The timeline of epic mickey and the Thinner Disaster is a god damn mess bc the opening cutscene implies the disaster happens before Mickey has even had his first short which... doesn't exactly give Oswald any time to be forgotten, much less build Wasteland and have a life there like the Tales of Wasteland comics show before the disaster fucks it all up. And yet here I am trying my hardest to work it out anyway
So I'm disregarding the opening cutscene for a moment bc frankly it doesn't know what it's talking about. The only noteworthy thing the cutscene tells us is Mickey finds the workshop and creates the Blot on the 25th of March in an unnamed year
U might think this cutscene is the only indication we have of when the Thinner Disaster happens, and that's... kinda true, but also not exactly? There are a couple more unintentional hints we get as to some of the cartoons that might have been aired before the Thinner Disaster, and those hints come from Horace and Clarabelle during their introductory cutscenes, when they try to remind Mickey who they are by listing the shorts they were in
Granted, I don't think it's at any point stated or even implied in the game that no toons landed in Wasteland after the Thinner Disaster. It's entirely possible some characters got dumped into Wasteland after the disaster, and thus its ruined state is all they know. However, we do know that both Horace and Clarabelle are in the Tales of Wasteland comic, which is pre-disaster, so they're a good measuring point. Idk exactly how canon the TOW comics are considered to the epic mickey games, for all I know they might be intended to only be semi-canon, but for the sake of my sanity I'm going to go ahead and call them canon because otherwise we're left with. The intro cutscene. And we all know why we aren't listening to that cutscene.
Anyways, Horace mentions three cartoons he starred in: The Fire Fighters (20th of June, 1930) The Barnyard Broadcast (1st of September, 1931) and The Band Concert (23rd of February, 1935). Clarabelle also mentions three cartoons: Mickey's Mellerdrammer (18th of March, 1933) Mickey's Polo Team (4th of January, 1936) and Orphan's Benefit. Orphan's Benefit is the most interesting one here because it was released twice, first on the 11th of August 1934, and then remade in technicolour in 1941 (didn't see a date on Wikipedia, the wiki says it was released on the 22nd of August 1941 but wiki isn't the most reliable of sources and I don't have the time to double check that date) and Clarabelle specifically mentions she was in the original and the remake. Which means as of 1941, Clarabelle was still in the Cartoon World
When exactly these characters were forgotten is really hard to pin down especially considering a lot of characters were definitely still in use in the real world by the time they were in Wasteland in the game, plus the whole "multiple versions of the same character can wind up in Wasteland" thing, someone with more knowledge of Disney's animation history might be able to get us a better idea of when these two characters stopped being used so much, but unfortunately I'm not that person, so I can't give an estimate. What I do know is that all this means the Thinner Disaster had to have happened sometime after 1941, because Clarabelle wasn't even in Wasteland in 1941. There'll likely be a few years between 1941 and the Thinner Disaster too, because we need time for Clarabelle to be forgotten, settle down in Wasteland, and for all the events of TOW to happen. That gives us a bit more wiggle room than "before Mickey's first short was even released" to say the least
Granted, the problem with this is it creates a minor contradiction, in that it's implied (or this is how I read it at least) that Mickey and Yen Sid hadn't yet met when the Thinner Disaster happened, but Fantasia, which includes the Sorcerer's Apprentice, was released in 1940. (Side note, the idea that Mickey causes the disaster before the events of the Sorcerer's Apprentice is hilarious to me bc that means the whole time that was happening Yen Sid was internally going "u fucked up Wasteland. U fucked up my magical art project and now you're fucking up my tower by flooding it. And you're only apologising for one of these things and it's not the world you fucked up. You could've been using my stolen hat to fix the mess you made but no, you're making sentient brooms instead. Walt help me.")
That being said, I'm going to sidestep that detail, because there's nothing stopping me from deciding this was another instance of Mickey going "oh boy I'm gonna follow in my master's footsteps :D" and then upon making the Blot, got the fuck out of there before Yen Sid could catch him and scold him for making a mess again. And if there is something stopping me from thinking that, that sign can't stop me because I can't read, and ultimately the details of the timeline of Mickey's apprenticeship under Yen Sid are a lot easier to be flexible with than the timeline for the Thinner Disaster
Edit: I just noticed that at the end of the game Yen Sid does call mickey his apprentice after having referred to him as an intruder the whole game, including in that very same cutscene. It's possible that Mickey was his apprentice when the Thinner Disaster happened, and he suspected Mickey was responsible, but since he never caught him in the act he couldn't confirm that for certain until Mickey got spat out of Wasteland at the end of the game, hence why Mickey is always "the intruder" in the narration up until Yen Sid finally catches him and can confirm it was him, and then becomes "my apprentice". That's my new excuse for the contradictions at least. I fear headcanon is gonna have to do some very heavy lifting when it comes to the timeline of em no matter what you do
Going back to the intro cutscene, there are things about it I find interesting even if it's not very good for helping us identify when the Thinner Disaster happened. Like the fact there seems to be a bit of a time skip between the night Mickey causes the disaster, and the start of the "passage of time" montage thing, which we can see by the lack of a calendar next to his bed on the night of the disaster and the fact that the dates we do get are different (the disaster happened in March, but the calendar at the start of the montage begins in January)
Do I have any idea what this means? Absolutely not, I'm no game theorist. But it is interesting to me
Anyways, the other thing I find interesting is at the end, just before Mickey gets snatched up by the Blot. I'm far from the first person to notice the date on the calendar is the 18th of November, aka Mickey's birthday (happy birthday! Your present is the sins of your past and the consequences of your actions) but it's specifically the image that accompanies the date that interests me
That's a shot from The Prince and the Pauper, released on the 16th of November, 1990. Two days before Mickey's birthday. Now my instinct is to say this means the events of the game happen in 1990 at the earliest, but like... calendars take time to make. You'll notice whenever you see calendars available for purchase it's always for the coming year, never the current year. Idk maybe this one is different because it only shows one day at a time instead of a whole month so maybe production works differently, but I imagine it'd be really difficult to get a shot of your short film that came out two days ago on your calendar, even if it's a shot that was taken from filming. Meaning there's a chance this calendar was for a year after 1990. Which would place the events of the game on the 18th of November 1991 at the earliest
Side note, this really doesn't matter at all but Mickey has two calendars. The one next to his bed and the one next to the mirror. Two calendars in the same room. And we know he didn't get rid of the one next to the mirror because we can see it when he gets yoinked and the date matches the one next to the bed, even if it's a bit less clear
Like why do u have two calendars. What was the need. Is the one next to your bed a custom one? Are you buying custom calendars showcasing your greatest hits to keep next to your bed? That might at least explain why it shows us Plane Crazy at the start of the montage, but what's the reason if you're going to keep the normal one next to your mirror anyway? I'm far too intrigued by this very minor detail that doesn't matter at all, and the "owns custom calendars" thing is my new headcanon for this lil guy
Most of this post has just been rambling about unrelated minor details in the intro cutscene zfnnxgxgj my bad
Tldr despite what the intro cutscene is trying to tell us, the actual evidence suggests the Thinner Disaster didn't happen until sometime after 1941, and the events of the game take place in 1990/1991 at the absolute earliest (but it's possible they took place later than that)
