| Oswald the Lucky Rabbit | |
|---|---|
An Oswald the Lucky Rabbit movie poster from 1928 |
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| First appearance | Trolley Troubles (1927) |
| Created by | Walt Disney, Ub Iwerks |
| Voiced by | Bill Nolan (1929) Pinto Colvig (1930–1931) Mickey Rooney (1931–1932) Various (1932–1938) June Foray (1943) Frank Welker (Epic Mickey) |
| Relatives | Floyd and Lloyd (original sons until Disney brought him back), Mickey Mouse (brother), Ortensia the Cat (girlfriend), The Bunny Children (children) |
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (also known as Oswald the Rabbit or Oswald Rabbit) is an anthropomorphic rabbit and animated cartoon character created by Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney for films distributed by Universal Pictures in the 1920s and 1930s. The majority rights to the character are currently held by The Walt Disney Company, with exceptions of Winkler and Walter Lantz cartoons that starred Oswald, which are owned by Universal. Oswald is the main protagonist of the cartoon series.
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Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was introduced in 1927 after Disney's series of Alice Comedies had run its course. Disney signed a new contract with Universal Studios head Carl Laemmle where he would produce a series of cartoons for Charles Mintz and George Winkler. The first Oswald cartoon, Poor Papa, was rejected by the Universal studio heads due to poor production quality and the sloppiness and age of Oswald. After this, Disney, together with Ub Iwerks, created a second cartoon called Trolly Troubles featuring a much younger, neater Oswald. The short officially launched the series and proved to be Disney's greatest success yet. Poor Papa was finally released a year later.[1]
"Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" became Disney Brothers' first major hit in 1927. But within a year, Walt was outmaneuvered by his distributor (Universal) which hired away most of Disney's animators in a bid to shut Disney out of the Oswald franchise. Walt initially thought he could continue making Oswald shorts with new animators and a new distributor, but after reading the fine print of his contract, was devastated to learn that Universal owned the copyrights.[2]
Upon finishing the remaining Oswald cartoons, Disney and Iwerks created another character who would become The Walt Disney Company's lasting symbol: Mickey Mouse (a slightly altered Oswald the Rabbit to avoid litigation), the most famous of Walt Disney's characters.
Mintz, meanwhile, opened his own studio consisting primarily of former Disney employees, where he continued to produce Oswald cartoons, among them the first Oswald with sound, Hen Fruit (1929). While things were going in Mintz's favor, animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising asked Laemmle to remove Mintz, suggesting they would be the ones to continue the Oswald series. But Laemmle denied their requests and even terminated Mintz's contract, opting to have the Oswald cartoons produced right on the Universal lot instead.[3]
By a coincidence, Disney and Mintz each produced nine cartoons the first year and 17 the next before Oswald was taken over by others. Laemmle selected Walter Lantz to produce the new series of Oswald shorts (the first of which was 1929's Race Riot). Lantz consulted Disney about Oswald and he gave Lantz his blessing to continue the Oswald series as the Mickey Mouse shorts had become more successful so the two became close friends.[4]
Over the next decade, Lantz would produce 142 Oswald cartoons, making for a grand total of 194 films that the character starred in, spanning the work of all three producers. After Lantz took over production in 1929, the character's look was changed to some degree over the following years: Oswald got white gloves on his hands, shoes on his feet, a shirt, a "cuter" face with larger eyes, a bigger head, and shorter ears (pictured left). With 1935's Case of the Lost Sheep, an even more major makeover took place: the character was drawn more realistically now, with white fur rather than black, shoes are removed, plus wearing suspenders instead of a shirt and shorts. This new Oswald model was adapted directly from a non-Oswald bunny in another Lantz cartoon: the two-strip Technicolor Fox and the Rabbit (1935), released some two months earlier as the last of the early Cartune Classics series.
The cartoons containing the new, white-furred Oswald seemed to be different from their predecessors in more than one way, as the stories themselves became softer. Minor changes in the drawing style would continue, too. With Happy Scouts (1938), the second-to-last Oswald film produced, the rabbit's fur went from being all-white to a combination of white and gray.
Unlike the Disney shorts, in which Oswald did not speak, Lantz's cartoons began to feature actual dialogue for Oswald, although most of the cartoons were still silent to begin with. Animator Bill Nolan did the voice of Oswald in Cold Turkey, the first Lantz cartoon with dialogue, and the following year Pinto Colvig, who was working as an animator and gag man at the studio, started voicing Oswald. When Colvig left the studio in 1931, Mickey Rooney took over the voicing of Oswald until early in the following year. Starting in 1932, Lantz ceased to use a regular voice actor for Oswald, and many studio staff members (including Lantz himself) would take turns in voicing the character over the years. June Foray provided Oswald's voice in The Egg Cracker Suite, which was the final theatrical short to feature the character.
