Steamboat Willie

This article is about the short film. For the jazz musician, see Steamboat Willie (musician).

Steamboat Willie
Theatrical release poster[1]
Directed by
Story by
  • Walt Disney
  • Ub Iwerks
Produced by
StarringWalt Disney
Music by
Animation by
Color processBlack and white
Production
company
Distributed byPat Powers (Celebrity Productions/Cinephone sound)
Release date
  • November 18, 1928 (1928-11-18)
(United States)
Running time
7:47
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$4,986.69

Steamboat Willie is a 1928 American animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks.[2] It was produced in black and white by Walt Disney Animation Studios and was released by Pat Powers, under the name of Celebrity Productions.[3] The cartoon is considered the public debut of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, although both appeared months earlier in a test screening of Plane Crazy[4] and the then yet unreleased The Gallopin' Gaucho.[5] 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.[6]

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".[7] The title of the film may be a parody of the Buster Keaton film Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928),[8] itself a reference to the song by Collins. Disney performed all of the voices in the film, although there is little intelligible dialogue.[a]

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.[10] The cartoon entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2024, as the work was published in 1928.

  1. ^ Gerstein, David (2015). Learn to Draw Mickey Mouse & Friends Through the Decades. Walter Foster Jr. p. 14. ISBN 978-1-60058-429-9.
  2. ^ "Ub Iwerks, Walt Disney. Steamboat Willie. 1928". Museum of Modern Art. Archived from the original on January 1, 2024. Retrieved January 1, 2024.
  3. ^ "The Mouse and the Maker: How Walt Disney Made Some Noise for the Animation Industry – StMU Research Scholars". Archived from the original on January 1, 2024. Retrieved January 1, 2024.
  4. ^ McGowan, Andrew (April 5, 2023). "Mickey Mouse's Debut Wasn't in 'Steamboat Willie' – It Was in This". Collider. Archived from the original on December 8, 2023. Retrieved January 1, 2024.
  5. ^ "Biographies of 10 Classic Disney Characters « Disney D23". February 12, 2012. Archived from the original on February 12, 2012. Retrieved September 21, 2024.
  6. ^ Smith, Dave. "Steamboat Willie" (PDF). Library of Congress. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 6, 2020. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
  7. ^ Op Den Kamp, Claudy; Hunter, Dan, eds. (2019). A History of Intellectual Property in 50 Objects. Cambridge University Press. pp. 171–172. ISBN 9781108352024. Archived from the original on December 30, 2023. Retrieved December 26, 2023.
  8. ^ Uytdewilligen, Ryan (2016). The 101 Most Influential Coming-of-age Movies. Algora Publishing. pp. 17–18. ISBN 978-1-62894-194-4. Archived from the original on March 20, 2022. Retrieved December 31, 2020. Buster Keaton's...'last great film' which inspired Mickey Mouse's first cartoon in sound, Steamboat Willie.
  9. ^ Mouse Planet Archived May 6, 2022, at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing | Film Registry | National Film Preservation Board | Programs | Library of Congress". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Archived from the original on October 31, 2016. Retrieved January 1, 2024.


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