When Graham Hopper and the boys at Disney introduce the Wii-exclusive platformer “Epic Mickey” at E3 (I think today?), I doubt they’ll mention that, to paraphrase the late Walt Disney, “It all started with a mouse bunch of college interns.”

Don’t get me wrong, it’s Warren Spector‘s and Junction Point Studios‘ baby, they made it happen, but I hope that it doesn’t get lost in the hype that Epic Mickey started with game designer and animator Chris Takami and the 8 college interns he brought in from places like USC, CalArts, and the University of San Diego.  Takami initiated the BVG Think Tank at what was then Buena Vista Games (now Disney Interactive Studios) in 2004, and then tossed to us (yes, I was one of the 8 original interns) the challenge of making Mickey Mouse cool again.  We conceived the game, including the story behind the cartoon Wasteland, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (this was before Disney negotiated the rights to Oswald in exchange for Al Michaels – now you know *why* Disney went after Walt’s first cartoon character when Monday Night Football jumped to ESPN) as well as the paint-centric gameplay design and mechanics (and that was pre-Nintendo Wii!).  We were the ones to pitch the concept to Disney VPs, to help show the powers that be that Mickey Mouse could stop being merely a washed-up corporate icon and could get back to his mischievous roots, that Mickey could become a character again, and one that players and fans could actually relate to.  All great stories are about empowerment, about connecting to audiences, and I think that’s what made this one click with Disney execs, well aware of how tired an institution Mickey had become.

Anyway, we did all that.  How’s that for a bunch of interns?

Now, I’m not trying to toot my own vuvuzela (ok, yes I am – because this is awesome), but I think it’s important that Chris Takami get some real credit for this, as well as us interns.  There’s been only a passing mention of the interns that worked on the game, and as best as I can tell, zero mention of Takami.  Of course, I think this is to drive attention to the fact that Warren Spector was brought in to make this game his story, his game, and rightfully so, and he is really the one to thank for it.  So don’t get me wrong; Spector deserves all the love for Epic Mickey.  But, let’s tip our Mouse-eared souvenir hats to Takami and all of the interns that made this possible.  We weren’t just a bunch of sex-crazed kids (as Gawker’s Maureen O’Connor put it – and she has yet to respond to me on that), but we were genuinely applying the creative skills we’d been learning and the talents we’d been developing at our respective learning institutions (so kudos to USC, CalArts, etc, too).  For instance, the concept art that interns like Erin Reynolds and Vincent Perea was generating was jaw-droppingly awesome (I wish their early work had been posted on-line when this story first leaked last summer).  The story logic and gameplay concepts came of hours of dedicated research on our parts.  Anyway, it’s truly fascinating to see the metamorphosis of a great idea from those early sketches and story concepts to what I am sure will be a truly epic game come this winter.

But let’s not forget that it started with bunch of college interns.

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