To baby boomers, Mickey Mouse is the perpetually cheerful and wholesome host of the "Mickey Mouse Club." To senior citizens, he's the star of movies and shorts dating back to 1928. But to youngsters today, he's mostly a corporate icon - a shill for Walt Disney theme parks and DVDs and the familiar symbol on a gargantuan inventory of merchandise, from bed linens to pancake molds.

This week's announcement that Disney plans to re-engineer the character into something edgier, more irascible, clever and heroic is no doubt disappointing to the older set. This is Mickey as some Bugs Bunny wannabe, without the Brooklyn accent.

What's next, Winnie-the-Pooh as dark avenger, brooding in his high-tech, honey-equipped Hundred Acre Woods lair until it's time to battle a super-villain? (Although Eeyore as the Joker would seem to offer another potential Oscar-winning turn for Hollywood's next great make-up wearing, clinically depressed, stuffed donkey).

One can imagine the Disney board debating the idea: Are we creating the next truly hip SpongeBob SquarePants or the next genuinely square New Coke?