The idea was to get the creative folks in touch with the elements of imagery that make Mickey Mouse so irresistible from ear to toe. Designers pored over every book from Fantasia to Toy Story, looking for similarities between the mouse and his pals. They photocopied pages, chopped them up, and tacked them to corkboard. "We cut out the eyes of all the characters, we cut out all the hands," says Frog designer Luke Williams. "We started to see patterns."

Two new Disney gizmos that hit the shelves earlier this fall -- a two-way radio and a cordless phone, both built by Motorola (MOT) -- are relying on those very patterns to break new ground for licensed Disney products, maybe even for product design itself. Unlike past attempts to license kids' gadgets built around literal cartoon imagery -- remember the oversize Mickey Mouse-head camera from the 1970s? -- the Frog/Disney phones are designed to be kid-friendly, but with truly grown-up aesthetics. The basic shape and features of each are subtly drawn from the composite elements of Disney characters: eyes, tails, feet, torsos, and hands.

Both devices, for example, share the basic "bean shape" of many Disney characters -- an hourglass form with the top slightly out of balance with the bottom, or vice versa. That's what makes Mickey appear top-heavy and about to fall over unless he moves on to the next adventure -- a crucial element for designers, it turns out, as it taps into a kid's fleeting attention span. "Psychologically, asymmetry brings movement, energy, and excitement to an object," Williams explains. The designers also used big LCD screens with a thicker black outline on top to suggest an eye. The mouthpiece on each phone forms a smile with a tiny lip line. The designers hope this Mickey-based design grammar will make the gadgets appear friendly and inviting, so kids and adults alike will pull them off the shelves.

A glance around the consumer electronics world shows how the same anthropomorphic design elements are working for adult products. The bean-shaped TiVo (TIVO) remote control, for example, helps consumers get comfortable with a new category of device, a personal video recorder. Though it looks symmetrical from top to bottom, the bulbous curves make it stick out in a world of rectilinear remotes. Similarly, Apple has always used friendly, organic designs to bring business machines to a broader audience.

The Frog-designed phone and radio are the first of many new Disney products slated to emerge from the partnership over the next few years. If they prove a hit during the holidays, expect a slew of other Mickey-based devices, including a DVD player, TV, boom box, computer, and digital camera. If they don't work? Not even cute will keep them from being eaten alive.