A long-lost Walt Disney cartoon featuring a character that led to the creation of Mickey Mouse was found in Japan, nearly 70 years after it was bought by a high school student.
Mickey Mouse, that cheerful Disney cartoon character known to young and old around the world, turns 90. With decades of comic books, films and untold merchandising products in his name, he still looks good for his age.
Image: picture-alliance
Mickey and his maker
Few people know that the famous mouse started its career as a replacement for Walt Disney's first star cartoon figure, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. The Mickey character was created with cartoon illustrator Ub Iwerks after Disney lost the rights to Oswald. At first, the mouse was named Mortimer, but reportedly Walt Disney's wife didn't like the name, and suggested Mickey instead.
Image: Imago/ZUMA Press/Globes Photos
First film
Mickey Mouse premiered on screen on November 18, 1928 with the film "Steamboat Willie." Almost eight minutes long, with sound effects and music, the short film already features Minnie Mouse and Mickey's arch enemy, Pete. The audience and the media loved the cartoon that jump-started the Disney empire.
Image: picture-alliance/United Archives/TopFoto
Failed: 'Plane Crazy'
The first work starring Mickey, the silent film "Plane Crazy," actually had a test screening six months before "Steamboat Willie," but no film distributor was interested in it. In it, Mickey played Charles Lindbergh, the first aviator to fly flown nonstop from America to Europe. It was finally released in 1929, as a sound cartoon. Ub Iwerks drew some 700 images a day to create it.
Image: picture-alliance / Mary Evans Picture Library
Mickey in color
Mickey cavorted across the screen in black and white until 1935 before his films were produced in color. Walt Disney himself lent the mouse his voice from 1928 to 1946. The 1938 film "The Brave Little Tailor" was considered very advanced technically, a model for cartoon animators worldwide well into the 1990s.
Pluto, who was first called Rover, joined the club in 1930. The playful pet loves bones, and of course his owner, Mickey Mouse. Often enough, he smells something dangerous going on before Mickey notices. Unlike many other animals in the Disney kingdom, he doesn't speak, he only barks and growls.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/B. Reisfeld
Mickey, the Sorcerer's Apprentice
By 1939, Donald Duck started upstaging Walt Disney's favorite character — so he dedicated a feature film to Mickey Mouse. "Fantasia," an experimental animated masterwork set to classical music, netted Disney an Honorary Oscar in 1942. For his performance as the sorcerer's apprentice, set to the music of Paul Dukas, the mouse would have deserved one, too.
Image: picture alliance / United Archives/IFTN
Mickey celebrates Christmas
In the 50s, there were only a few short films starring Mickey, until they were discontinued altogether. It was't until 1983 that he made a brilliant comeback with the Oscar-nominated film "Mickey's Christmas Carol." Five years later, (the Oscar "turned 60" that year, just like Mickey), the Mouse himself announced the winner in the category "Best Short Animated Film" during the Oscars ceremony.
Image: picture-alliance/Everett Collection
Mickey as an actor
Even if Mickey looks sad here, don't worry: That's what the script of "The Prince and the Pauper" prescribes. The film was a great success in 1990. It's no wonder given the leading actor. After all, the talented mouse was the first cartoon figure to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1978. But he's never put on airs: Most important for him have always been his friends.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/United Archives
Mickey's great love
Mickey doesn't always have it easy with his Minnie. But actually, the two are inseparable. They appeared together in their first movie in 1928. Minnie works as a secretary and reporter. She loves red clothes and flowers. Mickey does just about anything to please her. Unfortunately, tomcat Karlo also attempts to court his beloved again and again.
Image: AP
Mouse's best friend
Goofy is gentle, a little distracted, clumsy and always in a good mood — unlike his son Max (photo, right). He made his debut in 1932, so he's also added up quite a few dog years. He's shared many an adventure with Mickey. Both are firm in their conviction that they can rely on their dog-mouse friendship.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Buena Vista
Successful with comic books
The first Mickey Mouse comic was published in the US in 1931. Mickey quickly became popular internationally as well. The pioneer in Europe was Italy, which not only adapted the stories from America, but also invented its own adventures for "Topolino" (Italian for "mouse"). In Germany, the Micky Maus magazine has been published once a month since 1951 — still a best-seller today.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/U. Baumgarten
Mickey and other celebrities
Modern technology makes it possible: here, Mickey straightens famous conductor James Levine's bow tie, while both wait for Donald Duck to appear so they kick off the concert "Pomp and Circumstance" by Sir Edward Elgar. Donald, however, is still in the shower ...
