Steamboat Willie
| Steamboat Willie | |
|---|---|
| Mickey Mouse series | |
50th anniversary poster, 1978
|
|
| Directed by |
Walt Disney Ub Iwerks |
| Produced by |
Roy O. Disney Walt Disney |
| Story by |
Walt Disney Ub Iwerks |
| Voices by | Walt Disney |
| Music by |
Wilfred Jackson Bert Lewis |
| Animation by |
Les Clark (inbetweener) Ub Iwerks Wilfred Jackson |
| Studio | Walt Disney Studios |
| Distributed by |
Celebrity Productions Cinephone(Recorded) |
| Release date(s) |
|
| Color process | Black and white |
| Running time | 7 min. 42 sec. |
| Country | United States |
| Preceded by | First release |
| Followed by | The Gallopin' Gaucho |
Steamboat Willie is a 1928 American animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. It was produced in black-and-white by Walt Disney Studios and was released by Celebrity Productions. The cartoon is considered the debut of Mickey Mouse and his girlfriend Minnie, although both the characters appeared several months earlier in a test screening of Plane Crazy. Steamboat Willie was the third of Mickey's films to be produced, but was the first to be distributed because Walt Disney, having seen The Jazz Singer, had committed himself to producing the first fully synchronized sound cartoon.
Steamboat Willie is especially notable for being the first Disney cartoon with synchronized sound, including character sounds and a musical score. Disney understood from early on that synchronized sound was the future of film. It was the first cartoon to feature a fully post-produced soundtrack which distinguished it from earlier sound cartoons such as Inkwell Studios' Song Car-Tunes (1924–1927) and Van Beuren Studios' Dinner Time (1928). Steamboat Willie became the most popular cartoon of its day.
Music for Steamboat Willie was arranged by Wilfred Jackson and Bert Lewis, and included the songs "Steamboat Bill", a composition popularized by baritone Arthur Collins during the 1910s, and "Turkey in the Straw" , a composition popularized within minstrelsy during the 19th century. The title of the film is a parody of the Buster Keaton film Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), itself a reference to the song by Collins. Walt Disney performed all of the voices in the film, although there is little intelligible dialogue.
...
Wikipedia