Happy Birthday Mickey 
MouseTime: 4 minutes          Difficulty: ★★

知道吗？从1928年11月18日，米老鼠代表美国精神在动画片《蒸汽船威利号》中首次亮相到现在，风靡全球的米老鼠已经80岁了！

Happy birthday, Mickey Mouse! The world’s most famous mouse was 80 years old. On November 18, 1928, Mickey Mouse was in his first cartoon film. He is popular with kids everywhere.

Mickey Mouse arrived on the world’s cultural stage 80 years ago as a skinny but cheerful black-and-white product of the Jazz Age.

He was a symbol of American courage and determination in his first screen image, Steamboat Willie, on Nov. 18, 1928. The film at New York’s Colony Theatre showed an impolite little animal who took Captain Peter’s steamboat on a joyride and ran after Minnie Mouse by making music on the bodies of various farm animals.

When sound was starting to be used in movie, Walt Disney immediately made his Mickey Mouse talk on the movie screen. Spectators, old and young, were delighted. Mickey became a great success and has since won the hearts of millions. Mickey is a wonderful clean mouse in a cleaned up world created by Walt Disney. Movies about Mickey Mouse have been popular with spectators everywhere around the world ever since it was created.

Mickey Mouse was followed by Donald Duck, Pluto the Dog, the Three Little Pigs, and then the Seven Dwarfs and Snow White. Every one of these Disney characters has brought great amusement and laughter to children and adults alike. Walt founded his Disney Empire on his popular cartoon characters.

Though the years have dulled Mickey’s personality, he has become the corporate face of a multibillion-dollar entertainment empire. In the process, Mickey also has become a cultural symbol of American optimism, resourcefulness and energy or an icon of cultural commodification.

One of Disney’s favorite dreams was to create a new kind of amusement park — a place where parents and children could all go and have fun together. In 1955 his first amusement park, Disneyland opened in California. In late 1971 a bigger amusement park, Disney World, was completed in Orlando, Florida. Walt Disney himself did not live long enough to visit Florida Park, though. He died in December 1966. However, death brought only his life to an end, but not his dream. His Empire is growing. It has expanded to Japan and Hong Kong in Asia and France in Europe. 

Help: dwarf n. 小矮人  corporate face 企业形象  commodification n. 商品化  expand v. 扩展

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