Disney Animated Shorts

Mickey Mouse was originally created as Walt Disney's primary cartoon character. Mickey heyday was in the 1930's. In the mid-1930's, Mickey was so famous that he was starting to become a guest star in the movies produced by other studios. Of such movies, the best known was had to have been The Hollywood Party (1934). One noteable reason for the movie's fame was that terrible problem encountered during the making of the movie. This movie stared almost all all of the current MGM stars, such as Jimmy Durante, the Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, Robert Young, etc., etc. - and virtually all of the MGM directors did a section of the movie. After all of the segments were done, MGM called in the director Allan Dwan to see if anything could be done to save it. Allan Dwan suggested that the entire movie to look as though it were a dream of Durante's while he was waiting for his wife to finish dressing - in this way the movie's disjointedness would, Dwan hoped, seem to be deliberate. In this finl, Mickey is found hiding behind the furniture by Durante; after various segments, including an excellent impersonation by the Mickey by Jimmy Durante, the movie ends with Mickey playing the piano, which cuts into a color short made by the Disney studios for this film called "The Hot Chocolate Soldier". The story of the short is about Chocolate soldiers do battle with gingerbread men using candies and desserts as weapons; although the chocolate soldiers win the fight they are almost immediately themselves conquered by Nature when the sun comes out and they all melt.

In the 1940's his popularity was overtaken by Donald Duck. Also in after 1940, each major Disney shorts character was ascribed its own production team - for both financial and artistic reasons. The team devoted to Mickey was headed by Bill Roberts and Riley Thomson. Mickey also stared in "The Mickey Mouse Club" television shows in the 1950's, appeared on thousands of merchandise items, and acted as chief greeter at the Disney theme parks. Walt Disney himself provided Mickey's voice up to 1946 when Jim MacDonald took over until his retirement three decades later. The current voice of Mickey is Wayne Allwine.

Other features in which Mickey made minor appearances include Fox's My Lips Betray (1933), starring Lillian Harvey, and many years later the Disney company's very own own science-fiction movie Tron (1982). Also, The album of Mickey Mouse Disco, released in 1979, went "multi-platinum".

Mickey was originally drawn only using circles for his head, body and ears. In 1939, Mickey had a drastic new design in "The Pointer." In this new design his body became more pear shaped than round, and pupils were added to his eyes, making them more expressive. In the early 1940's, animators gave him more perspective ears, shadowing them to give a three-dimensional effect-but this change was short lived. Later changes consisted mainly of costume changes, taking him out of his red shorts, for instance, and putting him in more contemporary clothes.

---1928---
Steamboat Willie
Gallopin' Gaucho
Plane Crazy

---1929---
The Barn Dance
The Opry House
When the Cat's Away
The Barnyard Battle
The Plow Boy
The Karnival Kid
Mickey's Follies
Mickey's Choo-Choo
The Jazz Fool
Jungle Rhythm
The Haunted House