Steamboat Willie

Steamboat Willie is a 1928 American animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. It was produced in black-and-white by Walt Disney Studios and was released by Celebrity Productions. The cartoon is considered the debut of Mickey Mouse[2] and his girlfriend Minnie, although both characters appeared several months earlier in a test screening of Plane Crazy. Steamboat Willie was the third of Mickey's films to be produced, but was the first to be distributed because Walt Disney, having seen The Jazz Singer, had committed himself to produce one of the first fully synchronized sound cartoons.

Steamboat Willie
50th anniversary poster, 1978[1]
Directed byWalt Disney
Ub Iwerks
Produced byRoy O. Disney
Walt Disney
Story byWalt Disney
Ub Iwerks
StarringWalt Disney
Music byWilfred Jackson
Bert Lewis
Animation byLes Clark (inbetweener)
Ub Iwerks
Wilfred Jackson
Johnny Cannon
Color processBlack and white
Production
company
Distributed byCelebrity Productions
Cinephone (recorded)
Release date
  • November 18, 1928 (1928-11-18)
(U.S.)
Running time
7:46
CountryUnited States

Steamboat Willie is especially notable for being the first Disney cartoon with synchronized sound, as well as 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). Disney understood from early on that synchronized sound was the future of film. Steamboat Willie became the most popular cartoon of its day.[3]

Music for Steamboat Willie was arranged by Wilfred Jackson and Bert Lewis, and included the songs "Steamboat Bill", a composition popularized by baritone Arthur Collins during the 1910s, and "Turkey in the Straw", a composition popularized within minstrelsy during the 19th century. The title of the film may be a parody of the Buster Keaton film Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928),[4] itself a reference to the song by Collins. Walt Disney performed all of the voices in the film, although there is little intelligible dialogue.[5]

The film has received wide critical acclaim, not only for introducing one of the world's most popular cartoon characters but for its technical 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.[6] In 1998 the film was selected for preservation in the United States' National Film Registry for being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."[7]

Synopsis
Pete (left) confronts Mickey (right) on the bridge of the steamboat.

Mickey Mouse pilots a steam river sidewheeler, suggesting that he is the captain. He cheerfully whistles "Steamboat Bill" and sounds the boat's three whistles. Soon the real captain, Pete, appears and orders Mickey off the bridge. Mickey blows a raspberry at Pete. Pete attempts to kick him, but Mickey rushes away in time and Pete accidentally kicks himself in the rear. Mickey rushes down the stairs, slips on a bar of soap on the boat's deck, and lands in a bucket of water. A parrot laughs at him, and Mickey throws the bucket at it.

Pete, who has been watching the whole thing, pilots the steamboat himself. He 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 this time the spit hits him in the face, making him fuss.

The steamboat makes a stop at "Podunk Landing" to pick up a cargo of various livestock. Just as they set off again, Minnie Mouse 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 by hooking the cargo crane to her underwear.

Landing on deck, Minnie accidentally drops a ukulele 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 its tail like a crank. Mickey uses various objects on the boat as percussion accompaniment and "plays" the animals like musical instruments. This ends with Mickey using a cow's teeth and tongue to play the song as a xylophone.[8][9][10]

Captain Pete is unamused by the musical act and puts Mickey to work peeling potatoes. In the potato bin, the same parrot that laughed at him earlier appears in the porthole and laughs at him again. Fed up with the bird's heckling, the mouse throws a half-peeled potato at it, knocking it back into the river below. The film ends with Mickey laughing as he sits next to the potatoes.

Background

According to Roy O. Disney, Walt Disney was inspired to create a sound cartoon after watching The Jazz Singer (1927).[7] Disney created cartoons starring Mickey Mouse in secret while he fulfilled his contract for another series, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. 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. Starting in May 1924 and continuing through September 1926, Dave and Max Fleischer's Inkwell Studios produced 19 sound cartoons, part of the Song Car-Tunes series, using the Phonofilm sound-on-film process. 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.[11] As little as one month before Steamboat Willie was released, Paul Terry released 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; their business relationship lasted until 1930 when Powers and Disney had a falling-out over money and Powers hired away from Disney's lead animator, Ub Iwerks.

Dialogue

Mickey, Minnie and Pete perform in near-pantomime, with growls and squeaks but no intelligible dialogue. The only dialogue in the film is spoken by the ship's parrot. When Mickey falls into a bucket of soapy water, the bird says, "Hope you don't feel hurt, big boy!" At the end of the short, after the parrot falls in the water, it cries, "Man overboard!"[12]

Production

The production of Steamboat Willie took place between July and September 1928, with an estimated budget of $4,986.[7] 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.[13] 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 bedsheet 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 bedsheet. Wilfred Jackson played the music on a mouth organ, Ub Iwerks banged on pots and pans for the percussion segment, and 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."[14]

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. 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, done on September 15, 1928, was a disaster.[15] 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.[16]

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.[17] 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.[16] It played ahead of the independent feature film Gang War. Steamboat Willie was an immediate hit while Gang War is all but forgotten today.[3]

The success of Steamboat Willie not only led to international fame for Walt Disney but for Mickey as well.

