Gaming History You Should Know – The History of Runaway Brain: Disney’s Forgotten Mickey Mouse Short December 22, 2024

Welcome back to Gaming History You Should Know. Today, we’re not going to be talking about a video game event in the strictest sense of the word, but it is one of the first pieces of media I can remember that clearly WAS impacted by the influence of the video game craze of the early to mid 90s, a short film called Runaway Brain starring Mickey Mouse!

In 1995, my sister, father and myself went to the theater to go see a mostly forgotten movie called “A Kid in King Arthur’s Court”. I was interested in seeing it because I had seen a brief look behind the scenes at Disney’s Animation Studios on television (either Disney Channel or ABC) and they were hard at work on the aforementioned Runaway Brain. It would be a horror short where Mickey Mouse found himself in an experiment where he switches brains with a gigantic monster. What interested me was the incredible animation style clearly inspired by the 90s video game aesthetic. In fact, the behind-the-scenes video released back in the day mentioned guy in charge of animating Mickey Mouse for the short had been responsible for animating characters such as Jafar in Aladdin and Gaston in Beauty and the Beast.

Sadly due to massive delays me and my family only caught the latter half of the short, but I definitely remember catching the entire short when it broadcasted on the Disney Channel late one night with little fanfare. I greatly enjoyed it.

Since the late 90s, Disney has refused to acknowledge the existence of the short, and refused to release it attached to any recent home video collections of animated short films or Disney+! While you can’t find the short through legit means anymore, its legacy does live on to this day. Mortal Kombat games are still being made to this day, so the fighting game genre highlighted at the beginning of the short is still going strong. In fact, Warren Spector does credit the short as an inspiration for Disney’s Epic Mickey.

We like to highlight some of the best independently made documentaries on gaming history for this series and today is no different. YouTube channel CutScene did a fantastic look into the history of its short and its enduring legacy. He actually was able to get interviews with the short’s director and editor for this featurette! You can give it a full watch below: