1900HOTDOG

Teamworking Day: Mickey Mouse and the Medicine Man

Added 2025-04-11 12:00:39 +0000 UTC

Brockway: In the official Disney canon Mickey Mouse and Goofy are recovered speed addicts, doing their best one day at a time. Hi, I’m Robert Brockway, and today on this very special episode of Teamworking Day, we’re talking about the 1951 Wheaties-insert comic, Walt Disney presents Mickey Mouse and the Medicine Man.

Seanbaby: Hi, I'm the Internet's Seanbaby, and oh no, this is a bad idea.

Brockway: That title is incredible. A master class in incrimination. Decades later you could’ve said “oh, none of that crazy Medicine Man stuff was official. It was an unauthorized promotion where the writer took some liberties. It was a cereal box comic! Haha, don’t take it so cerealsly…” and then you could’ve waited for a high five that will never come. You could have done all that, if you hadn’t named it WALT DISNEY PRESENTS Mickey Mouse and Goofy get Goofed Up on Mickeys.

Seanbaby:

Brockway: Peppo wasn’t a real brand, but it was a real product. Amphetamines were not only legal in the 1950s, but considered a healthy alternative to sleep. They were sold over the counter in “patent medicines” - no prescription needed, no regulation needed, cardiac arrest is just a heart cramp; walk it off. When a little glass bottle said it gave you pep, that meant amphetamines. Pep was amphetamines. So was zip. If the advertising said it gave you “vigor,” or “a boost,” or “moxie” – it all meant “this will have you licking your lips raw by the afternoon.”

Seanbaby: Life was obviously better before Ronald Reagan replaced all the meth with corn syrup. For instance, you could start the plot of a cereal prize comic book with "Mickey Mouse! Someone gave me free drugs!" and Mickey's response is, 'I'LL GO GET MY FUCKING DRUG SPOON!" Speaking of, do we know the effect of this on human dog monsters? Because my dog gets diarrhea from way less than meth.

Brockway: Good question. Let’s use the official PoxCo Imagninacism Looking Glass™, the only official magnifier of Disney crimes, to isolate the exact moment where Goofy tastes speed for the first time.

Brockway: That’s Goofy’s canonical “whoops, I just took too much meth” face. You’ll never forget it. This is like knowing what face Bugs Bunny would make if he got a disastrous audit and contemplated suicide.

Werner Herzog: Now a slave to his poverty, the rabbit suddenly understood the futility of struggle, the cruel, mirthless joke of survival. Elsewhere, in the yellowing pages of Walt Disney Presents Mickey Mouse and the Medicine Man, a trusting dog drinks poison as a mouse watches him die.

Brockway: Goofy won’t die alone. Mickey takes a big glug of crank, too. He immediately goes on what any broken home recognizes as a Sunday morning amphetamine rant.

Brockway: He’s ripped to the tits for the rest of this issue. Next issue he spends the whole time crying at the kitchen table, his abandoned cigarette searing the Formica as forgotten Hamburger Helper sets off the smoke alarm.

Seanbaby: This Mickey Mouse writer really captured the creative process behind any good idea. "Goofy! Goofy. Here it is: we should have a team name when we go out. The Pubic Mound Posse… or the Muff Boyz. Fuck Squad 2000. God I feel great, let's write a movie, let's sell a timeshare, Goofy, I need some teeth, I need some teeth."

Brockway: Let’s employ the PoxCo Imagninacism Looking Glass™ again to see what Mickey Mouse looks like spun out. I’m sorry, I meant Walt Disney presents What Mickey Mouse Looks Like Spun Out.

Brockway: It looks a lot like his regular “just hanging out and having fun” face. I wonder if Mickey ever really kicked that Peppo addiction. There’s no way you caper for a full century without a little moxie in your socks. I bet you pull off that foam head and a bunch of little glass bottles tinkle out.

Seanbaby: Yeah, it was probably in the 1951 Disney Employee Handbook to split a bottle of maximum strength or above Peppo with Goofy before every shift. Things were simpler then. You didn't go to a first aid station if you fell off a ride. You blew a whistle and a Donald Duck would come by and add morphine to your lemonade.