Variety (November 21, 1928) wrote: "Not the first animated cartoon to be synchronized with sound effects, but the first to attract favorable attention. This one represents a high order of cartoon ingenuity, cleverly combined with sound effects. The union brought forth laughs galore. Giggles came so fast at the Colony [Theater] they were stumbling over each other. It's a peach of a synchronization job all the way, bright, snappy, and fit the situation perfectly. Cartoonist, Walter Disney. With most of the animated cartoons qualifying as a pain in the neck, it's a signal tribute to this particular one. If the same combination of talent can turn out a series as good as Steamboat Willie they should find a wide market if the interchangeability angle does not interfere. Recommended unreservedly for all wired houses."[18]

The Film Daily (November 25, 1928) said: "This is what Steamboat Willie has: First, a clever and amusing treatment; secondly, music and sound effects added via the Cinephone method. The result is a real tidbit of diversion. The maximum has been gotten from the sound effects. Worthy of bookings in any house wired to reproduce sound-on-film. Incidentally, this is the first Cinephone-recorded subject to get a public exhibition and at the Colony [Theater], New York, is being shown over Western Electric equipment."[19]

Despite being popular in the U.S., Steamboat Willie didn't have its theatrical release in Europe until 1931 when it was released publicly in the United Kingdom by British International Film Distributors Incorporated 3 years right after its film's release.

The response led to the two previous Mickey films being reproduced as sound cartoons and given wide theatrical releases.

The film has been the center of a variety of controversies regarding copyright. The copyright of the film has been extended by an act of the United States Congress. However, recent evidence suggests that the film may be in the public domain owing 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 the public domain in four different years: first in 1956, renewed to 1984, then to 2003 by the Copyright Act of 1976, and to the current date of 2023 by the Copyright Term Extension Act (also known pejoratively as the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act")[20] of 1998. Under current copyright law, Steamboat Willie is set to enter the public domain on January 1, 2024; however, later iterations of the character of Mickey Mouse will remain under copyright protection until 2025.[21] It has been claimed that these extensions were a response by Congress to extensive lobbying by The Walt Disney Company.[22]

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.[23] 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.[23] 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 Internet in 1999.[24] Disney later threatened to sue a Georgetown University law student who wrote a paper confirming Brown's claims,[25] alleging that publishing the paper could be slander of title. However, Disney chose not to sue after its publication.[26]

Censorship

Disney removed thirty seconds of the film from some versions of Steamboat Willie because they might be considered cruelty to animals, including Mickey pulling a cat's tail, stepping on the cat, and swinging it by the tail over his head; pulling the tails of piglets as they nurse on a sow and picking up the sow, stretching her body, and pressing her teats like accordion keys; and squeezing a duck to make noise come out of its mouth like bagpipes. The full version of the film was included on the Walt Disney Treasures DVD set "Mickey Mouse in Black and White", and also on Disney+.

In other media

Steamboat Willie-themed levels are featured in the video games Mickey Mania (1994), Kingdom Hearts II (2005), and Epic Mickey (2010). In Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two (2012), a "Steamboat Willie" outfit can be obtained for Mickey.

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 entitled Steamboat Itchy.

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".

In the 2001 Mickey Mouse cartoon Mickey's April Fools, Mickey and Mortimer get sent to the President's office to claim a million dollars; Mortimer pretends to be Mickey and he is shown acting in Steamboat Willie.

In Toontown Online, one of the buildings on Silly Street is named "Steamboat Willie".

In the Goofy cartoon How to Be a Waiter (1999), Goofy is shown as an example of a movie, and Steamboat Willie is shown. But in that short, Willie is a shortened version titled Steamboat Goofy.

The opening scene is parodied near the end of Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996). Genie, having been swallowed by the giant turtle which carries the Vanishing Isle upon its back, comes back out of the turtle's mouth in the steamboat from this film and is even in Mickey's form, whistling "Turkey in the Straw".

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

The beginning of season 2 of the TV series Alexei Sayle's Stuff (1989) shows a black-and-white animation entitled Steamboat Fatty, a parody of Steamboat Willie.

In the Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl anime, one of the episodes, "Steamboat Willies!", is a play on the title.

Since the release of Meet the Robinsons (2007), the scene of Mickey at the ship's wheel whistling "Steamboat Bill" has been used for Walt Disney Animation Studios' production logo. A modification was used for Tangled (2010) to mark that film as the 50th in their Classics line, the text saying "Walt Disney Animation Studios: 50th Animated Motion Picture" with the Mickey scene in the "0". An 8-bit version of the logo was used for Wreck-It Ralph (2012). In Frozen (2013), Moana (2016), and Frozen II (2019), Mickey's whistling was muted to allow their respective opening themes to play out over the logo.

