Disney Animated Shorts

Oswald was created in 1927 as a replacement for the Alice comedies. The idea of creating a cartoon series about a rabbit originated with Walt and Roy Disney by now regular distributor, Charles and Margaret Mintz.. But the idea of Oswald himself, seems to have been entirely Walt's idea. The first short of the projected series, Poor Papa, produced in April 1927, had an Oswald who was old, gross and scruffy rabbit. This rabbit got a very negative response from Mintz. They thought that the animation was poor and they didn't like the character of Oswald at all. Mintz thought that the public wanted a clean, young, respectable, and generally even romantically adorable comic cartoon characters. Since Walt and Roy at the time didn't have any benefit of hindsight, they bowed out to Mintz and the judgement of others. So, Walt and Ub Iwerks redid Oswald according to Mintz's opinion. As a result, Oswald became younger and generally more cuddly, and for the first time merchandising rights were sold on a Disney character (although the Disneys got nothing for them); Oswald was also featured on candy bars and even a stencil set. And for the first time in a couple of years the Disneys were paid promptly by their distributor (Roy and Walt celebrated this by each building a house). With his new look "Trolley Troubles" (1927) was released. It was more fast-moving and had a frenetic piece, but still suffered from a lack of overall cohesion, more or less it was no more than a sequence of barely linked gags, but it was still considered successful. The Oswald went on, one after another, with "Oh, What a Knight" consired the most successful of them all. But in early 1928, Walt was given an option, to either accept a drastically reduced payment for the future Oswald shorts or have the rights of the characters taken away. So after some decision Walt decided the second choice. As a result Walt had to create a new character, which ended up being Mickey Mouse.

As for the similarities between Oswald and Mickey Mouse, there weren't many except for the length of their noses. Other differences between the two is Mickey had no top to his playsuit, Oswald has long ears while Mickey's are round, and Oswald's long broad tail compared to Mickey's mouse tail. As for characteristics, it can be said best by a clip in "The Illusion of Life" (Stanford Magazine, Summer 1982) Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston observed that... even [the Disney] studio's early characters were not very realistic. If Oswald the Lucky Rabbit had to put his arm around an object, he merely stretched his arm until it was long enough to do the job. There was no attempt at anatomy, no shoulders or spines or bones or muscles. Nor did characters or objects seem to have any weight."

Release dates of the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit films.

---1927---

Trolley Troubles

(September 5, 1927)
Oh, Teacher

(September 19, 1927)
Great Guns

(October 17, 1927)
The Mechanical Cow

(October 3, 1927)
All Wet

(October 31, 1927)
The Ocean Hop

(November 14, 1927)
The Banker's Daughter

(November 28, 1927)
Empty Socks

(December 12, 1927)
Rickety Gin

(December 26, 1927)