Friday, November 18, 2011

Happy 83rd Birthday Mickey and Minnie

Today we celebrate the 83rd birthday of Minnie Mouse and her boyfriend, the most recognizable and iconic animated character in the entire world, Mr. Mickey Mouse. So ladies and gentlemen I present to you the animated shorts that started it all.

Steamboat Willy was the first Mickey cartoon released but not the first created. While Walt was still under contract to Universal for his Oswald cartoons, he turned to his best friend and animator Ub Iwerks to create the first two Mickey cartoons incognito. By the time the contract with Universal was up, he had two cartoons ready to go. The problem was no theatre thought they were worthy of being shown. Luckily the Jazz Singer was released, the first "talking picture", and Walt saw the opportunity to be the first to create a sound cartoon and Steamboat Willy was born. After its success, he went back and added sound to the original two and released them after, also to great success.


Until next time kiddies,
Brian James Fichtner

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