Mickey Maus

Ever notice Mickey’s ears? They’re iconic. Walt Disney designed Mickey so he’d be recognizable even in silhouette, and then he spent the rest of his life cramming that symbol down our throats with Mickey Mouse-ear hats, and hating the Jews. Look at Mickey closely in his cartoons, though. You’ll notice that no matter how Mickey turns his head, his ear will always be facing the same direction. It’s kind of like that whole, “Never changes expression,” meme, but with ears. Logically, his ears should overlap, or turn sideways at some point, but they never do. The reason is simple: Walt Disney is a lazy animator, who also hates Jews. His ears could be drawn by stencil, if need be. That helps a lot when you’re drawing the same image a million times, or rather your underpaid Korean assistant is.

It’s really weird though when you watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, a computer animated kid’s show. With computer animation, you don’t have to redraw the ears every frame. Still, they designed it so his ears are always two perfect circles, like a pair of boobs on his head. That means instead of using a very simple process to animate the ears, they had to program it so his ears wouldn’t move with his head. Essentially, they’re separate objects. It’s kind of hypnotic to watch. The only way to recreate it yourself is to stick one of those Mouse-ear caps on your head and hold it in place while you bob your head around, although why you’d want to do that is beyond me. I think they did the same thing with Minnie Mouse, but the bow on her head moves properly.

Back to the Mouse-ear hat thing: if Mickey were three-dimensional, his ears would be globes. He’s never depicted this way for one simple reason: it looks weird.