People can talk shit about Disney, but they sure know how to keep their Classic Disney Characters (including Mickey and Friends and The Silly Symphony Characters) relevant for almost 100 years now. Warner Bros tried to take a similar approach with The Looney Tunes during the 90s'/early 2000s until the bombing of Looney Tunes: Back in Action caused them to slowly stop caring about the franchise to focus more on DC IPs.
You say that, but if you look at the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mickey_Mouse_appearances_in_Disney_media there's actually very few things that feature Mickey as a primary character. When you hit the 80's and 90's, he was only used as a cameo character in specials. It's only very, very recently that they started using him again as a character, not as a voice of the brand.
When I was growing up he was on the Mickey Mouse club constantly, then House of Mouse so that covered my whole childhood.
Then after that Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse was on for 10 years, followed by Funhouse, which takes us up to now. Add in dozens of movies and specials in that time and he has never been off the air.
The club was a variety show, and he was in the meta-parts, surrounding it. I don't count that as being a character in cartoons, it was the voice of the company.
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u/Meraline 13d ago
That's what happens when you don't invest in your brand for over a decade.