s “The Threepenny Opera” have all entered the public domain, meaning any knucklehead can now do whatever they want with them.Sherlock Holmes, one of the most famous and most popular characters ever created, has appeared in hundreds more stories, novels and movies than his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ever wrote. Doyle's estate fought tooth and nail to keep it from happening. I remember all the trouble Nebraska author Berkley Forsythe got into when he published “Expo '98: Sherlock Holmes in Omaha.”In the end, there was nothing Sir Arthur's descendants (and their lawyers) could do to stop writers from pitting the Great Detective against every Victorian-era character, like Jack the Ripper, Dracula, the Phantom of the Opera and even the Elephant Man.The next deceased creator to find his creation used in ways he never could have imagined is none other than Walt Disney. In 2024, “Steamboat Willie,” the first cartoon ever to feature Mickey Mouse, entered the public domain.Weirdos determined to subvert a cultural icon took no time in taking advantage of the situation. At least two horror films have been announced that feature the falsetto rodent in roles far more creepy that his usual fare.One, “Mickey’s Mouse Trap,” is about a masked killer wearing a Mickey Mouse mask. Not the most imaginative plot in my humble opinion, and not nearly as clever as the title, which I suspect is the only reason for making this movie.The second movie, as-yet-untitled, is reportedly intended to be a horror-comedy adaptation of “Steamboat Willie,” about a killer mouse that stalks the passengers and crew of a boat off the coast of New York City. This seems a bit closer to the mark, to me at least, but I still suspect the controversy of a horror Mickey came first and the concept is more an afterthought.This is not the first time we've seen such a thing, of course. Soon after the children's classic, “Winnie the Pooh,” entered the public domain, the Pooh horror, “Blood and Honey,” came into being. So there is precedent.Speaking of Pooh, this year “The House at Pooh Corner” is now public domain. It was the first book to feature the bouncing cat, Tigger. Can a sequel to “Blood and Honey” featuring a killer Tigger be far behind?

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