Guess who turns 80 today...

If you guessed Mickey Mouse you’re absolutely correct! I grew up with Mickey Mouse, and Walt Disney. Every Sunday night we watched Disneyland on our Zenith black and white console television. (If you click that link, there's another related post.) But there was a lot of history related to Mickey that occurred prior to that television show and the one that came later, The Mickey Mouse Club.

Mickey was created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. Originally, Walt’s voice was used for Mickey. The Walt Disney Company celebrates his birth as November 18, 1928 upon the release of Steamboat Willie. I've put it in the sidebar today for your enjoyment.


In my opinion, Mickey's appearance has improved with age. But let’s take a look back in time and see what might have been responsible for Mickey’s creation in the first place. It's a good thing Max charged the Wayback Machine up because we're taking a long trip today. All the way back to 1928.

Mickey was created as a replacement for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, an earlier cartoon character created by the Disney studio for Charles Mintz of Universal Studios. When Disney asked for a larger budget for his popular Oswald series, Mintz announced he had hired the bulk of Disney's staff, but that Disney could keep doing the Oswald series, as long as he agreed to a budget cut and went on the payroll. Mintz owned Oswald and thought he had Disney over a barrel. Apparently, Mintz didn’t realize who he was dealing with.

Angrily, Disney refused the deal and returned to produce the final Oswald cartoons he contractually owed Mintz. Disney was dismayed at the betrayal by his staff, but determined to restart from scratch. The new Disney Studio initially consisted of animator Ub Iwerks and a loyal apprentice artist, Les Clark. One lesson Disney learned from the experience was to thereafter always make sure that he owned all rights to the characters produced by his company.


In the spring of 1928, Disney asked Ub Iwerks to start drawing up new character ideas. Iwerks tried sketches of various animals, such as dogs and cats, but none of these appealed to Disney. A female cow and male horse were also rejected. They would later turn up as Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar. Walt Disney got the inspiration for Mickey Mouse from his old pet mouse he used to have on his farm.

In 1925, Hugh Harman drew some sketches of mice around a photograph of Walt Disney. These inspired Ub Iwerks to create a new mouse character for Disney. "Mortimer Mouse" had been Disney's original name for the character before his wife, Lillian, convinced him to change it. Ultimately Mickey Mouse came to be. Actor Mickey Rooney has claimed that, during his Mickey McGuire days, he met cartoonist Walt Disney at the Warner Brothers studio, and that Disney was inspired to name Mickey Mouse after him. Said Disney:

"We felt that the public, and especially the children, like animals that are cute and little. I think we are rather indebted to Charlie Chaplin for the idea. We wanted something appealing, and we thought of a tiny bit of a mouse that would have something of the wistfulness of Chaplin — a little fellow trying to do the best he could. When people laugh at Mickey Mouse, it's because he's so human; and that is the secret of his popularity. I only hope that we don't lose sight of one thing — that it was all started by a mouse."