59) Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

[00:00:01] The Rambler Network.

[00:00:43] Talking about Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. I'm sure most people haven't heard of him, unless you're like a really big Disney fan, or you've played Disney Dreamlight Valley, or Disney Speedstorm, or Epic Mickey, or basically, you basically have to be a really big Disney fan to know who he is. He was actually Walt Disney's original mascot.

[00:01:13] So, I like to consider myself kind of like an amateur Disney historian. I wouldn't actually say I know everything about Disney. I'm just kind of fascinated with the early history of it, and how it started, and Walt's life, and everything. And I've watched so many documentaries, seen all those old shorts, and I've always been fascinated by Oswald. And it's kind of a heartbreaking story, actually, if you think about it.

[00:01:42] And I think they should make it into a movie. Like, you know, the real life story, not make an Oswald movie. Well, I mean, they could make an Oswald movie. That would definitely put him more into the public spotlight. So, basically, one of the very first things Walt Disney did, the person Walt Disney, was the Alice comedies.

[00:02:10] Which, that's a deep cut that I don't think anybody listening to this would have heard of. They were basically 57 shorts that ran between, they were made between 1923 and 1927. They were actually live action animated hybrid. Like Roger Rabbit. This was back in 1923. This was the 1920s. And he was doing live action animated hybrid.

[00:02:39] So, like, the whole, like, Disney magic was long ago. Like, people hadn't seen anything like this much at the time. And there were several actresses that played Alice throughout its run. And the most famous one was Virginia Davis, who passed away in 2009.

[00:03:07] She was 15 when she started playing Alice. But, unfortunately, by 1927, it was getting too expensive for Walt and Ub Iwerks, who was Walt's animation, chief animator, basically. And if you know anything about the early days of Disney, like, if you, a lot of these Disney

[00:03:37] Blu-rays all come with, like, documentaries about, like, the early, like, especially, like, when they were doing, like, the Diamond Edition, Platinum Edition of these movies, like, Pinocchio and all that, they would have all these documentaries. And I watched a lot of them. And pretty much every one of them talked about, obviously, they talked about Walt. But they also talked about Ub Iwerks. And you learn a lot about him.

[00:04:01] He was, like, other than Walt, he was, like, the second most important person at the company. And, yeah, like, I could just do an episode on him, but I won't. But, moving on. So, the Dallas comedies were getting way too expensive for Walt and Ub, obviously, because they were a tiny company at the time. And this was not an easy process to do.

[00:04:31] And they did 57 of them. So, you can imagine. So, it was around 1927 that Charles Mintz, who was a film producer at the time, he suggested that they go to Universal. Because Universal was looking for... They were looking to get into doing animations themselves. Because that was catching on quick at the time.

[00:05:00] And so, between 1927 and the early days of 1928, so less than a year, Walt created a bunny, a rabbit character named Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. He was kind of a mischievous character.

[00:05:23] If you watch some of those old cartoons, he's basically like Dennis the Menace, where, like, he just goes and gets in short trouble. Yeah, well, maybe not Dennis the Menace. See, Dennis is... He's mischievous, but he's, like, kind-hearted about it. Oswald was just kind of loud and obnoxious, basically. And that was his whole character. And it was kind of funny.

[00:05:51] Because, like, because it was those... That old rubbery animation of, like, the early days. And, like, the creativity they used in those old shorts. You just have to go watch them. The very first one was called Trolley Troubles, and it premiered on the 5th of September, 1927. At the time... Because, like I said, this is the late... I was gonna say 2020s. In the late 1920s, the crash of 29 was imminent.

[00:06:20] And they could, you know, I guess at the time, they could kind of sense something was coming on. So they weren't really paying Walt as much as they felt they should be getting paid. So he took the train... Walt took the train from California to New York to try to get a better contract. They offered him a 20% cut, which was not what he was wanting. And, unfortunately, his...

[00:06:49] Walt's team basically was like, yep, we'll take it. And they basically left him and went to Charles Mintz' company, which was later named Screen Gems. You've heard of that? I know you've heard of that. Or maybe that's just me. I don't know. Screen Gems is still around. It started... When Screen Gems started, it mostly consisted of former Disney employees. Because I guess they felt Walt Disney wasn't gonna last.

