Steamboat Willie

Steamboat Willie
Mickey Mouse series
50th anniversary poster, 1978
Directed by	Walt Disney Ub Iwerks
Produced by	Roy O. Disney Walt Disney
Story by	Walt Disney Ub Iwerks
Voices by	Walt Disney
Music by	Wilfred Jackson Bert Lewis
Animation by	Les Clark (inbetweener) Ub Iwerks Wilfred Jackson
Studio	The Walt Disney Studio
Distributed by	Celebrity Productions
Release date(s)	November 18, 1928 (1928-11-18) (USA)
Color process	Black and white
Running time	8 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Preceded by	The Gallopin' Gaucho
Followed by	The Barn Dance

Steamboat Willie is a 1928 American animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. It was produced in black-and-white by The Walt Disney Studio and released by Celebrity Productions. The cartoon is considered the debut of Mickey Mouse, and his girlfriend Minnie, but the characters had both appeared several months earlier in test screenings. Steamboat Willie was the third of Mickey's films to be produced, but was the first to be distributed.

The film is also notable for being one of the first cartoons with synchronized sound. More precisely, it was the first cartoon to feature a fully post-produced soundtrack which distinguished it from earlier sound cartoons such as Inkwell Studios' Song Car-Tunes (1924-1927) and Van Beuren Studios' Dinner Time (1928). Also distinguishing Steamboat Willie from earlier sound cartoons was the level of popularity.

Music for Steamboat Willie was arranged by Wilfred Jackson and Bert Lewis, and included the songs "Steamboat Bill," a 1911 Arthur Collins composition, and "Turkey in the Straw." The title of the film is a parody of the Buster Keaton film Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928), itself a reference to the song by Collins. Walt Disney performed all of the voices in the film, although there is little intelligible dialogue.

While the film has received some criticism due to humorous depiction of cruelty to animals, it has also received wide critical acclaim, not only for introducing one of the world's most popular cartoon characters, but for the innovation. In 1994 members of the animation field voted Steamboat Willie 13th in the book The 50 Greatest Cartoons, which listed the greatest cartoons of all time. In 1998 the film was selected for preservation in the United States' National Film Registry for being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Synopsis

Pete confronts Mickey at the helm of the steamboat

Mickey Mouse pilots a river steamboat, suggesting that he himself is the captain. He cheerfully whistles "Steamboat Bill" and sounds the boat's three whistles. Soon the real captain appears (Pete) and angrily orders Mickey off the bridge. Mickey blows a raspberry at Pete, but he falls down the stairs and slips on a bar of soap on the boat's deck and landing in a bucket of water. A parrot makes fun of him, but Mickey throws the bucket over the bird.

Now piloting the steamboat himself, Pete bites off some chewing tobacco and spits into the wind. The spit flies backward and rings the boat's bell. Amused by this Pete spits again, but it hits him in the face.

The steamboat makes a stop at "Podunk Landing" to pick up a cargo of various livestock. Just as they set off again, Minnie appears, running to catch the boat before it leaves. Mickey does not see her in time, but she runs after the boat along the shore and Mickey takes her on board using the cargo crane.

Landing on deck, Minnie accidentally drops a guitar and some sheet music for the song "Turkey in the Straw" which are eaten by a goat. The two mice use the goat's body as a phonograph which they play by turning the animal's tail like a crank. Mickey uses various objects on the boat as percussion accompaniment and "plays" the animals like musical instruments.

Finally an unamused Captain Pete appears and puts Mickey to work peeling potatoes. In the potato bin, the same parrot from before appears in the port hole and mocks Mickey again. The mouse throws a partially peeled potato at him, knocking him into the river below. The film ends with Mickey laughing at the sound of the bird struggling in the water.

Background

According to Roy O. Disney, Walt Disney was inspired to create a sound cartoon after watching The Jazz Singer (1927). Disney had intended for Mickey Mouse to be the new star character to replace Oswald the Lucky Rabbit after he lost the rights to the character to Charles Mintz. However the first two Mickey Mouse films produced, silent versions of Plane Crazy and The Gallopin' Gaucho, had failed to impress audiences and gain a distributor. Disney believed that adding sound to a cartoon would greatly increase its appeal.