Brockway: Mickey and Goofy run off to the “medicine show." Another common thing in the 1950s, a medicine show was a cross between a circus and an open-air drug bazaar, so a county fair. Rolling off their asses, Mickey and Goofy behold a sea of card tables laden with amphetamines and instantly know their destiny: To sell drugs to minorities.

Seanbaby: "Shut the fuck up and let me do the talking, Goofy. HELLO I AM AN EXPERIENCED SALESMOUSE AND I AM HERE TO SELL THE PEPPO, SIR! HAND OVER THE SWEET DRUGS AND MY ASSOCIATE AND I WILL TAKE IT FROM THERE!"

Brockway: They’ve got a real Raoul Duke and Doctor Gonzo vibe. I don’t even have to say which is which. There’s just one problem with Mickey Mouse wanting to distribute amphetamines. Actually, there are at least seven problems with that, but the comic’s only concerned with one: Speed is so popular the entire planet is already full of unlicensed amphetamine dealers. This was completely accurate to the 1950s experience. There’s only one territory left if Mickey and Goofy want to sell Peppo. This is their “God testing Job” moment. Sure, they love zoomin’ filthy. But do they love it enough to relocate to the worst place on Earth, just to sell meth to the locals?

Brockway: Mickey’s horrified expression, the bold red, the full-body jumptake – none of it makes any sense unless this guy just suggested he go peddle meth in a shit-covered minefield. If he’d said “France” instead, nothing about this lands. The joke here can only be that Africa is a godforsaken hellhole, and a proper honkey would never consider going there for anything less than to wage a drug war.

Seanbaby: It's fun that if you were eating cereal in 1951, you could find a little comic inside and say, "Wow, mom, it only took Walt Disney four pages to get from 'here are some drugs' to 'let's get these drugs to the black community!'" Maybe fun isn't the right word.

Brockway: The answer is so obviously “yes, I, Mickey Mouse of the Walt Disney Corporation, would love to sell crank to Africans” that the comic time-skips right past the decision. Let’s whip out our PoxCo Imagninacism Looking Glass™once more, we need to pinpoint the exact moment Mickey Mouse sold amphetamines to a primitive African tribe.

Brockway: You knew the second Mickey said “AFRICA?!” like he’d say “AIDS SEWER?!” that the tribesmen were going to be monkeys. It could’ve been worse. The restraint they’ve shown by merely making the Africans lazy monkey-men instead of primitive, naked, subhuman apes is actually progressive by 1950s standards. Quote me on this, I’ll never regret it.

Seanbaby: I feel like the insects buzzing around his head take away some of the whimsy. Because you're right, this almost seems adorable compared to most comics of the era. But then the artist covered him in stink lines and flies so there could be no doubt, "This is mean-spirited; I am a monster, and evil is my intent."

Brockway: For some reason the Africans don’t love the idea of colonizers showing up on their doorstep hustling addictive drugs they own the complete supply line for. Maybe some great white hunter accidentally dropped a history book while on safari. Mickey meets his antagonist for the comic, the local Medicine Man. He wears the traditional African tribal mask for a single panel just so Mickey can make fun of it, and then never again.

Brockway: Once again, “I’m Mickey Mouse and I’m selling Peppo, a patent medicine,” is the most incriminating way to put that. It’s like he knows he’s talking into a wire and always wanted to die in prison. The green glass bottle is already visual shorthand for patent medicines, we know what Peppo is supposed to be! But if Mickey never said the exact phrase “patent medicine,” there’d be plausible deniability. Disney could say “it was actually caffeine,” or “B vitamins,” or “nutritious and heartening malted liquors.” But no, their flagship character introduced himself by his full name and clearly stated his intent to sell amphetamines to tribesmen like a dark universe Gods Must Be Crazy sequel.

Seanbaby: It's a pretty good sales pitch, though. "Fuck you! Fuck your local culture! This is fluid for undisclosed ailments, um, ever heard of them?!" I honestly can't tell who we're meant to root for. The incoherent mysticism of traditional medicine or the predatory capitalism of modern medicine? I guess it's like all Mickey Mouse stories where there are no heroes; only a bunch of stupid dicks.

Brockway: I don’t know who we root for, I only know Mombo.

Seanbaby: I take it back. This Mickey Mouse story has a hero, and that hero is Mombo.

Brockway: Zoom. Enhance. Problemate.

