In his excellent book Hidden Mickeys: A Field Guide to Walt Disney World®’s Best Kept Secrets Steven Barrett takes us on a field trip and history lesson to the secret world of hidden Mickey Mouse silhouettes located throughout Disney World. Along the way Barrett locates almost 1000 Hidden Mickeys for us to enjoy.

What is a Hidden Mickey? The answer to this question dates back to 1972 when construction of Disney World’s Magic Kingdom was finished. Upon completion Disney stated that only Magic Kingdom would offer Mickey Mouse, the other parks would be thematic of Disney of course, but no “official” Mickey Mouse would ever grace these parks. With the “official” Mickey rule in place, this left the tradesmen building and maintaining the parks to come up with new and interesting “unofficial” alternatives, typically the head and ears silhouette: a large circle with two smaller circles attached on top.

There is no official list of hidden Mickey’s but tradesmen were given the “wink” to proceed, and proceed they did! Mantle covers instantly became Mickey heads, with stones placed in the tar around to form two ears. Stone floors were cut to capture the Mickey image and paint splatters became Rorschach inkblot tests where the only possible answer could be, “Mickey Mouse”.

For the non-purists, there are also hidden Minnies, hidden Plutos, hidden Donald Ducks, etc.  All you need to do is look closely.  Most exist near rides to occupy the time of astute riders in the cue, but one thing is for sure, location hidden Mickeys is a fantastic way to make the time pass.