Mickey and Donald on Boxer Shorts

[Matthew Williams]

I saw something I found rather troublesome during my most recent trip to
Wal-Mart (besides corporate greed gone wild!).  I noticed two pairs of boxer
shorts, one with Mickey and one with Donald.  My attention was drawn to them
because both featured word balloons.  I thought, "Neat!  Disney is finally
recognizing their comics!"  THEN I read the captions!  Mickey's said, "Is
Goofy a dog or what?"  Donald's said, "Suddenly Donald realized that he
wasn't wearing any pants!"  Now this bothers me for several reasons.  First
of all, both jokes are old and stale; I remember hearing both jokes as a kid
in the early eighties.  Second of all, I'm sure that neither joke was the
brainchild of the Walt Disney Company.  They are REALLY lacking for original
ideas lately!  Finally, both jokes make fun of Disney's core characters.
Even if one could make the argument that the jokes were good natured, I
would expect Disney to respect their core characters a bit more.  The whole
boxer deal just epitomizes for me Disney's anything for a buck philosophy.
Ugh!

On a slightly different note, though, have any of you seen these?  I ask
because the art on the shorts had a vintage, comic look, and I was curious
if that art was indeed vintage Disney.

Matt