Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Disney's "Mickey Mouse"

By Sarah C.

Who was Mickey Mouse?
Mickey Mouse first appeared in theaters with sound for the first time ever on November 18th, 1928. Mickey symbolizes everything that Disney was back in the ‘Roaring Twenties’ which was positive, upbeat, popular, and all for family. The birthplace of Mickey Mouse was on a four day cross country train ride by 26 year old Walt Disney and ideas from his wife and friends. He was returning from a business trip along with his wife Lillian. Mickey original name was Mortimer until Walt’s wife convinced him to change the name to Mickey.

Why and how was he was created?
Mickey was created by Walt Disney but while they were on the train a man named Ub Iwerks gave him an idea for a mouse character after he lost his other cartoon character Oswald the Rabbit.

What was Mickey Mouse?
Mickey Mouse was and still is a cheerful rodent with white gloves, yellow shoes, and red shorts. After the introduction to the local market Mickey became famous beyond anything. Mickey’s Popularity continued strong even in the dirty thirties when the stock market crashed. The cartoons were popular for adults just as much as they were for kids. Walt Disney produced 87 cartoon shorts during the 1930’s.

When did this all take place?
Mickey’s career first took off on November 18th 1928 when he first appeared in theaters with sound for the first time as Willie Steam Boat. Mickey acted everything from giant killer, cowboy, detective, and inventor. Other cartoons back then were repetitive, boring musicals with silly images and lacked in storyline. Then World War two interrupted Mickey’s career and discontinued commercial production to manufacture war effort projects such as training films, posters, armed forces insignia designs, and good will tours. Mickey appeared in a feature film ‘Fun and Fancy free’ in 1947. He starred alongside Donald duck and goofy in ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’.

Where did this all start?
His first cartoon was showed in theatres in colony Theatre in New York in November 1928. Then 4 years after Mickey Mouse was created and was the most popular cartoon Walt Disney got an Oscar for creating Mickey in 1932. Eventually Walt died December 15th 1966 at the age of 65 in Burbank California. He died from complications from Lung cancer across the street from his studio.

Today Mickey is still remains popular and well appreciated character who served valuable purpose by bringing generations of children and adults through difficult times of the depression, and years of war.

Resources:
http://www.answers.com/topic/mickey-mouse
http://www.vex.net/~dq711/mickey_mouse.htm
http://www.oitc.com/Disney/Secrets/Mickey.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney

1 comments:

Unknown said...

This was an interesting history from Mickey character and his life.

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