Who invented mickey mouse and what year

The truth is that Mickey was born out of an extremely tense, stressful moment. Walt Disney had just lost the rights to his first hit character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and all of his animators had abandoned him.

Everyone except Oswald co-creator Ub Iwerks. So while the departing animators finished up the final Oswald cartoon, Disney and Iwerks worked behind a locked door to hastily sketch out a new character.

In all honesty, Mickey could have just as easily been a frog. Or a cow. He didn't do it. Bitterness over how little credit Iwerks got for co-creating Mickey Mouse is part of what almost tore the two friends apart for good. In , Iwerks left Walt Disney Studios to start his own animation studio, citing "personal differences with Walt. After meeting as year-olds in Kansas City in , Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks went through a series of ill-conceived and failed business concepts before moving to Hollywood.

He was a partner in that company. Like Iwerks and Disney, many of the early Laugh-O-Gram animators ended up in Hollywood and went on to become pioneers of American animation. And I mean, literally a genius. Iwerks was an artistic and engineering whiz with the ability to creatively solve any problem. Instead, the studio told him that it had hired away all of his employeees and retained the rights to Oswald.

Univesral offered to keep Disney if he took a lower salary, but he refused. They shortened the ears, added some extra padding around the middle, and turned the rabbit into a mouse.

Named Mortimer. The first two Mickey shorts drew no attention, but then came Steamboat Willie , the first animation to feature synchronized music and sound effects, hit the screen.

The film premiered in New York on Nov. The mouse was a national fad by the end of the year, and it wasn't long before the real genius of Walt Disney kicked in: marketing. Walt quickly started up a line of Mickey merchandise, and within two years the Mickey Mouse Club, a fan club for children, was up and running. In , a young animator named Fred Moore gave Mickey his first makeover. Earlier animators had drawn the mouse as a series of circles, which limited his movement.

As its most famous character, Mickey serves as the mascot of the Walt Disney Company. He has appeared in over films, for which he received numerous accolades. Today, Mickey stands as the highest-grossing animated character of all time, and the 4th highest-grossing media franchise overall.

He has an older sister named Felicity Fieldmouse , by whom Mickey has twin nephews named Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse , whom he occasionally watches over. Mickey is normally depicted as living a modest life with his pet dog, Pluto. His earliest cartoons portrayed him as a country boy living in the midwest.

The Adventures of Mickey Mouse: Book I —published in —described Mickey as living "in a cozy nest under the floor of the old barn. According to Walt Disney, Mickey and Minnie are married in private life and are merely depicted as dating onscreen. Mickey's occupational status is dependent on the story, but he is usually depicted as a jack-of-all-trades, working as anything from a steamboat deckhand to a sorcerer's apprentice.

The most recurring employer of Mickey's is the Ajax Corporation, where he has worked alongside his best friends, Donald Duck and Goofy. Ajax consists of a variety of odd jobs ghost exterminators, car washers, rollercoaster painters, etc. In comic stories, Mickey has frequently been portrayed as a detective working closely with his friend Horace Horsecollar and the Chief of Police, Chief O'Hara.

Though not for pay, Mickey has been a regular contributor to his local orphanage—which houses hundreds of nameless mice children. With help from Minnie, Donald and other friends, Mickey has organized numerous benefits for the orphans such as picnic outings and theatre shows.

In some cartoons, he and Pluto have even welcomed the orphans into their home. In some continuities such as that of Darkwing Duck , A Goofy Movie , and numerous meta Disney productions like House of Mouse , Mickey is portrayed as an A-list celebrity made famous by his theatrical cartoon shorts, which are said to be based on real events in his life.

Concerning his in-universe age, Mickey is depicted as being relatively young. The official character training video for Disneyland recorded in the s describes him as "an average young boy of no particular age. He is cheerful in spirit, yet roughish in complexion. He ignored the commands of his overbearing boss for the sake of gallivanting around the steamboat. His mentality mirrored that of a rebellious child, as he mocked his superiors and threw a tantrum when others rebuked his merriment.

Though impishly self-serving, he showed empathy and chivalry by forgoing protocol to aid Minnie during her time of need. With an air of valiance in spite of his diminutive stature and put-upon background, Mickey is an underdog with a heart of gold. By the high society denizens seen in Society Dog Show , Mickey is regarded as riff raff.