[00:07:18] Because they were a small independent studio. And... Yeah. So Universal, since Walt created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, while contracted to Universal, Oswald officially belonged to Universal. And so, when he went back to California, he left without Oswald. He wasn't allowed to make any more Oswald cartoons.

[00:07:45] They kept making Oswald cartoons for years. All the way until they had, like, color cartoons. And if you watch, like, all of... I've seen, like, all of the available ones. Some of them have been lost. If you watch some of those old ones, you can tell the quality went down. And then... At some point, they added voice acting. And it's like, eh, no, this isn't... Disney is what made it good. Disney...

[00:08:15] Disney, Oswald shorts, were the best times for the character. And Universal didn't know how to handle the character. So they just were like, hey, let's just do whatever. And then... You can tell if you watch those old cartoons, the quality definitely goes down. So, there's a myth about what happened next. And I believed it for the longest time. Because, like, everyone talked about it. And it's what everyone repeated.

[00:08:45] But, like, you dig deeper, and that's actually not what happened. The myth is that after Walt left the contract negotiation that failed, and he lost Oswald, on the train ride back to California, he was like, wow, crap, I need a new character. And then he saw a mouse run by, and he goes, I got it! And then he made up Mickey Mouse on the spot. And by the time he got back to California, he had Mickey Mouse fully...

[00:09:14] a full-fledged character, fully formed, and the voice done, and everything. And that's the myth. That's not what happened. It's a good story, and if they make a movie about Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, they totally should add that. They should make that into part of the movie, because it is a good story. It's not true, though.

[00:09:41] Walt and Ub ended up brainstorming for a new character. They workshopped a new character in secret that would belong to him. Walt was like, if I make a new character, it's going to belong to me. He basically Taylor's versioned a new character. And so, one of the artists named Hugh Harmon in 1925,

[00:10:10] he sketched... he sketched a mouse he saw. And he actually, like... he sketched it over Walt. It's kind of like, get his appearance and stuff. He basically made... he made the mouse character using circles, so it's easier to draw. And... the sketch just kind of set off to the side. Well, he showed... Walt. And he really liked

[00:10:39] the character. And so, they workshopped it. And they, like, refined it, made it different. At first, he made the mouse character look like Oswald with shorter ears. But, as you know, as they, you know, kept doing it, kept doing it, kept reworking it, the mouse became its own distinct-looking character. And at first, he was going to call the character Mortimer Mouse.

[00:11:08] Can you imagine? Meh. But his wife, Lillian Disney, actually suggested Mickey. And there's a myth that it was named after Mickey Rooney. But, uh... I haven't seen anything to actually, uh... confirm that. The source is Mickey Rooney himself. He later said, oh yeah, I was there. And they named it after me. But, like... I didn't see any evidence that he was there. Actually.

[00:11:38] So, I don't know if Mickey Mouse is named after Mortimer Mouse. I mean, um... Wow. I don't know if he's named after Mickey Rooney. Again, that's a good story. Probably not true. And... And then, Steamboat Willie premiered, and the rest is history. And... Ninth... In 2006, Walt Disney, that company, because, you know, Walt was long dead by then. He...

[00:12:08] They... Wow. I did it again. Walt Disney Company, there we go. So, they traded Al Michaels, who was an announcer for NBC Sunday Night Football, which, as you know, is universal. They traded Al Michaels for the rights to Oswald. So, now Disney owns Oswald again. And, yeah,

[00:12:37] that was exciting. First time I heard of Oswald was actually in 2009. there was a... I was at the library. Back then, I go to the library a lot. And there was this DVD collection because they would have all these, like, Disney DVD collections of, like, specific things. Like, here's the Donald Duck collection from the early days, and here's the Mickey Mouse collection, and Goofy collection of all the shorts from back then. And I saw one of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit,

[00:13:07] and I was like, I never heard of that one. So, I checked it out, and, like, all the shorts were on there, and there was a little documentary about what happened, and that's... And the rest is history from there. And I don't remember specifically that documentary because I've seen so many since then, and all the shorts are on YouTube. All the Oswald shorts are on YouTube, and you can go watch them if you want. I will put a link to that in the show notes.

