Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

Everyone knows who Mickey Mouse is, right? Yeah, I know the weird-looking mouse has been in various cartoons and other media, too, but Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks created him for a reason. It wasn't for nothing, you know- it was to replace the original star of Walt Disney's cartoons.

You, the reader, might be wondering who that star was? It was Oswald- a mischievous anthropomorphic rabbit with a unique, whimsical personality that would move on to the Walt Disney Studio's next star, Mickey Mouse, of course.

Oswald was created in 1927 by Iwerks and Disney, having finished off the unsuccessful live-action/animation series known as the Alice Comedies. Carl Laemmle, the head of Universal Productions, hired a film producer named Charles Mintz to produce cartoons with a new character. Mintz found Walt Disney in Los Angeles and asked him to create a new star, hoping the character would rival Felix the Cat. He suggested a rabbit, thus leading to the creation of a new rabbit character named Oswald.

Mintz saw the first Oswald cartoon, entitled Poor Papa. This 1928 animation featured Oswald as a father taking care of a massive amount of rabbit children. The short was poorly received by Laemmle, who pinpointed the bland animation and the maturity of the character's design. As a result, Oswald was redesigned into a younger, sleeker rabbit with a more mischievous side. The cartoons fared well, and the character eventually made his way to stardom.

Tragedy struck when Disney found out that Mintz secretly took the rights of the character, as well as the Disney animators. On the train ride home, Disney conceived the idea of a mouse character, and, therefore, Mickey Mouse was born. This eclipsed Oswald in the process, leaving Walter Lantz to redesign him into a realistic-looking rabbit. Eventually, Oswald would be retired in favor of the next Lantz star, Andy Panda.

Many years later, in 2006, Disney CEO Bob Iger traded Al Michaels from ABC to NBC to return the rights of the character back to the company. Since then, Oswald has been rapidly gaining popularity, not with the public, but with the Disney fans all over the world.

That's all, folks- and don't forget to stay tuned to see the next post!