Regardless, Mickey remains jovial. His rebellious and independent mien allows him to take his downtrodden lot in life in stride with a smile and laugh. We wanted something appealing and we thought of a tiny bit of a mouse that would have something of the wistfulness of Chaplin He was never intended to be a sissy, he was always an adventurous character.

I thought of him in that respect, and I had him do naturally the sort of thing Doug Fairbanks would do. He is a thinker and schemer, being able to construct quick plots and ploys to advance his ambitions. This is prominently displayed in times of crises, in which Mickey must come up with hasty solutions to rescue his friends from such perils as natural disasters, or his nemesis Pete. Though he presents himself as slick and confident, Mickey is awkward and bumbling in actuality.

He enjoys dressing in dapper attire to imitate high society as seen in such cartoons as Mickey Steps Out and Mickey's Delayed Date , only to trip over himself while showing off.

Even with his foibles, Mickey retains a can-do spirit that allows him to smile in the face of danger and move pass his mistakes. He gets by through optimism and has a positive outlook on the world and himself, often displayed by his jovial demeanor. Mickey is quick to share his positivity with others, to keep their spirits high during low times.

For all his juvenile mischief, Mickey is a reliable leader. When put in charge of a production, for example such as a stage show or the House of Mouse nightclub theater he is professional and composed, even when inconveniences get in the way. In addition to being a strong leader, Mickey is a devoted friend. He has, on numerous occasions, risked his life for the safety of others while never expecting recompense. This is most prominently seen with Minnie, for whom Mickey has often felt inclined to sacrifice his own happiness as seen in Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas.

He is charitable and selfless, looking out for the less fortunate despite often being in undesirable predicaments, himself. In Mickey's Good Deed , Mickey sold Pluto to a wealthy household and used the money to supply a poor family with food and Christmas gifts—despite being homeless and hungry, himself. In Epic Mickey , Mickey sacrificed his only chance of escaping the Wasteland to rescue Oswald and Gus from danger, both of whom he had just met.

A hero at his core, Mickey takes charge without second thought when trouble arises. In such cartoons as Gulliver Mickey and Runaway Brain , he fearlessly fought against monsters to protect the people around him. Occasionally, Mickey can be too caring towards others, which can drive him to disregard his own needs. Mickey's temper can be rather explosive after being pushed to a certain limit.

He is also relentless when it comes to getting back at his foes for their harassment. Mickey evidently struggles with insecurity to some extent. In " Goofy for a Day ", he panicked at the prospect of losing his hosting job at the House of Mouse, believing "show business" is the only profession that he's actually good at. His popularity seems to act as a double-edged sword. While he typically enjoys the attention, Mickey also feels a sense of pressure from the public to always be at his very best.

This is most notably seen when Mickey is tasked with hosting live entertainment in front of a large audience. In which, he becomes short-fused and anxious. Some cartoons suggest that Mickey has commitment issues. In spite of being an anthropomorphic mouse, Mickey has the tendencies to act with his animal nature, including the fact that being a mouse, he loves cheese. In the television series House of Mouse , Mickey, being a mouse, is made fun of when he is shown to exercise on a hamster wheel and drink from a rodent drinking bottle like the ones found in a hamster cage.

These particular facts seem to only exist in the House of Mouse and haven't been shown again, proving to have been used for brief gags only. They were originally drawn as blackened ovals, which moved across the entirety of his face to convey looking in different directions.

For a brief period of time, beginning in The Karnival Kid , Mickey was drawn with "pie eyes" to create the illusion of light reflection. For Moore's redesign, pupils were added to Mickey's eyes to allow for more expression in the character animation. In Kingdom Hearts III —which adds further detail to the character models through computer animation—Mickey is depicted with blue irises.

Mickey is diminutive in stature, standing at roughly 2 ft. He had a portly figure through the mids. He is traditionally depicted as wearing a pair of red shorts with two white buttons on the front. In some instances, two additional buttons appear on the back of the shorts.

Occasionally—as was the case in Parade of the Award Nominees —Mickey's buttons are instead colored yellow. Since The Opry House in , Mickey has worn a pair of white opera gloves.

In the first of Mickey's colored cartoons, his gloves were yellow. Mickey sports only three fingers and a thumb, which was a conscious choice by Walt Disney and his animators. His hand would look like a bunch of bananas. Financially, not having an extra finger in each of 45, drawings that make up a six and one-half minute short has saved the studio millions.

