Mickey and Minnie Mouse debuted - May 15, 1928

On this day in 1928, Mickey and Minnie Mouse debuted in a test screening of the animated short "Plane Crazy."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Welcome to This Day in History Class, where
we bring you a new tidbit from history every day.
Today is May fifteen. The day was May fifteen, ninety

(00:28):
Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse made their public
debut in the test Screaming of the Silent cartoon Playing Crazy.
The animated short could not find a distributor, but it
would not take long before Mickey Mouse would capture the
attention of thousands of children and adults alike. In Walt

(00:48):
Disney began his first series of fully animated films. Disney
and animator of I Works had been working on the
Alice Comedies, a series of animated cartoons that feature a
live action girl named Alice and an animated cat named Julius.
But these cartoons were expensive and had a lot of
technical limitations, so Disney's distributor, Charles Mintz, told Disney and

(01:13):
Eye Works to create a character for Universal Studios, which
was looking to return to the animation business. Soon, a
deal was struck with Universal for twenty six animated shorts.
These shorts would feature Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, designed by
Disney and animator of Iye Works. The series of Oswald
the Lucky Rabbit shorts performed well, but in nine when

(01:37):
Mint said he was going to cut Disney's budget, Disney
refused to agree to the cuts. A lot of Disney's
animators left to go to work with Mints, but of
Iye Works, Les Clark and a few other animators stayed
with Disney. Since Mint's retained the rights to Oswald, Disney
and I Work set to work on creating a new
cartoon character to replace the Rabbit that they would have

(02:00):
the rights to. The character that they came up with
was Mickey Mouse, though his original name was Mortimer Mouse.
Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse first appeared in the silent
short Plane Crazy and Playing Crazy. Mickey Mouse tries to
fly an airplane to imitate aviator Charles Lindbergh. Mickey convinces
Minnie Mouse to join him in a flight, during which

(02:21):
time Mickey makes several attempts to kiss many many rejects
his advances, and she eventually parachutes out of the plane
using her bloomers. The short was made for about one thousand,
seven hundred and seventy two dollars and animated by eye works,
and on May fifteenth, the six minutes silent short Plane

(02:42):
Crazy was shown at a test Screaming in Hollywood, but
the cartoon was not received well by audiences and no
distributors wanted it. The next Mickey short that was produced,
The Gallop and Gaucho, had the same fate, but the
next film, Steamboat Willie, was a success and the almost
eight minutes short Mickey pretends to pilot a steamboat when

(03:03):
the real captain of the boat confronts him, leading to
antis involving Minie Mouse, a parrot, and a musical number.
It was the first Mickey Mouse film to be released,
and it was one of the first cartoons that used
synchronized music in sound effects. Steamboat Willie premiered at the
Colony Theater in New York on November. Audiences loved the

(03:25):
characters and were impressed by the synchronized sound, and two
weeks after Steamboat Willie premiered, it was rereleased at the
Roxy Theater in New York City. After Steamboat Willie and
Mickey's sound cartoons proved successful, Playing Crazy was released with
sound in nineteen nine. So even though Playing Crazy was
the first Mickey Mouse cartoon produced, it was the fourth

(03:47):
to be released. Mickey Mouse went on to start in
several other films, and Disney ramped up promotion and merchandise
for the cartoon. Mickey Mouse Clubs, fan clubs for the
popular animated character in cartoons, sprung up around the United States.
An article in the October issue of the Los Angeles

(04:09):
Times set the following Mickey Mouse is one of the
very few cartoon stars to have his name featured by
theaters on almost an equal basis with the feature screen attraction.
Even though the Hollywood test screaming of Playing Crazy was
technically Mickey's first public appearance, November eighteen is considered Mickey's

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official birthday. I'm eas Jeffcote and hopefully you know a
little more about history today than you did yesterday. Get
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(04:58):
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