Walt Disney and animator Ub Iwerks created the character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in 1927 for Universal Pictures. They produced quite a few Oswald cartoons, which proved to be highly popular. But Disney and Universal parted ways in 1928, and Universal owned the character. So Walt and Ub came up with a different character of their own they eventually named Mickey Mouse. Universal cranked out Oswald cartoons until 1938, then relegated him to comic books.
In 2006, Disney regained rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and we now have a brand new animated short featuring Oswald's classic physics-defying humor, with the dialogue-free rubber hose animation style of the 1920s. Read more about Oswald and what he means to Disney at Gizmodo.
There's a nice Walt Disney Museum in Presidio Park in San Francisco (note, not a Disney Museum, a museum specifically about Walt Disney, built by his family).
ReplyDeleteI remember that one of the displays goes into the Walt Disney/Universal Oswald battles. Universal thought they were a cutthroat company taking advantage of a clueless artist, but they met their match in Walt Disney.