Disney "License to Touch"

It has been smartly remarked that in the early Mickey cartoons there was a passionate investigation of the body (tweaking ears, kicking butts etc) and that Mickey thus gave the viewer "the license to touch". Physicality is indeed a fundamental dimension of Disney animation, most characters of which, in their cuteness, or endearingness, arouse not just affection, but the wish to cuddle with them. Frank and Ollie remark on how essential it was that Walt had been a primitive farm boy. In fact, it was Walt's beautiful primitivism, his identifying so directly with nature, the main factor underlying this amazing, affectionate, humorist and thoroughly adorable physicality.