More About The Mouse

Mickey Mouse wasn’t always Disney’s star. Before Mickey, Walt had created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. After a few cartoons, Disney asked the studio he was working for more money to be able to draw more and better Oswald cartoons. The studio that Disney was working for fired him and hired other people to draw the animated rabbit.

Not deterred, Disney created a new cartoon character, a little mouse that he wanted to call Mortimer. Walt's wife talked him out of it, and the mouse was instead named Mickey. A legend was born.

Mickey Mouse first appeared in comics in Plane Crazy, a short animated film that also starred Minnie Mouse and Clarabelle Cow. Audiences were not impressed. Disney was frustrated, but not willing to give up, and he went back to the drawing board and created Steamboat Willie, which was a resounding success. Audiences loved it, critics loved it, and Mickey was off and running.

This film not only made Mickey Mouse a star, it was also the first movie that totally combined sound, music, and dialogue all together in one neat package. Moviegoers of today take that kind of thing for granted; back then, it was a huge deal, something that had never been done before.