Steamboat Willie was not the first cartoon with synchronized sound. Dave and Max Fleischer's Inkwell Studios had earlier produced seven sound cartoons, part of the Song Car-Tunes which starting in May 1924. However the Song Car-Tunes failed to keep the sound fully synchronized, while Steamboat Willie was produced using a click track to keep his musicians on the beat. As little as two months before Steamboat Willie was released, Paul Terry's produced Dinner Time which also used a soundtrack, but Dinner Time was not a financial success.

In June 1927, producer Pat Powers made an unsuccessful takeover bid for Lee DeForest's Phonofilm Corporation. In the aftermath, Powers hired a former DeForest technician, William Garrity, to produce a cloned version of the Phonofilm system, which Powers dubbed "Powers Cinephone". By then, DeForest was in too weak a financial position to mount a legal challenge against Powers for patent infringement. Powers convinced Disney to use Cinephone for Steamboat Willie before Powers and Disney had a falling-out over money, and over Powers hiring away Disney animator Ub Iwerks in 1930.

Production

Title card of Steamboat Willie

The production of Steamboat Willie took place between July and September 1928 with an estimated budget of $4,986. There was initially some doubt among the animators that a sound cartoon would appear believable enough, so before a soundtrack was produced, Disney arranged for a screening of the film to a test audience with live sound to accompany it. This screening took place on July 29 with Steamboat Willie only partly finished. The audience sat in a room adjoining Walt's office. Roy placed the movie projector outdoors and the film was projected through a window so that the sound of the projector would not interfere with the live sound. Ub Iwerks set up a bed sheet behind the movie screen behind which he placed a microphone connected to speakers where the audience would sit. The live sound was produced from behind the bed sheet. Wilfred Jackson played the music on a mouth organ, Ub Iwerks banged on pots and pans for the percussion segment, Johnny Cannon provided sound effects with various devices including slide whistles and spittoons for bells. Walt himself provided what little dialogue there was to the film, mostly grunts, laughs, and squawks. After several practices, they were ready for the audience which consisted of Disney employees and their wives.

The response of the audience was extremely positive, and it gave Walt the confidence to move forward and complete the film. He said later in recalling this first viewing, "The effect on our little audience was nothing less than electric. They responded almost instinctively to this union of sound and motion. I thought they were kidding me. So they put me in the audience and ran the action again. It was terrible, but it was wonderful! And it was something new!" Iwerks said, "I've never been so thrilled in my life. Nothing since has ever equaled it."

Walt traveled to New York City to hire a company to produce the sound system. He eventually settled on Pat Powers's Cinephone system, created by Powers using an updated version of Lee De Forest's Phonofilm system without giving De Forest any credit, a decision he would later regret.

The music in the final soundtrack was performed by the Green Brothers Novelty Band and was conducted by Carl Edouarde. The brothers Joe and Lew Green from the band also assisted in timing the music to the film. The first attempt to synchronize the recording with the film was a disaster. Disney had to sell his Moon roadster in order to finance a second recording. This was a success with the addition of a filmed bouncing ball to keep the tempo.

Release and reception

The Broadway Theatre in New York, seen in 2007, where Steamboat Willie was first shown in 1928. The venue was known as "Universal's Colony Theatre" at the time.

Steamboat Willie premiered at Universal's Colony Theater in New York City on November 18, 1928. The film was distributed by Celebrity Productions and its initial run lasted two weeks. Disney was paid $500 a week which was considered a large amount at the time. It played ahead of the independent feature film Gang War. Steamboat Willie was an immediate hit while Gang War is all but forgotten today.

The success of Steamboat Willie not only led to international fame for Walt Disney, but for Mickey as well. On November 21, Variety magazine published a review which read in part "Not the first animated cartoon to be synchronized with sound effects, but the first to attract favorable attention. [Steamboat Willie] represents a high order of cartoon ingenuity, cleverly combined with sound effects. The union brought laughs galore. Giggles came so fast at the Colony [Theater] they were stumbling over each other." The response led to the two previous Mickey films to be reproduced as sound cartoons and given wide theatrical releases.

Censorship

A full 30 seconds was removed from some versions of Steamboat Willie because they might be considered cruelty to animals, including Mickey pulling a cat's tail and then swinging the cat by the tail above his head, picking up a nursing sow and "playing" her babies, and using a duck as bagpipes. The full version of the film was included on the "Walt Disney Treasures" DVD set "Mickey Mouse in Black and White."

