If you ask your average Disney fan who their favorite Disney character is, more than likely the answer will not be Bucky Bug. In late 1931, Walt Disney wanted to ramp up promotion for the Silly Symphonies cartoon series, but the series had no recurring characters, which bugged Walt since he needed an ad mascot. …
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The 1931 short The Moose Hunt has very little dialogue, although one spoken word in particular plays an important part in Disney history. After Mickey Mouse thinks he’s accidentally shot his canine companion, he cries out through his tears the name Pluto for the first time. Unaware that his pal Pluto is feigning death, Mickey …
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In 1965, when Walt Disney was looking for the lead in That Darn Cat, he happened to notice the actor who starred in the TV show that preceded Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color. The actor turned out to be Dean Jones, who was born on this day in 1931. Over the next decade and …
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In the earliest Mickey Mouse cartoons, you never knew in what role the main mouse would be cast. In 1930, he was a prisoner in The Chain Gang. While we can’t imagine what crime Mickey has done other than steal a scene, he is nonetheless locked up and tries to escape. During his flight, he …
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On this day in 1930, Minnie Mouse was washed to sea, and it was lifeguard Mickey to the rescue in the early Mickey Mouse cartoon short Wild Waves. Despite the fact that the first was released not quite a year and a half earlier, on November 18, 1928, this was the 15th Mickey short. This …
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In a truly virtuoso performance, Mickey, in the aptly named short Just Mickey, enthralls an audience with a solo tour de force performance on violin. Just Mickey is the first Mickey short that wasn’t drawn by Ub Iwerks, and it features a couple gags that would probably wow even today’s 3D-familiar audiences (for example, the …
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Composer Carl Stalling was originally brought in to score the early Mickey Mouse cartoon shorts, and it was he who suggested to Walt that there be a second cartoon series that would be based on musical themes, each with a different cast of characters. Thus, the Silly Symphony was born with the rib-tickling featurette The …
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It was on this day in 1930 that the late Roy Edward Disney was born. The son of Walt’s brother, Roy Oliver Disney, Roy Edward was a part of the Disney company from his earliest years, often being left at the Disney Studio to have his father babysit while his mother went shopping. Roy once …
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On this day in 1929, just in time for Halloween, the fourth Silly Symphony, Hell’s Bells, fired up movie screens. This is the first cartoon directed by Disney Legend Ub Iwerks, Walt’s first business partner who also astoundingly animated the first Mickey Mouse cartoon shorts all by himself. Hell’s Bells takes place in the bowels …
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On this day in 1929, the very first Silly Symphony was released. As Walt Disney once explained to audiences in his weekly television series, “The Silly Symphonies were started as an experiment. We used them to test and perfect the color and animation techniques employed later in full-length feature pictures like Cinderella, Snow White, and …
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