Why did Disney design Mickey Mouse?!
Question: I've been searching this, but I can't find why.
Please help.
Answers: I've been searching this, but I can't find why.
Please help.
Disney didn't design the character, Disney's top animator of the 20s and 30s, Ub Iwerks, created the character.
Iwerks wanted the design if the character to be simple and pleasing to the eye, that's why Mickey is round, circles for the body, head and ears...that's why people instantly took a liking to him.
Because they wanted a signature character that was cute.
Because Rodney the Sewer Rat wasn't very appealing.
By 1927, Charles B. Mintz had married Margaret Winkler and assumed control of her business, and ordered a new all-animated series to be put into production for distribution through Universal Pictures. The new series, "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit", was an almost instant success, and the Oswald character, first drawn and created by Iwerks, became a popular property. The Disney studio expanded, and Walt hired back Harman, Ising, Maxwell, and Freleng from Kansas City.
In February of 1928, Disney went to New York to negotiate a higher fee per short from Mintz. Disney was shocked when Mintz announced that not only he wanted to reduce the fee he paid Disney per short but also that he had most of his main animators, including Harman, Ising, Maxwell, and Freleng (notably excepting Iwerks) under contract and would start his own studio if Disney did not accept the reduced production budgets. Universal, not Disney, owned the Oswald trademark, and could make the films without Disney.
Disney declined Mintz's offer and lost most of his animation staff. The defectors became the nucleus of the Winkler Studio, run by Mintz and his brother-in-law George Winkler. When that studio went under after Universal assigned production of the Oswald shorts to an in-house division run by Walter Lantz, Mintz focused his attentions on the studio making the "Krazy Kat" shorts, which later became Screen Gems, and Harman, Ising, Maxwell, and Freleng marketed an Oswald-like character named Bosko to Leon Schlesinger and Warner Bros., and began work on the first entries in the Looney Tunes series.
It took Disney's company 78 years to get back the rights to the Oswald character. In a move that sent sports broadcaster Al Michaels to NBC Sports for their Sunday night NFL coverage, the Walt Disney Company reacquired the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit from NBC Universal in 2006.
Mickey Mouse
Main article: Mickey Mouse
The title card of Steamboat Willie credits both Walt Disney and Ub IwerksAfter having lost the rights to Oswald, Disney had to develop a new "star". Most Disney biographies state that Disney came up with a mouse character on his trip back from New York. It is debated whether it was he, or Iwerks who actually designed the mouse (which basically looked like Oswald, but with round instead of long ears). Another explanation is that this was simply the drawing style of animated characters back then, and that Iwerks adopted it. Besides Oswald and Mickey, this can be seen in the Alice Comedies which featured a mouse named Ike the Mouse, and in the first Flip the Frog cartoon called Fiddlesticks, showing a Mickey Mouse looking mouse playing fiddle. The first films were animated by Iwerks, his name was prominently featured on the title cards. The mouse was originally named "Mortimer", but later christened "Mickey Mouse" by Lillian Disney who thought that the name Mortimer did not fit (Mortimer became the name of Mickey's rival for Minnie, who was taller than his renowned adversary and had a Brooklyn accent).
Mickey's first animated short produced was Plane Crazy, which was, like all of Disney's previous works, a silent film. After failing to find distributor interest in Plane Crazy or its follow-up, The Gallopin' Gaucho, Disney created a Mickey cartoon with sound called Steamboat Willie. A businessman named Pat Powers provided Disney with both distribution and Cinephone, a sound-synchronization process. Steamboat Willie became a success, and Plane Crazy, The Galloping Gaucho, and all future Mickey cartoons were released with soundtracks. Disney himself provided the vocal effects for the earliest cartoons and performed as the voice of Mickey Mouse until 1946. After Steamboat Willie was released, Mickey became a very close competitor to Felix the Cat, and Walt Disney would continue to successfully use sound in all of his future cartoons as well; the sound Mickey would quickly eclipse Felix as the world's most popular cartoon[6]. By 1930, Felix, now in sound, had faded from the screen, as his sound cartoons failed to gain attention [7]. Mickey's popularity now would also skyrocket in the early 1930's[6].
Silly Symphonies