Image: picture-alliance/United Archives/IFTN
Stars in Disneyland: Mickey and Minnie
The first Disneyland Park opened its doors in California in 1955. There are now six of them: from Tokyo to Paris, visitors of all ages are enchanted by Disney's likeable figures. Mickey and his girlfriend Minnie are, of course, two of the stars who always steal the show.
Image: Disneyland Paris
The mouse that built an empire
Over the years, the lovable character has appeared in over 130 films. He is the official Walt Disney mascot, and merchandise featuring him is still popular to this day. "I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing — that it was all started by a mouse," Walt Disney pointed out in 1954.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/Disney, K. Phillips
Exhibition honoring Mickey
A major exhibition is taking place in New York in honor of Mickey's 90th birthday on November 18. He himself is more likely to celebrate with his loved ones — with Minnie, the lady of the heart; his nephews Mack and Muck; and with Goofy and Pluto. And they'll enjoy his favorite dish together: spinach and strawberries with cream. Happy birthday, Mickey!
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/APA/M. Steinhart
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Decades ago, Yasushi Watanabe bought a cartoon film that was tagged "Mickey Manga Spide" (Mickey cartoon speedy) in the Japanese city of Osaka. Little did the high school student know he had just purchased a reel of animation history for the equivalent of €3.90 ($4.40).
Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported on Wednesday the discovery of the rare lost cartoon produced by Walt Disney and featuring a character that led to the creation of Mickey Mouse.
Anime history researcher Watanabe, now 84, had contacted the paper after reading Oswald the Lucky Rabbit: The Search for the Lost Disney Cartoons, a book about the history of a Disney character created in the late 1920s, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. According to the book, seven of the 26 short films featuring the rabbit were believed to be permanently lost — and Watanabe remembered the film he had bought as a young man.
The 16 mm reel shows a dog policeman on a motorbike chasing Oswald and his girlfriend in a car, speeding through valleys and along roads. Asahi Shimbun contacted the Walt Disney Archives, which confirmed that the reel was in fact one of the missing films, originally titled "Neck 'n' Neck."
Celebrating Disney’s cartoons
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"We're absolutely delighted to learn that a copy of the lost film exists," Becky Cline, director of the archives, told the newspaper. Disney-fan Watanabe, too, was pleased he was able to play a role in re-discovering the film, which is now housed at the Kobe Planet Film Archive.
According to the newspaper, another film showing 50 seconds of the same cartoon was found at the Toy Film Museum in Kyoto.
It is not the first time one of the rare Oswald cartoons suddenly pops up. Four years ago, Norway's National Library discovered the first Christmas film made by Disney, a cartoon titled "Empty Socks" featuring Oswald. In 2015, another short film featuring Oswald was discovered in the British Film institute Archives.
Oswald was created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks in 1927. Distributed by Universal Studios, the success of the first Disney series featuring its own character allowed the Walt Disney Studio to expand. However, according to the Hollywood Reporter, Disney lost the rights to his character in 1928 to his producer Charles Mintz, who took Oswald to Universal. Cartoonist Walter Lantz was hired by Mintz to pursue the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit series.
Following this dispute with his producer, Disney decided to come up with a new character to replace Oswald. That turned out to be Mickey Mouse.
The comic - a success story
The very first German version of the Micky Mouse comic was published 65 years ago - at a time, when comics were still considered in bad taste. We take a look back on the history of comics.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Mickey Mouse
Although at the time, comics were still considered the work of the devil in Germany, the first German edition of Mickey Mouse was published on August 29, 1951. Now worth thousands of euros to collectors, not even half of the original 300,000 copies were sold; the ones that went unsold were given away for free to schools or ended up in the trash. By now, Mickey Mouse is seen as a literary classic.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/Disney, K. Phillips
Wilhelm Busch, the forefather of comics
Many experts see German illustrator Wilhelm Busch as the forefather of comics. The German artist inspired the early comic artists of New York, and later on even Walt Disney. The protagonists he created from the 1860s onwards included animal torturers, drunk priests, hypocritical nuns and two poorly behaving kids named Max and Moritz.
Comic pioneers
An exhibition running through September 18, 2016 at the Frankfurt Art Museum, Kunsthalle Schirn, presents six predominantly US pioneers of comics, among them Cliff Sterrett (pictured: "Polly and Her Pals.") The exhibition presents the artists as "another avantgarde" creating their own art form, while anticipating later developments such as Surrealism and Expressionism.
