September 5 - Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

On this day, in 1927, Trolley Troubles, the first short featuring Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, debuted in theaters.

 Walt Disney knew his successful series of shorts, The Alice Comedies, was nearing the end of its run. He and Ub Iwerks had taken them as far as they could technically and the cost to produce them was rising. Walt needed something new to keep his little studio going and he figured it should be pure animation for this next venture. Luckily, his distributor, Charles Mintz, and Universal Studios agreed with him. Walt was given a contract to get Universal into the growing animation game.

Flush with new contract money, Walt moved his studio to Hyperion Avenue and got to work. Since there was already a couple of popular cats starring in their own series, Felix the Cat and Krazy Kat, Walt decided to branch out. His new character would be a rabbit. Maybe a lucky rabbit, since he carried not one but two rabbit's feet with him wherever he went. And he would be old. You heard me. Old.

The first short Walt and Ub finished with their new character, Oswald, was called Poor Papa. Universal executives took one look at it and said no thanks! Why? The production quality wasn't very good and why is the main character so old? No one wants to see a geezer bunny in a cartoon. So Poor Papa was scraped, Oswald had several decades pared off his age and Walt and Ub stepped it up on their second effort.The result was Trolley Troubles and it would become their biggest hit yet.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was so successful as a franchise, the Disney Studio grew to nearly twenty staff members. Walt was able to pay himself $100 a week and his brother Roy $65. Happy days had come to the brothers. Nine shorts were produced that first year. The studio would produce 17 more the next year before disaster struck.

Walt was constantly worried about getting his contract with Mintz and Universal renewed. That worry intensified when he realized that Mintz was hiring away his own animators behind his back. The whole thing came crashing down around his ears in the spring of 1928, when Mintz informed Walt that he would have to take a 20% budget cut if he still wanted to produce Oswald shorts. Rather than submit to that, and with most of his animators now working for Mintz, Walt declined to sign a new deal and, as he didn't own the rights to his creation, walked away. Supposedly on the train ride home, he would come up with a new character that would completely eclipse Oswald, but since Walt could never tell the story the same way twice, I'll leave that discussion for another time.

Oswald would live on long after the Disney Studio no longer had anything to do with him. Mintz would also produce 26 shorts until Universal decided it no longer needed him and started making them right on their own lot. Walter Lantz, of Woody Woodpecker fame, took over the series and created 142 more shorts, ushering Oswald into the world of sound and, briefly, the world of color. While Oswald never had much of a regular actor to provide his voice, Mickey Rooney did provide it for a while in 1931. Interestingly, when Lantz took the series over, he consulted with Walt about some of the aspects of Oswald. Mickey Mouse had become such a cash cow by then that Walt didn't really care about Oswald anymore and reportedly gave Lantz his blessing to run with the character.

And that's how Oswald the Lucky Rabbit's story should have ended, petering out in films by 1943's The Egg Cracker Suite. Living on in comic books, albeit in a much different form, throughout the twentieth century, mostly outside the United States. Except Oswald was a Disney creation and he was destined for a resurrection.

In 2003, the branch of the Walt Disney Company that made video games came up with an idea for an Oswald game. For some reason, the idea stuck with the head of the company, Bob Iger, and he made it a pet project to return the Lucky Rabbit to the Disney fold. After negotiating with Universal, it was announced in 2006 that the two companies would take a page from the sports world and effect a trade: Disney would get the rights to Oswald and the Walt produced shorts, while Universal would get veteran sports announcer Al Michaels for their Sunday Night Football broadcasts. Al was pretty pleased with the deal and even joked "I'll be a trivia answer someday." The video game then became a reality, although before Oswald could put on any airs about his return it was name Epic Mickey.

And that is how Oswald's story ends. After almost 80 years away, guests in the Disney parks can now choose traditional mouse ears or new, hip rabbit ears. If you visit Disneyland, you might be able to actually meet him out and about. While Mickey will always be considered more successful, his older brother Oswald can now play new role and wonder what might have been.