Brockway: Much like the Walt Disney corporation, it’s too bad I said all those things earlier in suspiciously incriminating detail. Mombo is a primitive, naked, subhuman ape. He cannot speak, and is expressly pictured pantsless around other, identical tribesmen wearing pants. That leaves a few possibilities:

1. Mombo is a trained ape living among, and drawn exactly the same as the other Africans.

2. Mombo is a mentally challenged person enslaved by a local shaman.

3. Mombo is a horrible pervert.

It’s probably option 1, I’m just saying it’s crazy that’s the best case scenario.

Seanbaby: I think it's 4. Mombo is an excitable normal guy with breakaway pants and a thing for mice and party drugs. And they don't need him for a lot around here. He knows exactly what it means when someone calls his name.

Brockway: Mombo is not a party ape. Or maybe he is, but you won’t like his parties. He throws Mickey and Goofy in a cage. Honestly, if the comic stopped there the headlines would be good news.

COLONIST DRUG DEALERS WHO EXPLOIT LOCAL POPULACE DIE IN JAIL, JUSTICE GIGGLES

It’s when Mombo brings them food that Mickey and Goofy realize what’s really going on here, why these lazy Africans don’t want whitey’s healthy amphetamine energy. It’s because they’re all addicted to hash! Oh, you better believe we’re whipping out the PoxCo Imagninacism Looking Glass™ for that moment.

Brockway: It’s a cute pun. The food is a hash, the implication is that it’s full of hash. Cute. It’s genuinely cute. This is the cutest way for a capitalist mouse mascot to imply black people are lazy because they’re all drug addicts.

Seanbaby: I can't tell if the writer is inventing an all new stereotype about African cuisine being seasoned with roofies or if Mickey parties so hard he can't conceive of undrugged food. I guess we watched him have meth and meth for breakfast, so he probably thinks everyone goes to bed with a bowl of goat and quaalude stew.

Brockway: Oh, Mombo for sure takes a goat nightcap. Mickey Mouse slips the mentally challenged pervert ape a bowlful of hash and–

Brockway: I can’t believe this doesn’t warrant the PoxCo Imagninacism Looking Glass™. The bar on these crimes has really shot up in a short amount of time.

Seanbaby: "I know how we're getting out of this shit hole, Goofy. First, we hope the guard tears the bars off our window. Next, we hope I'm right about them putting drugs in the food for no reason. Now focus up, you son of a bitch, we're only going to get one shot at this." This is incredible. You don't expect such smart, gripping writing in a racist children's comic.

Brockway: And that’s before the political intrigue! Mickey and Goofy need to get the king of Africa off of hash, so they can instead get him addicted to American amphetamines.

Brockway: They know he’s addicted to hash because they find him asleep, you see. Sleep is unnatural, amphetamines are organic. You ever see a wild animal sleeping? If you answered yes, wake it up with a full bottle of amphetamines. It needs your help to be a productive member of the forest.

Seanbaby: We should delete this. We should burn every copy of Walt Disney Presents Mickey Mouse and the Medicine Man ever made. We should never tell anyone we've seen this.

Brockway: Yeah, you’re right. We should isolate and enhance the exact moment Mickey Mouse force-feeds speed to African royalty.

Seanbaby: "That's it, pal! Give the king the ol' reverse Cosby! A-hyuck!"

Brockway: The second the king pops up out of his stupor, Mickey sells him a case of speed. As in, next panel.

Brockway: Like any good dealer, the first one’s free but the rest will cost you. It’s like they’re worried the message wasn’t clear. “Children, it’s important you understand that Mickey Mouse meth-bonged the King of Africa for profit. It was not kindness, children! If he had died from it, write this down, if the King of Africa died from being force-fed amphetamines Mickey Mouse would have gone through his pockets for arrowheads or colorful beetles, or whatever the country of Africa uses for currency.”

Seanbaby: When that Peppo executive sent off a couple of junkies to sell their product in Africa, he probably thought, "How bad could they fuck it up." And here we are, half a day later and they've broken out of prison, maybe killed a disabled man, and molested the country's king.

