Mussolini and Mickey Mouse

Italian comic books are called Fumetti – which literally means “little smoke” and refers to the puff of smoke image in which the drawings are captioned – and during the 30’s there was a rise in the distribution of these magazines and the popularity of the little mouse Mickey was so great that in 1937 Fiat even named a car with his Italian name Topolino – see below!

However as Fascism developed, together with the sense of racial superiority that we are all well aware of from Germany, even in Italy publication of all foriegn comics in Italy was banned with effect from 1st January 1939.

From that date all Italian comics were required to follow a strict standard, exalting heroism, patriotism and the superiority of the Italian race and it seems that Italian children , including notably those of Italian great Dictator Benito Mussolini, greatly missed their comic heroes.

The person who was in a position to alter whatever rules he chose to amend was Benito Mussolini and in the case of Mickey Mouse he was very happy to step in personally to persuade the publishers who had already bent the rules by simply renaming the American idols with Italian names – to specifically ignore these new rules in respect of “the little mouse” and thus throughout the development of the hostilities – Topolino – the Italian name for Mickey Mouse – continued to entertain specifically Mussolini’s own, and by default , all other Italian children, until 1941.

Rachele and Benito Mussolini with his children

By 1941 – not even Mussolini could save his mouse and the roguish character had to be redrawn as a human and  renamed Tuffolino, but his character was very similar to Mickey’s and Mickey’s own stories were reused.

The first of these was Tuffolino- agente di pubblicità, a remake of American comic story Mickey Mouse, super salesman (1941) but with human friends taking the parts of Minnie and Clarabelle.

This image was allowed to flourish until 3 February 1942…when even this was getting too close to the enemy and although Tuffolino’s stories were now written by Italian Fedorico Pedrocchi and drawn by Italian Pierlorenzo De Vita – Mickey’s character just had to go, – and the newspaper had to cease all publications in December 1943.

Nonetheless – even without Mussolini in power to support him – such was the popularity of Topolino- that soon after the end of WW2 in December 1945, Topolini was reborn and Mondadori resumed publication of Topolino magazine, and could once again publish Mickey Mouse stories by Floyd Gottfredson.  Indeed American comics were so popular that soon afterwards the magazine Topolino also began to publish Donald Duck stories by Carl Barks.

Since then Mickey and friends have been the star of many stories including parodies of  James Bond in Paperino missione Bob Fingher (Donald Duck mission Moldfinger) and Paperinik il diabolico vendicatore, a sort of SuperDuck

They have also taken on some classic literature in  Guerra e pace (War and Peace) and Zio Paperone e il mistero dei Candelabri (parody of Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

Later parodies include  I signori della galassia (The Lords of Galaxy, – akaStar Wars), C’era una volta in America (Once Upon a time in America, the story of the USA through the lives of Mickey’s ancestors) and a Time Machine saga in which Mickey and Goofy go back in time to discover the answer to key questions such as “Why did Napoleon keep his hand in his pocket?

So! – Eat your heart out Blackadder Back and Forth – your mission had already been covered in a puff of smoke!