WALT DISNEY CLASSIC TREASURES: Mickey Mouse In Living Color
WALT DISNEY WEBSITES AND BEYOND
Walt Disney Presents: PINOCCHIO
FUTURE DISNEY ANIMATED FEATURES
WALT DISNEY CLASSIC TREASURES: Mickey Mouse In Living Color
Before Mickey there was Oswald. Oswald was design by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, and his first cartoon "Trolley Troubles" was released in 1927. It received rave reviews, and produced sizable profits for the distributor Charles Mintz Mintz instructed Walt to produce an Oswald cartoon short every other week, and Walt was delighted until he found out that the Oswald character had been merchandised. Walt and his wife went to New York to meet Mintz, and were told that the budget for each cartoon was being cut. If it was unacceptable, Mintz warned he would continue producing Oswald cartoons and use Disney's own staff to do it. Walt called his brother Roy, who advised him to give up all his rights to the Oswald character and to go back to his studios in Hollywood. Roy also told him to come up with a new character, and they could save the studio. This is the exact transcript of a little known but very important telegram."NB849 20 NM=NEWYORK NY 13 ROY O DISNEY=2491 LYRIC AVE HOLLYWOOD CALIF=LEAVING TONITE STOPPING OVER KC ARRIVE HOME SUNDAY MORNING SEVEN THIRTY DONT WORRY EVERYTHING OK WILL GIVE DETAILS WHEN ARRIVE=WALT." Walt had lost his star character, and almost his entire staff; only his good friend and lead animator Ub Iwerks remained. The telegram he sent to his brother Roy hid the desperation Walt now faced.The train ride back from New York to Hollywood Lilly would prove something of an historic occasion for Walt and his wife, as it was on this train that Walt stumbled upon the idea of Mortimer Mouse.As Walt said, "Mice gathered in my waste basket when I worked late at night. I lifted them out and kept them in little cages on my desk. One of them was my particular friend."Ub Iwerks told a slightly different story, that the idea for Mickey was decided between Ub, Roy and Walt upon Walt's return. Whichever story is true, it is agreed that it was Lilly who renamed Mortimer as Mickey. Plane Crazy previewed at a Hollywood theater in May 1928, and its moderate success prompted Walt to start work on a new Mickey Mouse cartoon, Gallopin’ Gaucho. He travelled to New York to look for a distributor for his new cartoons, but found no real interest. Cartoon shorts were only a small part of the film industry, which was now going through the talkie revolution. Walt returned to Hollywood and held a meeting with Ub and three of his key animators. He suggested using sound in the next Mickey Mouse cartoon, though Roy was, as always, cautious about the extra money that would be needed to finance the venture. Walt saw the potential sound could have for his cartoons. Jokes could be much funnier with a well timed sound effect, the characters would have more personality if they had voices, the action could be timed to a popular song.Walt and Ub started work on a parody of a Buster Keaton comedy ‘Steamboat Bill’ and called it ‘Steamboat Willie’. Walt himself supplied the voices for Mickey and Minnie, and a parrot that shouted “Man overboard! Man overboard!” Steamboat Willie premiered at the Colony Theater in New York on November 18th 1928. Seven and a half minutes long, the cartoon drew better reviews that the major full-length films released that week.Within weeks Mickey Mouse was a nationwide sensation. Three years later and he would be a national institution.
