November 13th, 2020 
Michael Lyons 
Each year, around this time, Disney fans and animation enthusiasts will always be reminded that November 18th is Mickey Mouse’s birthday.
And, if the birthday is a milestone (as it was two years ago for his 90th), the inundation of marketing and merchandising really ramps up. So, why the big deal? Plenty of animated characters and animated short subjects celebrate anniversaries. Why are we always reminded of Mickey’s?
Well, there’s a lot about Steamboat Willie, which was released on November 28, 1928, and a lot that followed after at the Disney Studio, that shows just how significant it is. Steamboat Willie gave the world an icon.
It can’t be discounted how significant the debut of Mickey Mouse is. In the, now quaint, short subject, he is a mischievous deckhand on a steamboat (with a darkly humorous tendency for animal cruelty in the film), but he would almost immediately be embraced by audiences, who soon couldn’t get enough of him.
There had already been popular cartoon characters during the silent era, such as Pat Sullivan’s Felix the Cat, but Mickey’s connection with audiences had rarely been seen in Hollywood.
For over ninety years, Mickey would go on to star in over 130 films, both short subjects and features, like 1940’s Fantasia.
Steamboat Willie was also the debut of Minnie Mouse and although Pete appeared in Disney’s Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Alice shorts, this was his first appearance as Mickey’s adversary. They would all go on to be part of a repertoire company of characters, along with Pluto, Donald Duck and Goofy that would star in future Disney short features.
The original movie poster
Not just in films, but also when television became part of our lives, as “The Leader of the Club” on The Mickey Mouse Club, and now, in “real life,” visitors to Disney Theme Parks around the globe have made a photo with Mickey a vacation ritual.
Recently, Mickey has even had a resurgence of sorts with a new series of short subjects that began in 2013 and include re-designed versions of Mickey and the gang, which have proven to be a big hit on The Disney Channel and now Disney+.
As an image, Mickey Mouse also serves as the icon of The Walt Disney company and has become one of the most recognizable corporate symbols in the world, alongside such familiar logos as Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.
In fact, in 2004, Forbes Magazine included Mickey in their annual list of “fictional billionaires,” which looks at characters from TV, movies and books and their bankability.
A Company that now includes some of the world’s most beloved and biggest blockbusters in films (that also include Marvel, Star Wars and now 20th Century Fox), theme parks, resorts, products, cable networks, home video and now streaming services, all fall under the “umbrella” of an unassuming Mouse who made his debut in “Steamboat Willie.”
It’s no wonder that a quote from Walt Disney himself has been trotted out quite a bit: “I only only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing, that it was all started by a Mouse.”
“Do You Hear What I Hear?”
“A Mickey Mouse Sound Cartoon” was heralded across the opening title card of “Steamboat Willie,” letting audiences know that they were about to see something new and special.
Sound had already been used in film and even in cartoons prior to the debut of “Steamboat Willie.” Al Jolson’s live-action film The Jazz Singer had debuted in 1927 and the Fleischer Studio had debuted a series of musical Song Car-Tunes, as far back as 1925 that utilized a “sound on film” process.
Additionally, the Van Beuren Studio’s animated short Dinner Time, debuted in August of 1928.
However, Dinner Time wasn’t anywhere near the popularity of Steamboat Willie. Also, Walt and his artists were very creative in their use of music (“Turkey in the Straw”) and sound effects, which was noted not only by audiences, but by critics, as well. Variety magazine stated in their review: “It’s a peach of a synchronization job all the way, bright, snappy and fitting the situation perfectly.”
Like most films with sound of this time, Steamboat Willie was about to help herald in a new era in movies, animated and otherwise.
“You’ve Got Personality”
While the Disney Studio didn’t create “personality animation” (where animators “act” through their drawings and bring forth a performance, or a personality, in their character), the animators there certainly became masters of it. Their work is still studied today.
One of the first, strongest examples of this can be found in Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie. More than just a way to deliver sight gags, Mickey had an earnest, heroic persona, sprinkled with a mischievous side (particularly when he sticks his tongue out behind Pete’s back).
Ub Iwerks, considered to be Walt’s oldest friend and the designer of Mickey Mouse, also did almost all of the animation in the earliest Mickey Mouse cartoons, including “Steamboat Willie.” Ub brought these first glimpses into the icon’s personality to life.
In the book, The Hand Behind the Mouse by Leslie Iwerks (Ub’s granddaughter) and John Kenworthy, the authors discuss Ub’s ability to craft this personality for Mickey, in his first appearance: “In many ways, Ub Iwerks was one of the first Stanislavskian animators concentrating as much on internal motivation as on the external characteristics of his cartoon stars.”
A Good Buy
The Mickey Mouse tablet (1929)
The very first piece of Mickey Mouse Merchandise was a school tablet, with the character’s image on the front, produced in 1929.
A year later, a plush Mickey Mouse doll, designed by Charlotte Clark, an enterprising young woman who approached Walt with the idea to produce then doll. After he agreed, she began crafting them out of a small, rented house.
Demand for what would eventually be called the “Charlotte Clark Doll” became so overwhelming that permission was given to reproduce the pattern in McCall’s Magazine, so that fans could create their own.
By 1932, Walt had hired Herman “Kay” Kamen, an advertising executive, to handle all of the numerous merchandise licenses for Disney merchandise, including the immensely popular Mickey Mouse watch.
Today, these types of merchandise “tie-ins” have become commonplace with animated TV shows and movies. In fact, this mania for Mickey product continues. According to Fast Company Magazine, in 2018, Mickey Mouse and the “gang” (Minnie, Pluto, Donald and Goofy) generated $3 billion dollars in merchandise revenue.
A Win for Walt
Steamboat Willie came along when Walt Disney definitely needed a “win.”
Walt lost his first character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and the majority of his staff, when producer Charles Mintz took them away, after a disagreement with Disney.
As “Disney lore” has it, Walt brainstormed ideas for a new character on the train ride back from the meeting with Mintz in New York. When he returned to the West Coast and shared his ideas with Ub Iwerks, it was Iwerks who designed the character himself.
Mickey and his success in Steamboat Willie came out of a desperate time. His popularity provided Walt with clout in Hollywood and allowed him to break new animated ground with the Silly Symphony shorts and eventually the first full-length animated feature, 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Essentially, Steamboat Willie set the trajectory for the rest of Walt’s career.
So, next week on November 18th when we once again hear commemorations for Mickey Mouse’s birthday and debut with Steamboat Willie, (which will be 92 this year) know that there is indeed significance behind that.
At the time the film premiered in 1928, even Walt Disney himself recognized this, as noted in Jerry Beck’s book, The 50 Greatest Cartoons, where Walt is quoted about Steamboat Willie saying: “We discovered we didn’t just have a cartoon toy to amuse children, we had a unique medium that delighted whole families. We had an art form and an impressive illusion.”
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