
Steamboat Willie, which is generally associated with being one of the very first sound cartoons, but more importantly, it ushered into the public consciousness Mickey Mouse and that character’s creator, Walt Disney, two pop cultural images who became ingrained as American standards, celebrates the 85th anniversary of its release today.
Looking at the cartoon today, almost a century later, it’s an innocuous yarn on a boat, lightly funny, surprisingly wacky violent, and of course chock full of goofy, loopy, sound effects; it’s a half-baked affair. But it’s not so much the cartoon that makes it the universally recognized classic that it is; it’s more about being the genesis modes of Walt Disney and his creation, the lovable rodent, Mickey Mouse (the character had two other shorts prior, but Steamboat Willie was the first released – November 18, 1928).
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