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Suddenly it seems as though Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is popping up EVERYWHERE!! But who even is he? Why are people freaking out about him? What Disney movie is he even from?!? Why is he in Disney Speedstorm and now potentially even coming to Disney Dreamlight Valley??
“It was all started by a mouse,” is a popular saying about how the Walt Disney company came to be. But look a little closer into the company’s history and you may find that it actually started… with a rabbit.
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is a lesser-known but important part of how the Walt Disney company became what it is today; and the reason we have the theme parks, and the films, and Disney Dreamlight Valley, and most importantly… he led to the creation of the man himself… Mickey Mouse.
Walt Disney was obsessed with the concepts and magic of animation, and in 1923, alongside his business-minded brother Roy, and loyal friend and genius animator, Ub Iwerks, began creating the “Alice Comedies” which were animation and live-action shorts based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland book. Walt Disney worked with a woman named Margaret Winkler, an animation distributor, to release the Alice Comedies to the public, which became a great success.
Over time, Margaret Winkler and Walt Disney disagreed about how to create the Alice Comedies. Walt Disney wanted to create quality animation with focus on character and storylines, while Winkler wanted more gags from the animated cat in the series, Julius the Cat. Winkler ended up marrying a businessman by the name of Charles Mintz, and when Winkler became pregnant he took over the company.
Mintz would go on to cause a lot of stress for Walt, asking for higher-quality animations in a shorter time without proper financial compensation. Mintz often took advantage of Walt’s naivety, forcing him into unfair contracts and negotiations.
In 1927 Mintz began working with Universal Studios, who was looking to create a cartoon character for a new series after a ten-year animation hiatus. There were too many cats in the cartoon world at the time, so they wanted something different. Walt Disney handed over sketches of a rabbit who we now know as Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Mintz signed an agreement with Universal Studios to produce twenty-six shorts featuring Oswald. Walt Disney alongside Ub Iwerks created the first ever Oswald the Lucky Rabbit short titled “Poor Papa.” Both Mintz and Universal hated it and refused to release it. Mintz hated Oswald’s design and thought that he should have a monocle. Universal hated how many gags were in the short, something Mintz had always pushed him for.
Walt Disney was NOT going to put a monocle on him. But he did decide to focus on Oswald’s personality and make it distinctive. He didn’t want gags to happen “to” Oswald; he wanted the gags to come from within him, to come from who Oswald is as a character. Walt would say “I want the characters to be somebody. I don’t want them to be just a drawing.”
Then came Trolley Troubles, which starred Oswald as a conductor of a trolley having to cope with a series of misfortunes. Critics saw a lot of potential in this, so Walt hired a team to help with the creation of more Oswald the Lucky Rabbit shorts which were a massive success.
In early 1928, Mintz had grown tired of arguing with Walt about money and intended to take over Walt’s studio and staff and drop him. It was Ub Iwerks who told Walt about Winkler’s plan, but by then it was already too late. Walt’s entire team had left for Mintz and Universal for the renewal of the Oswald contract. Not only this, but Mintz had granted Walt Disney zero rights to the character he had created. Oswald now belonged to Universal, and Walt had nothing and no one but Iwerks on his side.
Walt Disney vowed he never wanted to work for anyone ever again, he wanted to be his own boss. He began making sketches of more characters on a train ride back to New York. He came up with a story about a mouse, inspired by Charles Lindbergh's 1927 flight over the Atlantic, who wanted to impress a lady mouse. This mouse… was Mortimer. Walt Disney read the story to his wife Lillian, and all she could think about was how horrible the name Mortimer was, and came up with Mickey. And thus, Mickey Mouse was born.
Eventually Oswald the Lucky Rabbit faded, as without the love Walt Disney poured into his characters, people no longer connected with him. Eventually the entire staff that betrayed Walt, eventually betrayed Mintz and left him.
In 2006, Walt Disney Studios acquired the rights of Oswald back from Universal Studios, and Oswald would go on to be feature in a video game titled Epic Mickey.