Mickey Mouse is 80 years old, with his first feature film, Steamboat Willie, released in 1928. Here is that eponymous cartoon in full, with sound, albeit in black and white.
Walt Disney created the Mickey Mouse character after losing the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character that I hadn’t heard of until today, so Disney obviously made the right decision.
Not only was Steamboat Willie Mickey’s first big screen outing, it was also the first animated feature with synchronized sound, and that made it a huge hit at the time.
Although the animation is shoddy and the lack of color is a disappointment, the actual cartoon still stands up to scrutiny today against its contemporary counterparts. We haven’t really come far in 80 years.