For a period of time in the s, the shoes were instead colored brown. A large part of Mickey's screen persona is his falsetto voice, which was originated by Walt Disney. Walt had provided the unintelligible vocal effects for Mickey in Steamboat Willie. As the voice of Mickey, Walt would regularly record alongside other voice artists in the studio. Marcellite Garner —the voice of Minnie Mouse—recalled in an interview that Walt would take time out of their sessions to act out the parts and describe the scenes.

By , Disney was becoming too busy with running the studio to do regular voice work and as it is speculated, his cigarette habit had damaged his voice over the years. As such, he could no longer commit to voicing Mickey. MacDonald voiced Mickey in the remainder of the theatrical shorts and for various television and publicity projects. Clarence Nash voiced Mickey in the short The Dognapper , which would also be the only time that Nash voiced him.

Allwine, who would serve as Mickey's official voice actor from until his death in , once recounted something MacDonald had told him about voicing the character: "The main piece of advice that Jim gave me about Mickey helped me keep things in perspective.

He said, 'Just remember kid, you're only filling in for the boss. From Walt, and now from Jimmy. Bret Iwan , a former Hallmark greeting card artist, is the current voice of Mickey, having taken over the role after Wayne Allwine's passing. Despite Iwan being Mickey's official voice actor, the character's voice is provided by Chris Diamantopoulos in the Mickey Mouse series, which premiered in Since the premiere of Mickey Mouse. Diamantopoulos has reprised the role for numerous projects, including Wonderful World of Animation , the DuckTales episode " Moonvasion!

On March 4 , , Walt Disney signed a contract with Universal Pictures to produce a series of cartoons starring his character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit , under the authority of producer Charles Mintz. As the series gained traction, however, the partnership between Disney and Universal quickly began to fall apart. On the train ride back to California, Walt desperately brainstormed ideas for a new cartoon character, in order to keep his studio afloat.

He would eventually conceive a mouse character. Disney believed that a mouse would make for a cute and sympathetic character. Concept art of Mickey from early ; the sketches are the earliest known drawings of the character, from the collection of The Walt Disney Family Museum. Walt created a sketch to get the basic idea of the character, and later shared it with Ub, who refined it.

You gave it long ears, and it was a rabbit. Short ears, it was a cat. With an elongated nose, it became a mouse. The first Mickey short to be produced was Plane Crazy , and it was first screened for test audiences on May 15 , Plane Crazy focused on Mickey's attempt to become an aviator in emulation of Charles Lindbergh.

In this short, Mickey was gloveless and shoeless. His appearance bore animalistic qualities more closely resembling an actual mouse than modern interpretations. In terms of personality, Mickey was portrayed as a rash and arrogant character, even going as far as to antagonize his love interest, Minnie Mouse. Plane Crazy failed to find a distributor, and was not released that year.

However, The Gallopin' Gaucho also failed to make an impact with potential distributors and would not be released to the public that year. Mickey in his debut cartoon, Steamboat Willie. It was then that Walt decided to take an extremely ambitious step by breaking into "talkies".

Sound had been in animated cartoons before, but never on a scale quite like Mickey's third-produced short, Steamboat Willie. Steamboat Willie reinvented Mickey's character with a more appealing design and relatable personality. In addition to writing the script, Walt provided the vocal performances of both Mickey and Minnie he would continue to voice Mickey for decades to follow. Though it was the third short to be produced, it was the first to be publicly released.

As such, November 18th is recognized as the official birthday of Mickey Mouse, as declared by archivist Dave Smith in The success of Steamboat Willie later allowed for the official releases of both The Gallopin' Gaucho and Plane Crazy , remastered with sound. Mickey in The Karnival Kid , his first actual speaking role. A slew of shorts would quickly follow, a majority of which portrayed Mickey as a rascally mouse living in a barn-like setting. Generally, the majority of the runtime was dedicated to musical sequences accompanied by rubberhose gags involving the characters and anthropomorphic objects.

In The Opry House released on March 28 , Mickey was given his trademark gloves, which made him easier to animate. Walt accepted, and thus began Mickey Mouse's foray into merchandising. Though the club had its start in the United States, it would later expand to overseas markets such as Europe and Australia. This 9x12 sketch is drawn using graphite and red and blue colored pencil. Four production drawings from "Steamboat Willie.

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