Why Mickey?

Many people don't realize it, but Mickey Mouse was not Walt Disney's first cartoon character.

Walt began his animation career in Kansas City doing commercial cartoons to be shown between reels in the movie theaters.  As his ability and resources grew, he began filming his own shorts starring a real girl named Alice who stepped into the cartoon world.

But Walt's first big cartoon star was a character called Oswald, the lucky rabbit.  When Walt went to New York to ask for more money to dedicate to each of the popular Oswald cartoons, he was in for a rude shock.  The distributor informed Walt that the cost of the cartoons was too high.  He had the rights to the character and a secret agreement with many of Walt's employees.  They were going to quit the Disney studio and continue to work on the cartoons for the distributor.  Walt no longer had control of his own creation.

It was a real blow to Walt, as he felt both the loss of his creation and the betrayal of men he thought were his friends.  He prepared to go home.  Whether he believed it or not, he sent an upbeat telegram back to his brother explaining the situation, but promising that he had ideas to make everything o.k.

He didn't, but on the train ride home, he suddenly came up with the idea of a mouse character to replace the rabbit.  In fact, the mouse looked a lot like Oswald, he just had shorter ears and a longer tail.  He named his creation Mortimer.  And the rest is history.

Well not exactly, the story has it that when he showed the cartoon to his wife Lilly and told her its name, she was unimpressed.  She didn't care for Mortimer at all.  Why don't you call him Mickey was her suggestion.

And so when later asked to describe his success, Walt was known to say, "It all started with a mouse."  Or maybe the rabbit that got away.