STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928) Mickey Mouse & Minnie Mouse | Animation, Short, Comedy | B&W

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 Pat Powers, under the name of Celebrity Productions. The cartoon is considered the debut of both Mickey and Minnie Mouse, although both 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 it was the first to be distributed, because Disney, having seen The Jazz Singer, had committed himself to produce one of the first fully synchronized sound cartoons.

Steamboat Willie is especially notable for being one of the first cartoons with synchronized sound, as well as one of the first cartoons to feature a fully post-produced soundtrack, which distinguished it from earlier sound cartoons, such as Inkwell Studios' Song Car-Tunes (1924–1926), My Old Kentucky Home (1926) and Van Beuren Studios' Dinner Time (1928). Disney believed that synchronized sound was the future of film. Steamboat Willie became the most popular cartoon of its day.

Music for Steamboat Willie was arranged by Wilfred Jackson and Bert Lewis, and it included the songs "Steamboat Bill", a composition popularized by baritone Arthur Collins during the 1910s, and the popular 19th-century folk song "Turkey in the Straw". The title of the film may be a parody of the Buster Keaton film Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), itself a reference to the song by Collins. Disney performed all of the voices in the film, although there is little intelligible dialogue.

The film has received wide critical acclaim, not only for introducing one of the world's most popular cartoon characters but also for its technical innovation. The short is often considered to be one of the most influential cartoons ever made. Animators voted Steamboat Willie as the 13th-greatest cartoon of all time in the 1994 book The 50 Greatest Cartoons, and in 1998, the film was selected by the United States Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry. The cartoon entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2024.

SYNOPSIS
Mickey Mouse is a mischievous deckhand on a riverboat that is under the command of the tyrannical Captain Pete.

Mickey Mouse is piloting a steam river sidewheeler, cheerfully whistling "Steamboat Bill" and sounding the boat's three whistles. Soon, the captain, Pete, appears and orders Mickey off the bridge. Mickey blows a raspberry at Pete. Pete attempts to kick him, but Mickey rushes away in time and Pete accidentally kicks himself in the rear. Mickey falls down the stairs, slips on a bar of soap on the boat's deck, and lands in a bucket of water. A parrot laughs at him and Mickey throws the bucket on its head.

Pete, who has been watching the occurrence, pilots the steamboat himself. He bites off some chewing tobacco and spits into the wind. The spit flies backward and rings the boat's bell. Amused, Pete spits again, but this time the spit hits him in the face, to his dismay.

The steamboat makes a stop at "Podunk Landing" to pick up a cargo of various livestock. Mickey has trouble getting one of the slimmer cows with a FOB tag onto the boat attached to a harness. To solve this, Mickey fills the cow's stomach up with hay to fatten the slim cow into the harness. Just as they set off again, Minnie Mouse appears, running to catch the boat before it leaves. Mickey does not see her in time, but she runs after the boat along the shore calling out Mickey's name. Mickey hears Minnie's calls and he takes her on board by hooking the cargo crane to her bloomers.

CREW
Directed by Walt Disney, Ub Iwerks
Story by Walt Disney, Ub Iwerks
Produced by Walt Disney, Roy O. Disney
Music by Wilfred Jackson, Bert Lewis
Animation by Ub Iwerks, Wilfred Jackson, Johnny Cannon, Les Clark (inbetweener)
Production company Walt Disney Studio
Distributed by Pat Powers (Celebrity Productions/Cinephone sound)
Release date November 18, 1928 (United States)
Running time 7:47
Country United States
Language English
Budget $4,986.69

NOTES
Mickey Mouse was created as a replacement for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, an earlier cartoon character that was created by the Disney studio but owned at the time by Universal Pictures.[10] The first two Mickey Mouse films produced, silent versions of Plane Crazy and The Gallopin' Gaucho, had failed to gain a distributor. According to Roy O. Disney, Walt Disney was inspired to create a sound cartoon after watching The Jazz Singer (1927). Disney believed that adding sound to a cartoon would greatly increase its appeal.

Despite being recognized for it, Steamboat Willie was not the first cartoon with synchronized sound.[12] Starting in May 1924 and continuing through September 1926, Dave and Max Fleischer's Inkwell Studios produced 19 sound cartoons, part of the Song Car-Tunes series, using the Phonofilm sound-on-film process.