Bringing back Mickey Mouse's dark side (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10390179-52.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20) -- CNet
In a world in which Disney defines its brand and the content it releases under its own name as being aimed at the broadest possible audience, Mickey Mouse is known largely as a feel-good, happy-go-lucky cartoon character.
But that's not how Mickey was in the early days. Back in 1928, when he first hit the world stage, he was a very badly behaved mouse. And now, one of the best-known video game designers in the world wants to bring back a little of bit of Mickey's dark side.
And he'll get his chance to make that a reality. Warren Spector, the game designer behind the Deus Ex franchise, is working on a new game, Disney's Epic Mickey, which is being positioned, in part, as a "re-imagining" of Mickey Mouse.

This is too cool. I read the main villain will be Oswald the rabbit. It would be great if they brought back Walt's Mickey for this game.
Alas, I am very skeptical that the version of this game they are talking about today will be the same version we see when/if this game does come out. Disney is too scared to unvault Song of the South, and I'd be very surprised to see them unveil the old school Mickey in light of the success of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
I'd like to see the game open as follows:
'Hi, I'm Leonard Maltin, there is no excuse for the game you are about to play. Disney hired me to justify why the game has a Mickey whose personality is one you may be unfamiliar with. I am unable to think of a justification, so I advise you to enjoy the game and not take everything so seriously. Rated T for teen"

But there IS an excuse...or, at least, justification. Spektor has been quoted in Game Informer saying something about how, originally, Mickey was mischievous and not the bland, flavorless "good guy" we're used to now. If you look at the older cartoons, it's true. He used to get into spots of trouble due to real emotions like anger and jealousy and be prone to flights of self-indulgent fancy. Look at his showboating in "plane crazy," for example or the jealousy he used to have when Mortimer would attempt to woo Minnie (there are probably better examples, but I'm tired right now so nothing else leaps immediately to mind). Spektor's take on it was that, over time Disney took all the best attributes of Mickey and handed them out to the other characters. They gave his loyalty to Pluto, his occasional anger and jealousy and gave them to Donald. Sure, there's an argument to be made that many kids of today would not be familiar with this Mickey, but for those of us who grew up exposed to the older cartoons, this isn't going to be outside of the realm of the familiar. Incidentally, the Phantom Blot is going to be the main baddy and Oswald will be his puppet due to his jealousy of Mickey (but there are early indications that Oswald will be redeemed and join his "brother" on the side of good before the game is over). And I'm pretty sure this is the game we're going to see. It's just been given a full cover spread in GI as well as lots of other press and the word is that it's coming out in time for the holidays, probably just before the Thanksgiving shopping rush, so it's not like there's time to revamp it, even if they wanted to.

I checked out that GI article. This IS for real!!! The phantom blot is perfect, I love the old Mickey comics.
Finally, a reason I am glad I bought a Wii other than the virtual console.
I wonder if this will create a demand for the old Mickey cartoons and comics. I already have all the cartoons on the Treasures DVD's, but Disney may want to try to get people to buy them on blu-ray. And a "Mickey and the Phantom Blot" re-release would be very easy for Disney to pull off now that they have Marvel to distribute.

Correction and Apology:

I totally thought that I had read somewhere that Epic Mickey was coming in time for the holidays this year. I was in GameStop today, however, and was informed that it's currently in their computer with a release date of Nov. 2, 2010. The GameStop people were also quick to point out that often, when a game is that far out, there's a good chance of it getting pushed back or moved forward, so that Nov. 2 date really doesn't mean much right now. On the other hand, they ARE accepting pre-orders already...

I'm truly sorry that I was wrong in my previous post about that. I am SOOO looking forward to this game that I'm just as heartbroken as anyone else that we have to wait darn near a whole year for it to come out... :(

FYI, the article that Andrew linked above does say that it's scheduled for a Fall 2010 release.