How Did Walt Disney Create Mickey Mouse

Walt always used the best technology. In 1928 he created the first talking cartoon called Steamboat Willie starring Mickey Mouse.

Walt Disney started out by producing short animated films in 1922 and in 1928 introduced Mickey Mouse, the world most famous cartoon character shown in Figure 4 below (Olsson 1996; Kramer 2002). Following this breakthrough, Kramer (2002) found that Disney proceeded innovatively with new film technologies of sound and colour that resulted in the first successful animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937.

It was Disney’s interest in the animals that got him drawing in the first place. One day when he was six, Disney decided to draw a picture of a huge farm pig named Porker. His family was very poor so there was no paper for him to use. He noticed a bucket of tar his father was using to fix the roof. He used the brush and started to draw Porker on the whitewash side of the barn. Disney’s father discovered what Disney was doing though before he was able to finish.

Founded in 1923 by Walter Elias Disney, Walt Disney is the pioneer of the animation industry (“The Walt Disney Company”, 2014). The first two cartoons that Disney created were silent films and could not be sold; he then created the third Mickey Mouse cartoon with sound – Steamboat Willie in November of 1928 ("Disney History," n.d.). Disney went on to win the Academy Award ® for Best Cartoon in 1932, which was the first year that this award was offered, for his cartoon Flowers and Trees ("Disney History," n.d.). Shortly after his cartoons were gaining popularity, Disney went into the merchandising industry, when Walt Disney accepted an offer of $300 by a man to put Mickey Mouse on some pencil tablets ("Disney History," n.d.). That was just the beginning for Disney merchandising, which soon included everything from “Mickey Mouse dolls, dishes,

With his fellow artists in Kansas City Walt began his long endeavour into the art of production. Working with his brother Roy and a few others Walt worked his way to his dream, and in 1923 he was able to set up his studio in Hollywood where his first famous cartoons were produced. Walter and his partners had previously aired their cartoons dubbed Laugh-O-Grams which were wildly popular and after they created a series of seven-minute fairy tales that combined live action and animation. Out of their studio in Hollywood, also known as the “Disney Brothers’ Studio”, came incredible characters such as Oswald the Lucky Rabbit who was famously feuded over by the brothers and caused their famous split. Although the most beloved of all was the sensational Mickey Mouse. Up to this point in Walt’s career all of his work and other animations in the industry have one thing in common,

This was a major event in the 1900s because it changed the way producers made cartoons. The music was arranged by Wilfred Jackson and Bert Lewis, the cartoon had a really popular song named, “Steamboat Bill” and it was composed by baritone Arthur Collins. The cartoon was such a hit that later in 1935 it was released in color and along the way Disney started to introduce the characters, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto. Therefore, merchandising started to rise. One of the best sellers was the Mickey Mouse book which had sold 2.4 million copies.

Alice Comedies sparked the idea for Walt of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in 1927. Disney who enjoyed drawing immensely and created 26 episodes in the first year. Dreaming big and ready to sign the contract for a second year Disney found out that his distributor, unbeknownst to him, contracted his employees without his knowledge to work directly for the distributor company, not for Disney. It was a shocking lesson for him to find out that he did not own the right to his characters.

During this time one of the greatest cartoon icons was created by Walt Disney after his distributor stole his first character and it led to the creation of the most recognizable cartoon character, Mickey Mouse. Before Walt Disney's creation of Mickey Mouse he went through some struggles. He did not always own his own business. He worked with a small group of men, who abandon him (Watts, 25).

successful for a while for the aspiring designers; however, in 1928, Walt discovered that a woman named M.J. Winkler and her husband, Charles Mintz, stole the rights to Oswald and all the animators that helped in the design process except Ub Iwerks. Due to a contract dispute, Walt could not retain the rights and therefore lost them permanently. At this point, all seemed lost, but Walt was a person of superior determination and went ahead forward with his goal. With his team consisting of very few, and most of his original production team being gone, he wanted to create a piece of his very own artwork, thus came the character known as “Steamboat Willie.” This was Walt’s first publicized cartoon with sound. After the success of this series came

In 1932, Walt received a special academy award for the creation of Mickey Mouse, whose series was made into color in 1935. Soon launched spin-off series for supporting characters such as Donald Duck, Goofy and Pluto. Pluto and Donald immediately got their individual cartoons in 1937. Goofy would get solo cartoons in 1939 as well. In 1953- Cecil B. DeMille awards; 7 emmy awards and 22 academy awards. He also received 59 nominations. The original name for Mickey was Mortimer, but his wife didn’t like the name and suggested Mickey. The robot from Wall-E was named after Walter Elias Disney.

Shortly after Disney brothers produced three cartoons featuring a new cartoon Walter had been working on called Mickey Mouse. C. The first two cartoons were silent films and they failed to find distribution D. The third cartoon was created called Steamboat Willie. It was a sound and music equipped short.

Mickey Mouse’s exponential growth and ongoing success perhaps casted a shadow over Walt’s work during the 1930’s, which might have made some people believe that he created Mickey and immediately followed it with Snow White. Many were skeptical at first about Walt trying to make a fully animated feature-length film about dwarfs and talking animals. Naysayers were in disbelieve that adults would be able to sit through such a film, however; critics were unanimous when it came to their opinions of Snow White. It was Charlie Chaplin that told The Los-Angeles Times that the film “surpassed our high expectations.” Although some categorized it as a naturel extension of his early work it is important to have an understanding of his career leading up to the film to fully appreciate its

in Hollywood. If their business were successful, it would be the first studio in the city strictly for producing animation. Walt and Roy got their studio up and moving within a few weeks and hired several animators. They first produced a mini-series called Alice that played in the previews of movie theatres, but they knew it wouldn’t compare to Felix the Cat. Walt felt something was missing at their studio and realized a need for a master animator.

After losing everything, Walt and Ubbe decided to create another cartoon character now known as Mickey. After creating a series of short cartoons Mickey became the world’s most popular cartoon character in the 1930s. Walt created his first full-length animated musical feature in the production of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” which exceeded over $1,400,000 in profit (IMDb, 2010). Throughout 1937-1947 he continued to create full-length movies such as “Pinocchio”, “Fantasia”, “Dumbo”, and “Bambi”. Following his cartoon success, Walt

The Disney brothers began creating countless cartoons (some successful and others not so much), and in 1928, introduced Mickey Mouse to the world in the animated short, Steamboat Willie—widely described as the