Image: Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
Newspapers equaled comic success
Comics largely owe their early success to newspapers, as decreasing paper costs and more efficient printing machines made them more accessible to a greater public in the early 20th century. Comics came to play an important role in the resulting competition between different newspapers. Sometimes, the success of a particular paper depended to a large extent on the popularity of its comics.
Image: Privatsammlung/Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
A super hero is born
In 1933, at the tender age of 14, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman whom they baptized "Kal-El," which means "God is in everything" in Hebrew. But it took them five years to find a publishing house for their hero - DC Comics, which published the first edition of the series "Action Comics" in 1938. Later, at an auction in the US, a first edition was sold for 3.2 million dollars.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Super hero boom
Superman didn't stay alone for long. Pretty soon, Batman, Captain America, Wonderwoman, The Flash and countless other superheroes and super villains were fighting each other. Among those making cameo appearances was Adolf Hitler; during World War II, Superman & Co served as a way to raise the morale of American soldiers.
Image: Getty Images/Hulton Archives
Superheroes on the screen
After the end of the war, many superheroes disappeared from the scene. Only a few permanent heroes were left to confront the aliens and criminal geniuses such as The Joker. Later, various film adaptations triggered a renewed boom for Superman & co, among them recent movies like "Deadpool," a comic figure from Marvel's "House of M".
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Foto: Twentieth Century Fox
A choleric duck conquers fan hearts
An irritable animated duck made his debut in a 1934 animation film, nine years before he made his way into the "Walt Disney Comics." Donald Duck owes a lot of his popularity to artist Carl Barks. Over the next 20 years, Barks wrote and illustrated almost every month for Disney while creating numerous members of Donald Duck's family, including Scrooge McDuck in 1947 and Gladstone Gander in 1948.
Image: imago/United Archives
The Romans have lost it
Europe has produced quite a few remarkable comics in its own right. The Adventures of Asterix by French artist René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo (pictured) are among the most famous. Created in 1959, the two Gauls Asterix and Obelix play the main roles in a total of 36 original editions. Contemporary editions published today are no longer the work of their original creators.
Image: DPA
A reporter who travels around the world
Another world famous comic figure is Tim (Tintin), who travels around the world accompanied by his little white dog. Tintin was invented in 1929 by Belgian artist Hergé. Today, the 24 editions can be found in every bookstore. The series has even survived various accusations, including one of racism. In 2007, a Congolese student sued to stop the distribution of Tim comics in the Congo (pictured).
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Poor lonesome cowboy
Another comic star from Belgium is cowboy Lucky Luke. The guy who pulls his revolver faster than his shadow was invented by artist "Morris" to be published for the first time in the magazine "Spirou" in 1946. The first Lucky Luke album was published in 1949. Apart from the Cowboy albums, Morris also wrote 17 screenplays on Lucky Luke, among them an unforgettable movie starring Terence Hill.
Image: picture alliance/United Archives/IFTN
A new type of comics
At times, comics had to overcome difficult challenges, as they were seen as dumb or even as putting young people at risk. In 1977, author Will Eisner (pictured) created the term "graphic novel" which was aimed at underlining the literary character of his comics. This was a clever move, as from then on, even more conservative readers got to discover their interest in comics.
Image: CC BY Alan Light 2.0
The triumph of graphic novels
The major difference between comics and graphic novels is the fact that the latter cover an entire story and are published as books. With "Maus," Art Spiegelmann made his entrance onto bestseller lists in 1986, and was even awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 - a revolution for the world of comics. In "Maus," the American artist tells the story of his father - a Holocaust survivor.
Image: fischerverlage
German comics are developing fast
In contrast to the traditional comic strongholds France and the US, there wasn't much interest in comics in Germany for a long time. By today, some German comic artists have established themselves internationally, among them Reinhard Kleist. And there is a lot of young talent as well; in 2016, Nils Oskamp published "Drei Steine" ('Three Stars') highlighting the issue of right-wing violence.
Image: Nils Oskamp/Panini
The manga phenomenon
Mangas have long been an integral part of leisure culture in their country of origin, Japan. In Europe however, they were largely rejected until the 1990s - on account of having a reputation for featuring violent or sexist content. Thanks to TV series like "Sailor Moon" they became more acceptable. In the late 1990s, "Pokemon" triggered a manga boom in Germany, which continues today.