Steamboat Willie: Facts, Stories, & Trivia About Mickey Mouse's First Cartoon Ever

 

Steamboat Willie is commonly referred to as the first cartoon made (and distributed) with the sound (even though the Fletcher brothers technically released a cartoon earlier), and one of the most famous pop culture icons in the world Famous for beginners: Mickey Mouse. But it was not at all what we want to remember it to be, and this exact cartoon is actually in the U.S. Has been pushing for years to expand its copyright laws. The history of Steamboat Willie and the first time people ever saw it had a huge impact on not only animation, but pop culture. It currently sits at number 13 in a book called The 50 Greatest Cartoons, which includes a list of the 50 best cartoons to date. It is now part of the United States National Film Registry and is considered "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". These are all steamboat willy trivia, facts, and stories you may not know everything about yet.

Its legacy is missed with misnomer

Mickey Mouse's first appearance was actually in a cartoon called "Plane Crazy" that never got to the distribution channel, so he included it, creating Steamboat Willie, which surfaced in 1928, and then released "Plane Crazy" in 1929. Done, making it the fourth. The Mickey Mouse cartoon was released after Steamboat Willie. This famous cartoon was also not the first Mickey Mouse cartoon ever.

Fletcher Bros. was actually Disney's first competition, with two big sound studios that took animated sound films to the point where they defeated Steamboat Willie for about a month making sound cartoons for the first time. Steamboat Willie made his debut on November 18, 1929, while the first sound cartoon from Flishers, called "Noah's Lark", came out on October 25, 1929. Fleisters, Jahn Betty Boop, Popeye the Sailor, Coco Joker, Bimbo and Superman.

How It Came To Be 

Steamboat Willie was created by Walt Disney after watching the famous film The Jazz Singer. The cartoon took three months to complete with an estimated $ 4,986 (or $ 75,923 in 2020). Walt Disney himself performed the original voice of Mickey Mouse, but only because he was performing all the other anthropological sounds at the screening of the first test.

The screening was a very ad hoc work, which is hard to believe by Disney's standards today, but it was actually a homegrown production. Because Walt Disney wanted to do a screening with a test audience to ensure that the live sound would be reliable, as the sound cartoons were in such an early stage, they had to do with what they had to do. The audience was seated in a room next to Disney's office, from where they projected the film on an external screen, which was just a bedsheet. They kept projectors in the office so as not to interfere with the live sound that the team was providing for this screening. The film was literally projected through a window. The sound, then, was to come from behind that bedsheet. A man named Wilfred Jackson played music on a mouth organ, colleague Ube Iwerks worked pots and pans, and a man named Johnny Cannon did the stole, including items like slide whistles and sort.

After the test screening went really well, Walt Disney would proudly bring the production to its full vision: they contracted a band, a production sound system and a conductor. But, that first attempt to encapsulate the sound was a complete failure, so Disney sold its Moon Roadster to pay for another recording and another attempt. How did he make the first Mickey Mouse cartoon with sound? One reason they worked so well in the second attempt is that they added a bouncy ball to the screen to keep the tempo like a visual metric for the band. And finally ended.

After the original release of Steamboat Willie

Steamboat Willie was first screened and released on November 18, 1928 at New York's Universal Colony Theater. It showed in front of an independent feature film, which history almost completely forgot. The short cartoon gained worldwide recognition and fame for Walt Disney. Its first review of the first variety is as follows:

"Not the first animated cartoon to be synchronized with sound effects, but the first to attract favorable attention. This cartoon represents a high order of ingenuity, cleverly combined with sound effects. Union has laughably abundant Brought in volume. Giggles came so fast. Colony [Theater] They were stumbling each other. It's a peach of a synchronization job all the way, bright, fast and fitting the situation perfectly. Cartoonist, Walter Disney. Most animated cartoons qualify as a pain in the neck. This is especially a tribute. If the same combination of talent could turn a series as Steamboat Willie, they should find a wide market, If the interchangeable angle does not interfere. Unreservedly recommended for all wired homes. "

When Steamboat Willie finally invaded Europe in 1931, it did so well that previous Mickey Mouse films were reintroduced as sound cartoons and all were given extensive theatrical runs, making it an early and young animation studio Became a victory for success.

Copyright law and Mickey Mouse (Steamboat Willie)

As you know if you took a communication course, Steamboat Willie has had a sweet relationship with US copyright law since Get-Go. There were some changes in copyright methods in the 125 years before Mickey Mouse came into the picture. Originally, in the Copyright Act of 1790, the period was 14 years, which you can renew if the author (a map, chart, or book at the time) was still alive. If the copyright conditions were not met, the work would enter the public domain (Disney's worst nightmare). In 1831 it was extended to 38 years with the possibility of a 14-year renewal, and then in 1909, the law changed to 28 years, with a renewal of 28 years. This allowed Mickey Mouse to be heavily protected until 1984, at which point Disney started a lobbying congress to push it even further. It worked. A 1976 law gave people retrospective extensions to what was published before the new laws, and the period was increased from 56 years to 75 years, making Mickey safe by 2003. This law makes "70 years to the life of the author" and copyright to corporate. Works for 95 years from first publication or 120 years from the year it was created, whichever comes first. It advances the copyright of Mickey Mouse until 2023, at which point Disney will have plenty of work to preserve their first hit and their most prized character: Mickey Mouse.