Movies - Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

	Movies - Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is an animated cartoon character created by Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney for cartoons distributed by Universal Studios in the 1920s and 1930s.

Creation under Disney

Oswald was first introduced in 1927 after Disney's series of Alice Comedies had run its course. Disney signed a new contract with Universal head Carl Laemmle where he would produce a series of cartoons under Charles B. Mintz and George Winkler. The first Oswald cartoon, Poor Papa, was rejected by the Universal studio heads. After this, Disney, together with Ub Iwerks, created a second cartoon called Trolley Troubles
. The short officially launched the series and proved to be Disney's greatest success yet.

A few of Oswald's adventures dealt with humour related to the procreative abilities of his species, as illustrated in the episode description of Poor Papa: "Oswald gets a visit from the stork... again and again and again. He has to resort to a variety of strategies to stop the continual flow of babies." Other cartoons generally placed Oswald in more human-type conditions and situations.

In spring 1928, with the series going strong, Disney asked Mintz for an increase in the budget. But Mintz instead demanded that Walt take a 20% budget cut, and as leverage, he revealed to Disney that he had already signed Disney's current employees to his new contract. Disney refused the demand and quit. While he finished the remaining Oswald cartoons owed to Mintz under the old contract, Disney, along with Ub Iwerks and Les Clark (who had remained loyal to Walt and refused the Mintz deal) created what would become the symbol of The Walt Disney Company, Mickey Mouse, the most famous of Walt Disney's characters.

Universal takes direct control

Mintz, meanwhile, opened his own studio consisting primarily of former Disney employees. Dissatisfied with Mintz, Laemmle terminated his contract and opted to have the Oswald cartoons produced right on the Universal lot instead. Laemmle selected Walter Lantz to produce the new series of Oswald shorts (the first of which was 1929's Race Riot
— many sources erroneously list Ozzie of the Circus as the first).

Over the next decade, Lantz would produce 140 Oswald cartoons, making for a grand total of 192 films that the character starred in, spanning the work of all three producers. The rabbit's last cartoon was The Egg-Cracker Suite (1943). Oswald made occasional cameo appearances in other cartoons as late as 1951.

Return to Disney ownership: the Al Michaels "trade"

In February 2006, a number of minor assets including the rights to Oswald were acquired by The Walt Disney Company from NBC Universal, as part of a deal which sent sportscaster Al Michaels from Disney's ABC and ESPN to NBC Sports. At the time, ABC had lost its contract for National Football League broadcast rights, and despite recently signing a long-term contract with ESPN, Michaels was interested in rejoining broadcast partner John Madden at NBC for the Sunday night package.

While popularly characterized in the media as a "trade", and a decidedly lopsided one at that, that characterization is faulty. The ownership rights to a cartoon character were transferred from NBC to Disney, and in exchange Disney simply released Michaels from his employment contract, allowing him to sign with NBC.

The deal includes the rights to the character and the original 26 short films made by Disney. Rights to the Universal-produced Oswald films and other related products were not included.

Walt Disney's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, issued the following statement after the deal was announced: :When Bob (Iger) was named CEO, he told me he wanted to bring Oswald back to Disney, and I appreciate that he is a man of his word. Having Oswald around again is going to be a lot of fun.

It was noted to Michaels that the Kansas City Chiefs gave the New York Jets a draft pick as compensation for releasing coach Herm Edwards from his contract. :Oswald is definitely worth more than a fourth-round draft choice. I'm going to be a trivia answer someday.

Filmography

The Disney years

1927:

Trolley Troubles
Oh Teacher
The Mechanical Cow
Great Guns
All Wet
The Ocean Hop
The Banker's Daughter
Empty Socks
Rickety Gin

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Oswald the Lucky Rabbit; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay