Mickey Mouse Charms Chinese Viewers

Dozens of children playing in a courtyard here froze in their tracks when the adult voice rumbled down from an upper-story apartment: “It’s time for Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.”

Moments later the courtyard was empty of both adults and children. They had rushed to tune in to the week’s adventures of their favorite cartoon characters.

The scene repeats itself across China every Sunday at 6:30 p.m. as an estimated 250 million people--about 25% of the population of the world’s most populous nation--tune in to the 30-minute “Mickey and Donald” show.

Mickey Mouse, known to the Chinese as “Mi Laoshu,” is celebrating his 60th birthday this year by teaming up with his friends to take China by storm.

“Everybody loves Mi Laoshu--he’s such a well-behaved little guy who dares to try anything,” said Dong Hao, 32, a professional dubber and the Chinese voice of Mickey at the China Center of Film and Video For Children and Young People.

“And Minnie, too,” piped up Wu Hong, 21, a Beijing Opera singer and dancer who has been dubbing voices for films and cartoons since she was a child and provides the voice for Mickey’s girlfriend.

“Minnie Mouse is a good girl who likes Mickey and his friends very, very much. Just like me,” said Wu, who also does the squeaky voices of Disney’s chipmunks, Chip ‘n’ Dale.

Dong, who has dubbed countless cartoons and foreign films, also provided a voice for “Sesame Street’s” Big Bird for a special filmed in China a few years ago.

Besides the program, to which nearly 40% of China’s TV sets are tuned each week, Mickey is being used to sell everything from washing machines to refrigerators. Donald is the pitchman for Beijing’s first fast-food restaurant.

Mickey and his friends have done much to liven up Chinese television, an often dull mixture of Beijing Opera, dubbed B movies from America and Eastern Europe, live and taped soccer and volleyball matches, and how-to classes in mathematics and exercise.

The Disney program is only the second American television series to grab the attention of Chinese viewers. The first, “Man from Atlantis,” broadcast in the late 1970s, featured “Dallas” star Patrick Duffy as the web-footed survivor of the legendary city’s destruction.

“Mickey and Donald” is a compilation of Disney cartoons produced by the children’s film and video center, and is broadcast nationally by China Central Television.

The original cartoons, the only American television fare currently seen regularly on national television, are provided by the Walt Disney Co. through a March, 1986, joint agreement with Chinese television.

“Disney’s greatest asset is the family can sit down and watch it together and they teach children while entertaining them,” said Xu Jiacha, vice president of the children’s film center.

“In some movies from the United States there is violence, assassination and sex. But Disney films are more healthy,” she said.

The program has become so popular--senior leader Deng Xiaoping reportedly watches it with his grandson each week--the center is negotiating with Disney for broadcast rights to Disney’s animated feature films and a weekly installment of the long-running “Wonderful World of Color.”