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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On this day in 1929, a pixie-like actress named Peggy Lynch was born. She began her acting career at the age of four, and as a teenager she was cast in the 1948 musical comedy film If You Knew Susie, with Eddie Cantor and Joan Davis. The popular singer, Eddie Cantor, decided that young Peggy …
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If you’ve ever wondered when Disney first got its singing voice, it was on this day in 1929 with the release of The Opry House. The short marked the first real Disney musical—the prelude to Silly Symphonies and the foreshadowing of full-length animated musicals to come. In the film, Mickey Mouse, the proprietor and the …
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Walt Disney directed the fourth Mickey Mouse cartoon, The Barn Dance, released on this day in 1929, and the film is notable for the way our beloved ambassador to the world endures a series of setbacks over the course of a seven-minute short. He arrives at Minnie’s home on a horse-drawn cart to escort her …
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It was on this day in 1928 that Mickey Mouse first galloped into theaters aboard his trusty ostrich in The Gallopin’ Gaucho. Although Steamboat Willie was the first Mickey Mouse cartoon released in theaters, it was the third movie produced. The silent films Plane Crazy and The Gallopin’ Gaucho were the first two Mickey cartoon …
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