New ‘Mickey & the Roadster Racers’ cartoon gives a nod to gender equality

Even Mickey Mouse can get an ideological makeover. When Nancy Kantor, Disney's executive vice-president of content and creative strategy, approached executive producers Rob LaDuca and Mark Seidenberg about creating a new Mickey Mouse series, it didn't take the car fanatics long to find something that showed off the world's most famous mouse in a new story.

The result, Mickey and the Roadster Racers, is an action-packed racing series featuring some of the world's most-loved cartoon characters.

But they also took the opportunity to highlight his co-star, Minnie, who is equally as popular and influential around the world.

Having both worked on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, LaDuca and Seidenberg were able to channel the successful aspects of that show into the new series - one that has a positive gender image.

"It is for both boys and girls," says Seidenberg. "The idea is that Minnie can be a cool race-car driver but she can also go help her friends - let's say fixing up a restaurant or babysitting a giant egg - she, and Daisy, can do that too."

While most of the episodes centre on a race that the team have coming up, there is another component to the show - Minnie's burgeoning business, called Happy Helpers.

"We can't always have Mickey as the main guy here. Minnie is just as popular and just as strong as Mickey, so we thought we should put more of her independence in too."

WATCH a trailer for Mickey and the Roadster Racers

The creative team also tried to expand the imagination of children about geography.

So, when Mickey and his friends are not racing around Hotdog Hills, they are travelling around the world.

"When we were doing Clubhouse , we were getting letters from around the world asking, 'Will you ever come to our country?' So we thought, why not expand the minds of kids to see other locations," says LaDuca.

"For those kids to have Mickey come to your city makes them feel more involved in the show," he says.

Adds Seidenberg: "And kids have friends in towns all over the world. It's not just where they live that we wanted to reflect; we also wanted to expose kids to the global world."

They worked with international consultants to set some episodes of the first season in Rome, Madrid and London.

Seidenberg and LaDuca say they'd love to send Mickey and his pals to an African city. "If we're lucky enough to get to do more episodes, hopefully we can," says LaDuca.

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And if anyone was wondering, they didn't skimp on the female characters' cars, either. It started with research, which the two relished, being "really big car freaks", says Seidenberg.

"We went to a lot of car collections," he says. "The Petersen Museum was one, the Mullin collection another."

Both are in California, where the Disney offices are situated. The Mullin Automotive Museum is a privately owned automobile museum that displays the personal car collection of business mogul Peter Mullin.

"In the early 20th century they used to take Model T Fords and cut them up and make them into hot rods, so we figured Mickey, being a classic character, should have a classic California hotrod."

For Minnie, as homage to her sophistication, they looked to Europe. "The design comes from a French car from the 1930s, the Delahaye," LaDuca says.

Goofy got a wacky design, "a bathtub on wheels".

And Daisy? "She loves flowers so we gave her true flower power," says Seidenberg.

"A purple smoking dragster!"