Steamboat Willie

Steamboat Willie is a 1928 American animated short film directed and written by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. It was produced in black and white by Walt Disney Studios and was released by Celebrity Productions on November 18, 1928. The cartoon is considered the debut of Mickey Mouse and his girlfriend Minnie, although both characters appeared several months earlier in a test screening of Plane Crazy.

Plot
Mickey Mouse steers a steamboat down a river. He entertains his new passenger, Minnie, by playing music out of the menagerie on the boat.

Why It Has Started The Legendary Disney Era

 * 1) Obviously, this short film is famously known for debuting the character, Mickey Mouse, his girlfriend Minnie, and enemy Pete, and also known for blasting the career of the short film's co-director Walt Disney, who would go on to direct and/or produce several other Disney films such as Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty. Not to mention, Walt voiced all of the characters in here, including Minnie. Mickey would later get recognized as one of the greatest characters of all time, mainly because of his personality, later making him become the official mascot of Walt (and his brother Roy)'s production studio, The Walt Disney Company.
 * 2) Unlike Plane Crazy (which did not manage to get an distributor for it and was originally met to be the first appearance of Mickey and Minnie), this short managed to find an distributor, which was Walt Disney Studios and managed to successfully make hundreds of more short films.
 * 3) Mickey is an wonderful replacement to Walt's previous creation, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Walt originally had Oswald the Lucky Rabbit as his character, producing cartoons for Oswald in the early 1920s. The Oswald shorts started in 1927 when Walt was only 26. After somebody named Charles Mintz owned the rights to Oswald and took all of Walt's animators (with the exception of Ub Iwerks), Walt and Ub Iwerks created Steamboat Willie in 1928 with Mickey replacing Oswald.
 * 4) The plot is very interesting and it has good writing from Disney and fellow animator Ub Iwerks. Even though it wouldn't be nice for a feature theatrical film, it is very nice for an short film.
 * 5) Neat music, including the music in the beginning where Mickey whistles while steering the steamboat. The scene where Mickey steers the steamboat is also famously known as one of the most iconic Disney scenes, as it would be the opening in many of Walt Disney Animation Studios' (another company founded by Walt) films. Wilfred Jackson and Bert Lewis did a wonderful job composing the music for Steamboat Willie.
 * 6) The pacing is very nice.
 * 7) Very beautiful animation even considering the fact that this was created by Walt Disney, who is also famously known for working on several projects which have beautiful animation, most notably his films mentioned on WIS #1. And the fact this was made all the way back in the  1920s  makes it even more awesome! Several Mickey Mouse projects (with the exception of the YouTube webseries, Mickey Go Local), including its 2013 revival show and the Three Musketeers movie Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers, this type of animation helped Walt's career as a founder of titular name after him.
 * 8) The bonding between Mickey and Minnie is very sweet to watch like when Mickey help Minnie get into the steamboat and playing music together.
 * 9) *To add a cherry on top of the cake, this is the first shipping of animation.
 * 10) Just exactly like Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies short films, (which Disney are never-ending rivals with Warner Bros, having competitions with each other), this short film has went on to inspire many popular TV shows, production companies, games, movies, you name it, most notably that famous cartoonists, voice actors, animators, filmmakers, writers, and several others getting inspired by Walt Disney's work on the animation culture.
 * 11) This short film had expanded a popular franchise, with Disney producing hundreds of other short films until 1953, including shorts with Minnie, Pete, and later introduced characters such as Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto, and Clarabelle Cow, making a return in 1983 with Mickey's Christmas Carol, a revival show aired on Disney Channel, simply titled Mickey Mouse (2013), had a webseries in 2019 titled Mickey Go Local, also spawned several other shows such as House of Mouse, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Mickey Mouse Funhouse. It also spawned a short film called Get A Horse! (which is 100% faithful to the Mickey Mouse franchise), had a short film in 1995 called Runaway Brain, which the short film was released alongside Goofy and his son Max's theatrical film, A Goofy Movie, and had an adaptation of The Prince and the Pauper in 1990.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Mickey can be a little rude in this short, as he throws a bucket at a parrot for laughing at him.
 * 2) It was subjected to censorship as the years went by.

Reception
Steamboat Willie was released on November 18 1928 and has received worldwide critical acclaim, mainly for marking the debut of Disney 's most iconic mouse. Despite the short film being massively popular, it didn't have its theatrical release in Europe until 1931 when it was released publicly in the United Kingdom by British International Film Distributors Incorporated 3 years right after its film's release. The large success of Steamboat Willie not only started Walt Disney's huge career directing various short films, but also started the career and legacy of Mickey, who was voiced by Walt in this film along with Minnie, Pete, and the other animals in this short film.

Three days after Steamboat Willie 's release, Variety commented, saying: "Not the first animated cartoon to be synchronized with sound effects, but the first to attract favorable attention. This one represents a high order of cartoon ingenuity, cleverly combined with sound effects." The short film has been remembered phenomenally worldwide, not only because it debuted Mickey, but also because of its technical innovation that the film has. In 1978, twelve years after the heartbreaking death of Walt Disney in 1966, the poster for the short film's 50th anniversary was created.

Trivia

 * Unlike Mickey and Minnie, this was not the first appearance of Peg-Leg Pete, as he originally appeared in 1925's Alice Solves the Puzzle.
 * Ub Iwerks, Wilfred Jackson (who also composed the music), and Johnny Cannon were the only animators for the film.
 * In addition, Iwerks was also the only animator for Plane Crazy.
 * The short film's production took place between July and September of 1928.
 * Steamboat Willies, one of the episodes of Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl anime, is a play on the film.
 * The short film was inducted to the National Film Registry in 1998.
 * According to Walt's brother Roy, he was inspired to make a sound cartoon after watching 1927's The Jazz Singer.
 * Disney had removed 30 seconds of some versions of Steamboat Willie, mainly because Mickey was using animals to make music.
 * This is sometimes considered animal cruelty.
 * Under current copyright law, Steamboat Willie is set to enter the US public domain on January 1, 2024; however, later iterations of the character of Mickey Mouse will remain under copyright protection until 2025. It has been claimed that these extensions were a response by Congress to extensive lobbying by The Walt Disney Company.