Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse are Mickey Mouse's twin nephews, who first appeared in Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse Sunday comic strip continuity titled Mickey's Nephews (published in 1932). Since then, they have appeared in lots of comic strips, storybooks, and comic book stories starring Mickey Mouse and Pluto, but unlike Donald Duck's triplet nephews, Minnie Mouse's twin nieces, and Goofy's son respectively, they have very rarely ever appeared in animation, although they do appear more often in the comic series and book stories.
The twins first appeared in Mickey's Nephews on September 18, 1932, introduced by Gottfredson as the children of the nanny-like Mrs. Fieldmouse (the character who was later retconned as their mother Felicity Fieldmouse, Mickey’s older sister). The debut consisted of the boys getting into all sorts of trouble around Mickey's home until Mickey resorted to restraining and reading stories to the boys to keep them calm.
The twins' first animated appearance in Mickey's Steam-Roller.
The twins' first film appearance was the 1934 Mickey Mouse cartoon Mickey's Steam-Roller. Aside from a cameo in 1938's Boat Builders, they didn't appear in animation again until Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983), with Morty playing the part of Tiny Tim and Ferdie as the not-named-onscreen Peter Cratchit.
In pre-World War II children's storybooks produced by the Disney studio, the nephews were usually called Morty and Monty rather than Morty and Ferdie. Very early books contain three or more nephews with various names, including Maisie and Marmaduke. Morty's name, short for Mortimer, is possibly in reference to the originally planned name for Mickey (Mortimer); and Ferdie (sometimes misspelled "Ferdy") is short for "Ferdinand."
Ferdie disappeared from the Mickey Mouse comic strip in 1943 because Gottfredson thought the nephews were too much alike. He had plans to bring Ferdie back later as a bespectacled, intellectual, bookworm mouse with an Eton hat and coat, with the explanation that he had been away at school. However, Gottfredson never got around to bringing Ferdie back and Morty remained in the strip alone. Morty was occasionally depicted with his best friend named Alvin, and a sweetheart named Millie.
In recent years, some of Morty and Ferdie's comic book appearances have portrayed them as football players on the team Riverside Rovers. Their mother is depicted as a supportive "Soccer Mom." Morty and Ferdie are also occasionally pitted against their antagonists, Pete's twin hellion nephews, Pierino and Pieretto.
Morty and Ferdie made a cameo appearance in the segment "Around the World in Eighty Days", which was later reused for the House of Mouse episode "Mickey and Minnie's Big Vacation".
Morty and Ferdie appeared in the extended Halloween episode, "The Scariest Story Ever: A Mickey Mouse Halloween Spooktacular". In the special, they go trick-or-treating with Donald’s Nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie and listen to Mickey's scary stories. This was the twins' first appearance in a TV series since Mickey Mouse Works and their first major role in the TV series.
Video games[]
Morty is a playable character on the PlayStation 2 game Disney Golf. Both Morty and Ferdie were seen in the portal to Mickeyjunk Mountain in the 2010 game Epic Mickey.
Trivia[]
Although they were introduced before Huey, Dewey, and Louie, they have appeared far less often in animation than the latter trio.
Contrary to what was written in their profile in the book Disney Dossiers, they do not appear in Mickey's House of Villains, though it is possible they could be among the mouse orphans (with whom they share the same character design) seen in Gulliver Mickey, Orphans' Benefit, and Orphans' Picnic.
Some merchandise for Mickey's Christmas Carol oddly refers to Morty's character only as Tiny Tim without mentioning Morty's name, even if the other characters have both their character and "actor" names listed.
