Epic (Mickey) trade: Disney swaps Al Michaels for Oswald

by JC Fletcher on Oct 16th 2009 9:55AM

The Game Informer preview of Junction Point's Epic Mickey is out, revealing not only the game's art style and Mickey's retro-inspired look, but details of the storyline and characters as well -- definitely worth picking up the mag to see, even if it means another trip into GameStop. One of the most interesting details isn't really in the game, but about the game.

The antagonist, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, almost wasn't included -- kinda hard to be epic without a bad guy, you know? "Disney didn't own the rights to Oswald," designer Warren Spector explained to Game Informer. The Epic Mickey project was apparently of such importance, though, that Disney CEO Bob Iger made a deal with NBC Universal and "traded Al Michaels, a human sportscaster, for the rights to a cartoon rabbit." For what evil purpose was Universal keeping Oswald locked away? We may never know.

At Game Informer's website, see the first look at Epic Mickey's environments, along with more of that wonderful concept art.

Source

Tags: disney, disney-interactive, epic-mickey, junction-point-studios, Nintendo, Wii

Reader Comments (64)

This game will be the first epic win game.

I imagine the day they told Al Michaels:

"What??, I have to sell my house and move to New York??"

"yes, Mike, Disney traded you for a cartoon rabbit from the 30s that no one remembers...it's called Oswald I think..."

"Damn, I'm gonna fuckin do it just so people can enjoy Epic Mickey, my children can make new friends once they tell eveyone they sold their house for Epic Mickey to be done..."

"you are a good man Mike... may I pleasure you?"

Holy shit! You don't trade Al Michaels for just anything! Disney must mean some serious business.

NOooo! Not Al Michaels!!!

What's epic is that Disney co-created Oswald and then gets put through the ringer - LOL

From Wikipedia:

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (also known as Oswald the Rabbit or Oswald Rabbit) is an anthropomorphic rabbit animated cartoon character created by Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney for films distributed by Universal Pictures in the 1920s and 1930s.

Disney is ALWAYS serious about business. I'd be willing to bet that the revenues for a Mickey game + Nintendo would be a lot larger than Al. Add in that this game will be huge and definitely get a sequel (or several) = big profits.

In before Pachter and his predictions!

When asked for comment, Al Michaels was noted as saying "I knew this would happen without the job security that John Madden brought to our partnership"

Figures that the rights to a cartoon rabbit would matter more to Disney than the rights of a living human being.

In case anyone is thinking of downvoting Jack for being racist, his comment was actually a witty pun about Walt Disney being anti-semitic.
In the words Bjorn (I think) "cleverly done."

Puns about Disney being anti-Semitic lost their clever value around the time they started.

I think it's hilarious. "Here, you can have this person. We REALLY REALLY need that rabbit!"

because of that trade maybe epic mickey also be a movie. they know people aren't gonna buy a non-first party title, so they can get the rest of their money in film

right....because if it isn't the house of Nintendo then nobody would buy all those "imagine" games or all the party games....Rayman Raving Rabbids is from Ubisoft--hell! I think I just discovered the sequel to Oswald the Rabbit just now!!

I think it would be a mistake to say that the entire value of the character Oswald is around this game. There is the historic value that it was Walt Disney's first featured character, I have to think that owning that history would be invaluable to the house that Walt built.

FACT: Walt Disney was racist.
FACT: Walt Disney didn't make Toy Story (The best film ever)
FACT: Walt Disney owned 1202 eyepatches.

FACT: This sentence is a lie.
FACT: I just blew your motherlovin' mind.

FACT: Nathan, YOU FAIL.

Oswald in Kingdom Hearts 3 CONFIRMED.

Gotta wonder how Al Michaels feels about being traded for a cartoon character.

In the words of his old buddy Madden "BAM! They gottem lookin out his earhole!"

I guess Epic Mickey is serious business then.

that trade was made years ago. Back when Al left ABC to go to NBC to do Monday night football with John Madden.

I remember the Al Michaels story a few years ago. He was actually being traded because NBC sports wanted Al Michaels to do the NFL Sunday Night Football with John Madden. They owned Oswald the Rabbit because when Walt Disney first created Oswald, Walt Disney was doing contract work, and not for his own company. Eventually the rights to Oswald became part of Universal.