[00:13:37] I haven't been using the show notes. I've been forgetting, but hey, I found something to put in the show notes. Yeah, anyway. And... In 2010, Oswald actually made his official reintroduction into Disney by being in... He's... He's in the game Epic Mickey, and the premise of that is there was... There's

[00:14:05] a land of the wasteland, or just wasteland. It's like a corrupted mirror of Disneyland with Oswald as the center, as the leader, and he took all of the things that shows Mickey and put himself there, like the famous partner statue with Walt and Mickey holding hands. Oswald's in the statue. And...

[00:14:33] Wasteland is basically a place for all the forgotten characters to live. And then since Walt was like the main forgotten character, he was the leader of the world. And... I never beat it, so I don't know what happened. Oswald's kind of set up as the villain, but I have a feeling that... that Oswald and Mickey are friends by the end because...

[00:15:03] in Epic Mickey 2, they're like partners. They're like friends. So like, okay, yeah. Oswald's not seen as a villain in general, so... I have a feeling that he wasn't the villain for the whole game. I don't know. I should finish it. They just re-released it. It was a remake called Epic Mickey Rebrush. It came out last year in 2024. And I've been meaning to try it. But most notably in my... you know,

[00:15:32] from my personal experience, I'm a huge fan and player of Disney Dreamlight Valley. I've been playing that if the game came out in 2022. And in 2023, they released their first expansion called Eternity Isle. And then last year in 2024, they added a new... they added Oswald to the game and he's one of the characters. And at first, I really loved what they did with the character

[00:16:02] because all the characters have like the same dialogue box and they say things... You know, they say things in character. Like there's Elsa and Anna and then Maribel and then there's classic characters like Mickey, Minnie, Daisy's added to the game. It's Cruz McDuck, Goofy, like all of them are in there. They've added Timon and Pumbaa, Simba, Nala, Scar, Mike, Mike, Sully. There's like 50-something characters I think and they all live in the valley and there's like

[00:16:31] three... There's two expansion islands. There's Eternity Isle and then there's Storybook Veil which they just released that a couple months ago. And so with Oswald, when they introduced him in Eternity Isle when you spoke to him, he didn't have a voice. His dialogue box was black and white and it was like an old silent film and it was like a narration and I love that. I love that they did that. That was so creative and then and then they ruined it

[00:17:01] because part of his storyline was he he found a way to get his voice back and then it's just a regular dialogue box and they should have kept the old silent film thing because it made his character stand out and plus I don't really like his voice. They made his voice like... No, I just made it sound like the know-it-all kid from Polar Express. It's a very loud and obnoxious voice which granted that's his personality but

[00:17:30] I don't like his voice. I love the character because it's like they kept the whole wacky zaniness of it and like things he does they acknowledge in the game like the characters acknowledge like Oswald doesn't make any sense the things he does the things he says and then he's like yeah, of course trolleys have souls and can speak and like have a life and they fly why wouldn't they? I was like oh okay but yeah

[00:17:59] Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is well he's now owned by Disney and they can do whatever he wants with it they should use him more like they kind of use him sparingly like I said they use him he's he's one of the main characters in Epic Mickey and Epic Mickey 2 they put him in Disney Speedstorm which I have played just a couple times just to kind of try it out the first it's a free to play game

[00:18:29] it's basically a Mario Kart clone but I think I wouldn't say better it's it's one of the better clones I think the best Mario Kart like game is Mario Kart but you know all the Mario Kart clones out of all of them I think the best one is Speedstorm and it's free it's free to play of course there's a bunch of microtransactions

[00:18:58] you can buy skins and power-ups and stuff Oswald is a character in there I have not played as him I've raced as Jack Sparrow and Mulan yeah so like I've only played a couple times but Oswald is a character in there you can race as him he's also in like I said Dreamlight Valley and I know he's had other appearances I don't know if because I know they've had kind of like a Mickey Mouse

[00:19:27] and Friends cartoon that had like terrible animation I didn't like it the very simplistic style it kind of looked like they were trying to go for the old classic style from like the Steamboat Willie days but like I did not like how it came out and I think someone told me Oswald is in that but I didn't see it and I was doing I did like brief research for this and I didn't see him pop up on there they should use him more because like they own the rights use him

[00:19:57] he's going to be forgotten again he was in the he was a leader of the forgotten lands he was a leader of the forgotten cartoons and now he's going to get forgotten again because they're barely using him but yeah that is that is the story of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit but I digress

[00:20:24] The Rambler Network

[00:20:59] work you