The Birthday of Mickey Mouse, American Icon

It all started with a mouse. Today is the date usually considered the birthday of Walt Disney’s cultural icon Mickey Mouse because it’s the anniversary of Mickey’s debut in the first sound cartoon, the history-making “Steamboat Willie.”

Walt Disney was a pioneer in so many ways, a genius who spawned whole new industries of animation, theme parks, and more. His scrappy, cheerful animated mouse became so popular so quickly that it is rumored “Mickey Mouse” was used as a password for certain parts of the 1944 WWII D-Day invasion of Normandy! But not everyone knows how Mickey Mouse, and his almost equally iconic sweetheart Minnie Mouse, got their start. Since today is Mickey and Minnie’s 96th “birthday,” let’s dive into the history of how two little mice became global megastars.

Disney had a pet mouse when he was a kid called “Mortimer,” and we have his wife Mrs. Lillian Disney to thank for the fact that Walt’s animated mouse is “Mickey” instead of “Mortimer,” as Walt originally wanted to dub the character. At the time, it was revolutionary to sync up moving pictures with sounds. While “Steamboat Willie” was not the first completed Mickey Mouse cartoon — that honor goes to “Plane Crazy” (1928) — it was the first cartoon that would successfully make it to the silver screen, and its synchronized sound and likable star would ensure its success.  Walt Disney himself was the voice for Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, and the parrot in the animated short, according to Disney Fandom.

At the first experimental screening of the then-unfinished “Steamboat Willie,” with Walt Disney and his crew performing the sounds as the short played, the little audience of family and friends was enthralled. Even if Disney and crew didn’t hit every note right at that screening, and even if the sound was a little off with the animation, everyone was excited by this totally new type of motion-sound entertainment! 

Walt later recalled how their test audience reacted:

When the picture was half finished, we had a showing with sound. A couple of boys could read music and one of them, Wilfred Jackson, could play a mouth organ [harmonica]. We put them in a room where they could not see the screen and arranged to pipe their sound into the room where our wives and friends were going to see the picture. The boys worked from music and sound effects score. After several false starts, sound and action got off with the gun. The mouth organist [harmonica player] played the tune; the rest of us in the sound department blamed tin pans and blew slide whistles in the beat. The synchronism was pretty close. The effect on our little audience was nothing less than electric. They responded almost instinctively to this union of sound and motion. I thought they were kidding me. So they put me in the audience and ran the action again. It was terrible, but it was wonderful! And it was something new!

That’s partly where Walt Disney’s genius lay — in creating something totally new. Yes, there was animation before Disney, but no one had ever done it so well, and probably no one ever will. Disney animation was always the original standard against which all other animation would always be measured and with which it would compete. And when American audiences saw Mickey and Minnie happily scurrying and hopping about on screen, making noises and music, the effect on many of them was as “electric” as it had been on Disney’s first test audience.

It would still be almost a decade before Walt Disney and company would again make history with the debut of the first full-length animated film, his 1937 “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” but Mickey and Minnie Mouse and Disney’s motion-sound animation harmonization had captured the hearts of Americans. Eventually, it would charm and fascinate people from all over the world. I can testify to that myself — I’ve seen Mickey and other Disney merchandise in such diverse locations as street stalls in Old City Jerusalem, a local Bangkok drink shop, and the London airport!

On Nov. 18, 1928, Mickey and Minnie Mouse debuted on the silver screen in “Steamboat Willie.” At the link you can see part of the original script from the short, found in Walt’s desk and made public by the Walt Disney Company; you can also watch the short itself.

Before the short’s debut, according to the BBC, Walt Disney was staring financial ruin in the face (as he was several times throughout his early life). Walt was never a good businessman, and as I noted above, he had lost the rights to “Oswald” along with much of his staff. But Disney, Ub Iwerks, and Les Clark picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and started all over again on Walt’s new idea of “a sympathetic mouse who navigates his way through a series of comic misadventures.” And this time, they had a lasting hit.

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Unfortunately, neither of the first two Mickey Mouse cartoons inspired enough interest to obtain a distributor. But when Walt added sound for “Steamboat Willie,” it was a magical combination, and after its debut, the cartoon starring Mickey and Minnie rapidly became so popular that it was soon more famous and more admired than the feature film it was just supposed to precede! 

According to WaltDisney.org, “Walt received $1,000 for a two-week run—the highest sum ever paid for a cartoon on Broadway. Walt Disney Studios, with its small but loyal staff, was saved, and a cartoon star was born.” For context, adjusted for inflation, Walt received the equivalent of over $18,000 for Mickey’s debut cartoon.

The BBC describes the effect of “Steamboat Willie” on audiences:

Steamboat Willie premiered in New York and its seamless marriage of sound and visuals was an instant sensation: glowing reviews soon began appearing in the press and people flocked to see it. Its innovative animated storytelling thrilled audiences, with cinema-goers often clamouring for the projector to delay the start of the feature film, so they could watch Steamboat Willie again. Disney quickly capitalised [sic] on the character's popularity with more adventures, with Walt himself going on to provide the voice of Mickey…Steamboat Willie's success ushered in a new era of cartoon storytelling. It set the stage for Walt Disney's domination of the medium, which would see Disney creating the Oscar-winning Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937.

Walt Disney lost Oswald, but he found a life-long friend and business partner in Mickey Mouse. Mickey’s face and iconic ears profile have been reproduced millions of times in America and in dozens of countries around the world. The Disney Company today has sadly gone woke, but Walt was a patriot and a Christian who loved families and American values, and his character of Mickey appealed to so many people in the U.S. precisely because he seemed the perfect type of a cheerful underdog who surprises everyone by never admitting defeat — and always finding a new and innovative way to attain his goals!

Indeed, according to Rebecca Cline, the director of the Walt Disney Archives, Walt himself believed that Mickey did exemplify the “Everyman” (at least as the Everyman was in the America of his time): often facing failure and setbacks, but always getting up again with the optimistic belief that this time he’ll succeed. “When asked why Mickey was so popular, Walt once said, ‘when people laugh at Mickey Mouse it’s because he’s so human; and that is the secret of his popularity.’”