Yeah, so unless this game's been in the pipeline for quite some time now (which it could have been and we just never knew) then that little anecdote is probably bogus.

But still cool to see more art from this game, and even get a taste of the music...!

@Mayne: The game has been in the works for a while it seems. Warren started Junction Point Studios in 2005. They were then purchased by Disney in 2007, so it's debatable when work actually started on the game. They could have had a deal with Disney before they were purchased, as a job advertisement mentioned working on a project that dealt with "Classic Hollywood cartoons."

I'm not familiar when this Al Michaels deal took place. But they also probably wanted Oswald for nostalgia reasons, so who knows.

Al Michaels's last game for ABC (owned by Disney) was Super Bowl XL in 2006. He moved to/was traded to NBC for Sunday Night Football that fall.

As far back as early 2008, Warren Spector was talking about making a 'Mario killer' game with Mickey Mouse. Or at least that was the rumor in one of of the game magazines.
It's not really out of the question that the time frames match up.

if only this came out for ps3...

Shut up.

Scans!
http://nintendodpad.com/Welcome/News/Entries/2009/10/15_First_Epic_Mickey_Scans!.html

I was really hoping for cell shaded. I'm kinda sad to see it's regular ol' 3D :\

I would've still bought it. Cell-shaded stuff looks awesome.

I don't think cel shading looks cheap. I think it looks great!

Agreed. Especially with the "retro" look they're trying to achieve.

I love how the ears are done in the game. You know, how you always see both his ears no matter what angle you're looking at him from, just like the cartoon; such a nice touch

While I'm also disappointed this isn't cell-shaded, it still looks freaking amazing. Also I'm loving retro mickey.

I love those eyes. I'm so glad they used retro Mickey

Cell shading would've looked great, but I'm not surprised. Cell-shading isn't really disney's style. They do proper 3D animation in-house.

You are telling me to shut up because I wish a game would come out for a system that I own? Real awesome kid.

Yes

Shut up.

Drake, imwith you, i wish this was multiplatform, i am not buying a system for one game, i feel you, i would want it on the 360, maybe they can port it over and make some more money, i know Disney loves making money.

@Drake:
I also want Demon's Souls for a system that I own (360), but if I say that Sony fanboys would shred me to pieces

I'm pretty damn excited for this game. I'm not gonna lie, it's partly because I'm a big fan of Kingdom Hearts, and... well, the comparisons are obvious. One thing not brought up yet: who's doing the music for this? One thing that really MADE the set-pieces for KH was Yoko Shimomura's wonderful original and remixed-classical-Disney pieces.

Considering that it looks like they're going to be drawing on locales seen in the Disney canon just like KH, they're going to have to come to the table with some awesome music to complement what are so-far absolutely beautiful environments.

According to this GoNintendo post (http://gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=100611):

"- Jim Dooley 'Pushing Daises' is doing the soundtrack"

As for the Kingdom Hearts comparisons, I guess you're right to a certain extent, but this sounds more like what I imagined Kingdom Hearts was going to be in the first place. Not that I don't like Kingdom Hearts mind you, but in terms of the mood and all that it really felt more Final Fantasyesque than Disneyish, if that makes sense; I was really hoping for a more darker focus on the Disney stuff, and Epic Mickey seems to not only have that but really interesting gameplay mechanics and art style as well.

I thought the first Kingdom Hearts did a good job of balancing disney with final fantasy. It's just since the second game (and every other game after the 2nd) just seems like final fantasy games featuring a couple of disney characters.

Jim Dooley?

The soundtrack to Pushing Daisies was one of the oh so many great things about that amazing show. Now I am SUPER excited for this game.

@Dopple Boppler: I wholeheartedly agree. Kingdom Hearts was not a disappointment to me; it just went with a different focus than what I expected. This game looks to be going in that direction, if only to differentiate itself from KH.

Disney got the better end of the deal. Oswald doesn't have a salary or health benefits.

I beg to differ have you seen the ratings for Sunday night football and the cah that the NFL is raking in lately?

Cool, you guys have fun waving your stupid controller around like an idiot.

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Epic (Mickey) trade: Disney swaps Al Michaels for Oswald

Reader Comments (64)

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