Copyright status

The film has been the center of a variety of controversies regarding copyright. The copyright of the film has been repeatedly extended by acts of the United States Congress. However, recent evidence suggests that the film may be in the public domain due to technicalities related to the original copyright notice.

The film has been the center of some attention regarding the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act passed in the United States. Steamboat Willie has been close to entering the public domain in the U.S. several times. Each time, copyright protection has been extended. It could have entered public domain in 4 different years; first in 1956, renewed to 1984, then to 2003 by the Copyright Act of 1976, and finally to the current public domain date of 2023 by the Copyright Term Extension Act (also known pejoratively as the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act") of 1998. The U.S. copyright on Steamboat Willie will be in effect through 2023 unless there is another extension of the law.

It has been claimed that these extensions were a response by the Congress to extensive lobbying by The Walt Disney Company. Others claim that the copyright extensions Congress has passed in recent decades have followed extensions in international copyright conventions to which the United States is a signatory. (See US Copyright Law, Universal Copyright Convention, and Berne Convention.)

In the 1990s, former Disney researcher Gregory S. Brown determined that the film was likely in U.S. public domain already due to errors in the original copyright formulation. In particular, the original film's copyright notice had two additional names between Disney and the copyright statement. Thus, under the rules of the Copyright Act of 1909, all copyright claims would be null. Arizona State University professor Dennis Karjala suggested that one of his law school students look into Brown's claim as a class project. Lauren Vanpelt took up the challenge and produced a paper agreeing with Brown's claim. She posted her project on the Web in 1999. Disney later threatened to sue a Georgetown University law student who wrote a paper confirming Brown's claims.

In other media

Steamboat Willie themed levels are featured in the video games Mickey Mania (1994), Kingdom Hearts II (2005), and Epic Mickey (2010).

The fourth season episode of The Simpsons, "Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie" features a short but nearly frame-for-frame parody of the opening scene of Steamboat Willie.

In the 1998 film Saving Private Ryan, set in 1944, a German POW tries to win the sympathy of his American captors by mentioning Steamboat Willie, even mimicking the sound of the boat whistle from the film. The unnamed character appears in the credits as "Steamboat Willie".

The opening scene was parodied towards the end of Aladdin and the King of Thieves. Genie, having been swallowed by the giant turtle which carried the Vanishing Isle upon its back, came back out of the turtle's mouth in the steamboat from this film and was even in Mickey's form, whistling Turkey in the Straw.

In a 2008 movie of the TV series Futurama called The Beast With A Billion Backs the opening is a parody of Steamboat Willie.

Since the release of Meet the Robinsons (2007), the scene of Mickey at the wheel of the steamboat whistling has been used in the production logo for Walt Disney Animation Studios films. A modification was used for Tangled to mark that it was the studios' 50th main film, with the Mickey scene in the "0". The scene was also depicted in the film poster (above right). The same scene is also depicted on the hologram of authenticity on the spine of recent Disney DVD releases.

Honors

Steamboat Willie was inducted to the National Film Registry 70 years later after its release in 1998 classified as an animated short subject.

Release history

• 1928 July – First test screening
• 1928 November – Original theatrical release
• 1984 – "Cartoon Classics: Limited Gold Editions: Mickey" (VHS)
• 1990s – Mickey's Mouse Tracks, episode #45 (TV)
• 1997 – Ink & Paint Club, episode #2 "Mickey Landmarks" (TV)
• 1997 – "The Spirit of Mickey" (VHS)
• 2001 – "The Hand Behind the Mouse: The Ub Iwerks Story" (VHS)
• 2002 – "Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in Black and White" (DVD)
• 2005 – "Vintage Mickey" (DVD)
• 2007 – "Walt Disney Treasures: The Adventures of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" (DVD)
• 2009 – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Blu-ray)
• 2009 – YouTube (Online video, link)
• Ongoing – Main Street Cinema at Disneyland

External links

• Steamboat Willie on YouTube (official posting by Walt Disney Animation Studios)
• Steamboat Willie at The Encyclopedia of Disney Animated Shorts
• Steamboat Willie at the Internet Movie Database
• Steamboat Willie at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• The Test Screening of Steamboat Willie