Brockway: The CIA calls that a productive Tuesday. So the Medicine Man stops this meth deal, which would be the happy ending if Mr. T was in this comic, right before he bonked Mickey and Goofy’s heads together and called drugs “fool makin’ machines.” The Medicine Man claims all doctors are magic, so if Peppo really works then Mickey must be magic, so he should prove he’s magic by making an elephant talk. The logic doesn’t hold, but remember everyone in this village is in the process of dying from a 1950s speedball.

Seanbaby: What the fuck is happening.

Brockway: Prosecutable crimes, mostly. Mickey doesn’t bat an eye at this madness. He is fully in control of this situation. If he and Goofy can’t achieve economic dominance through chemical means, there’s a Walt Disney strikeforce just off screen. Two hundred mercs in Donald Duck masks and Walt Disney presents Flak Jackets ready to burn the town of Africa to the ground, just waiting for the signal “hyuk!”

Seanbaby: I'm very frustrated by this talking elephant. It's like a story a drunk 7-year-old would tell, but a drunk 7-year-old could never do this much cocaine.

Brockway: That sounds like it’s from experience, but you’re right. A drunk 7-year-old would write themselves into this corner and try to solve it with something stupid like the magic of ventriloquism, and that’s exactly what happens. Mickey Mouse is a ventriloquist. Add another vile sin to his black mouse heart, which the devil himself will one day weigh.

Let’s whip out the PoxCo Imagninacism Looking Glass™ one last time – it’s designed to explode at the end of this article anyway – and isolate Mickey Mouse’s smug final expression. The one that means “I am chuffed at having destroyed a local hash dealer to replace his business with my own meth empire.”

Seanbaby: ha ha what? The deus ex machina is you took ten lessons in ventriloquism!? Absolutely fuck you, Mickey.

Brockway: Set it in Albuquerque and this is beat-for-beat a season of Breaking Bad. You know the second Mickey turns away that smile dies on his face and he stares at the camera like Gus Fring.

Seanbaby: Kind of. You're forgetting the talking elephant. This is Breaking Bad if Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol's Michael Winslow was one of the Salamanca brothers. And he used his expert voice noises to convince federal marshals there was an elepha– I'm not explaining it very well. Here, I'll Photoshop it:

Brockway: Yeah, that’s the most concise analogy for this, you’re right. And remember, this whole thing was brought to you by Wheaties. Not one, but two monumental American corporations whose entire image is based on wholesomeness collaborated on this comic strip about selling speed to primitive Africans.

Seanbaby: When you put it like that, I'm worried this comic might have been a subversive piece of art mocking an empire built on hypocrisy and white supremacy. Or maybe I'm being insane. I think back on the words of Police Academy 3: Back in Training's Michael Winslow who said, "MACHINERY NOISES, PHONE DIAL TONE, RAPID UNCLEAR WHOOSHING SLURPS."

Brockway: I’m starting to worry you’re being held hostage by Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach’s Michael Winslow. If it’s not safe to talk just beatbox the entirety of “Bohemian Rhapsody” in the artist’s original key of E.

We’ve lost the plot and we’re going mad, but this isn’t even the turn of the article. The real turn is this: Mickey Mouse and the Medicine Man was not a fluke. If you sent in your cereal box top and ten cents, you’d get back a pocket size encyclopedia of atrocities. Remember: In the Disney Universe, Mickey Mouse is the “nice one.” The real son of a bitch was Donald Duck.

Seanbaby: This is what cool, likeable people mean when they complain about cancel culture. We need to bring back the days when you could dress like a Native American, carry weapons, and let your nephews stare up your exposed duck asshole. It's like we've forgotten who we are.

Brockway: Donald Duck’s utterly fucked Wheaties’ adventures ranged from the merely racial, to actual domestic terrorism. Like that time he built a suitcase atom bomb in the same house as his three young nephews. That’s not a joke example.

Seanbaby: Oh, so now a proud uncle duck can't even build a nuclear bo– sorry, I think I lost my handle on this bit. Did Donald Duck really build a nuclear bomb?

Seanbaby: Holy shit.

Brockway: Whoops, sorry. I cut off the next panel, where he says “now we are all shons of bitchesh” and does that crazy throat scramble laugh before obliterating half his family tree in nuclear fire.

Seanbaby: This is plainly insane and no context will make it better, but I'd still rather hear a duck say "here is my atom bomb, children" than a mouse say "I took ten lessons in ventriloquism."