The cartoon was featured in Disney's Magical Mirror Starring Mickey Mouse (2002).

The Australian Perth Mint released a 1 kg Gold coin in honour of Steamboat Willie. The AU$5,000 coin could sell for AU$69,700 as an official Disney licensed product.[27]

On April 1, 2019, Lego released an official Steamboat Willie set to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Mickey Mouse.[28]

Honors

Steamboat Willie was inducted to the National Film Registry in 1998.[29][30]

Release history

See also

References
  1. Bonus material commentary by Leonard Maltin, "Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in Black and White"
  2. Walt Disney Treasures - Mickey Mouse in Black and White (1932) Archived January 8, 2013, at the Wayback Machine at Amazon.com; the product description of this Disney-produced DVD set describes Steamboat Willie as Mickey's debut
  3. Steamboat Willie (1929) Archived November 21, 2011, at the Wayback Machine at Screen Savour
  4. Uytdewilligen, Ryan (2016). The 101 Most Influential Coming-of-age Movies. Algora Publishing. pp. 17–18. ISBN 978-1-62894-194-4.
  5. The only spoken words are when Pete mutters "Get down there!" and several times the parrot says "Help! Man overboard!" and "Hope you don't feel hurt, big boy!" - see here
  6. Beck, Jerry (1994). The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals. Turner Publishing. ISBN 978-1878685490.
  7. Steamboat Willie at IMDb
  8. Salys, Rimgaila (2009). The Musical Comedy Films of Grigorii Aleksandrov. ISBN 9781841502823.
  9. New Scientist. June 7, 1979.
  10. The New Illustrated Treasury of Disney Songs. 1998. ISBN 9780793593651.
  11. Finch, Christopher (1995). The Art of Walt Disney from Mickey Mouse to the Magic Kingdom. New York: Harry N. Abrahms, Inc., Publishers. p. 23. ISBN 0-8109-2702-0.
  12. Korkis, Jim (2014). "More Secrets of Steamboat Willie". In Apgar, Garry (ed.). The Mickey Mouse Reader. University Press of Mississippi. p. 333. ISBN 978-1628461039.
  13. Fanning, Jim (1994). Walt Disney. Chelsea House Publishers. ISBN 9780791023310.
  14. The Test Screening of Steamboat Willie
  15. https://www.loc.gov/programs/static/national-film-preservation-board/documents/steamboat_willie.pdf
  16. Steamboat Willie Archived March 27, 2008, at the Wayback Machine at The Encyclopedia of Disney Animated Shorts
  17. Broadway Theater Broadway | The Shubert Organization Archived November 12, 2012, at the Wayback Machine 1691 Broadway, between 52nd and 53rd Streets, now The Broadway Theater.
  18. "Talking Shorts". Variety: 13. November 21, 1928. Retrieved February 23, 2020.
  19. "Short Subjects". The Film Daily: 9. November 25, 1928. Retrieved February 23, 2020.
  20. Lawrence Lessig, Copyright's First Amendment, 48 UCLA L. Rev. 1057, 1065 (2001)
  21. Lee, Timothy B. (January 1, 2019). "Mickey Mouse will be public domain soon—here's what that means". Ars Technica. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  22. Lessig, Free Culture, p. 220
  23. Menn, Joseph (August 22, 2008). "Disney's rights to young Mickey Mouse may be wrong". The Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on May 21, 2009. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  24. Vanpelt, Lauren (Spring 1999). "Mickey Mouse -- A Truly Public Character". Archived from the original on October 2, 2008. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  25. Hedenkamp, Douglas A. (Spring 2003). "Free Mickey Mouse: Copyright Notice, Derivative Works, and the Copyright Act of 1909". Virginia Sports & Entertainment Law Journal (2). Archived from the original on July 25, 2008. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  26. Masnick, Mike (August 25, 2008). "Turns Out Disney Might Not Own The Copyright On Early Mickey Mouse Cartoons". Techdirt. Retrieved May 28, 2020. Disney warned him that publishing his research could be seen as "slander of title" suggesting that he was inviting a lawsuit. He still published and Disney did not sue, but it shows the level of hardball the company is willing to play.
  27. Mint, Perth (November 27, 2014). "DISNEY - STEAMBOAT WILLIE 2015 1 KILO GOLD PROOF COIN". Pert Mint. Archived from the original on November 28, 2014. Retrieved November 27, 2014.
  28. "Introducing LEGO® Ideas 21317 Steamboat Willie". March 18, 2019. Retrieved March 21, 2019.
  29. "Complete National Film Registry Listing | Film Registry | National Film Preservation Board | Programs at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
  30. "Hooray for Hollywood (December 1998) - Library of Congress Information Bulletin". www.loc.gov. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
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