Oswald made a cameo appearance in the first animated sequence with both sound and color (two-strip Technicolor), a 2½ minute animated sequence of the live action movie The King of Jazz (1930), produced by Laemmle for Universal. However, it was not until 1934 that Oswald got his own color sound cartoons in two-strip Technicolor, Toyland Premiere and Springtime Serenade. The Oswald cartoons then returned to black-and-white, except for the last one, The Egg Cracker Suite (1943), released as a part of the Swing Symphonies series. Egg Cracker was also the only Oswald cartoon to use three-strip Technicolor. But before he was permanently retired, Oswald made a final cameo appearance in The Woody Woodpecker Polka (1951), also in three-strip Technicolor, which by then had become the rule in the cartoon industry.
In February 2006, a number of minor assets including the rights to Oswald were acquired by The Walt Disney Company from NBC Universal as part of a deal that sent sportscaster Al Michaels from Disney's ABC and ESPN to NBC Sports. At the time, ABC had lost its contract for NFL broadcast rights, and despite recently signing a long-term contract with ESPN, Michaels was interested in rejoining broadcast partner John Madden at NBC for the Sunday night package. Universal transferred the copyright in a cartoon character to Disney, and in exchange, Disney released Michaels from his employment contract, allowing him to sign with NBC.
The deal includes the rights to the character and the original 26 short films made by Disney (namely, most of the Oswald films produced from 1927 to 1928). Rights to the Lantz/Universal-produced Oswald films and other related products were not included, and therefore Oswald appears in both Disney releases and in Universal's Woody Woodpecker and Friends collection.
Walt Disney's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, issued the following statement after the deal was announced:
| “ | When Bob [Iger] was named CEO, he told me he wanted to bring Oswald back to Disney, and I appreciate that he is a man of his word. Having Oswald around again is going to be a lot of fun.[5] | ” |
Around the same time, the Kansas City Chiefs and New York Jets made a similar deal, the Chiefs giving the Jets a draft pick as compensation for releasing coach Herm Edwards from his contract. Referring to this trade, Michaels said:
| “ | Oswald is definitely worth more than a fourth-round draft choice. I'm going to be a trivia answer someday.[6] | ” |
In January 2007, a T-shirt line from Comme de Garçon seems to have constituted the first new Disney Oswald merchandise. Following in December was a two-disc DVD set, The Adventures of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, included in Wave Seven of the Walt Disney Treasures series. Several Oswald collectors' figurines and a stuffed animal appeared shortly after the DVD set's release. The Disney Store has also begun to introduce Oswald into its merchandise lines, starting with a canvas print and Christmas ornament that became available Fall 2007. A limited edition grayscale plush toy was sold at Christmas 2007; a standard-issue color plush toy appeared in late 2010.
Though the character Oswald showed up at the parks in Florida and California on the day Disney reacquired him, Oswald is not currently a character in the parks to meet and greet, like so many others are. Disney officials stated that he probably would be someday; they did not want to just haphazardly add him. When the character's future is determined, they are planning a big splash.[5]
In 2010, Tokyo Disneyland produced a float featuring Oswald for their first Easter holiday event.[7]
In 2011, he appeared with other old Disney characters on the Construction walls for the Disney California Adventure Park new entrance.[8]
In 2011, he appeared on a poster as a magician's rabbit in Town Square Theater in Magic Kingdom park.[9]
In 2011, he appears on various items of clothing available for purchase at Disneyland Paris, in the shops on Main Street USA.
Oswald made his first comic book appearance in 1935, when DC Comics featured him in the series New Fun (later More Fun). His adventures, drawn by Al Stahl, were serialized one page to an issue for the magazine's first year, after which they ceased. The original black-furred version of Oswald was featured, even though Oswald was by this time a white rabbit on screen.
Oswald's second run in the comics began in 1942, when a new Oswald feature was initiated in Dell Comics' New Funnies, this time modeled after the latest cartoon version of Oswald and influenced by the drawing style of other Lantz comic book characters at the time. Following the typical development seen in most new comics, the New Funnies stories slowly morphed the character in their own direction.
At the start of the New Funnies feature, Oswald existed in a milieu reminiscent of Winnie the Pooh: he was portrayed as a live stuffed animal, living in a forest together with other anthropomorphized toys. These included Toby Bear, Maggie Lou the wooden doll, Hi-Yah Wahoo the turtle-faced Indian, and Woody Woodpecker—depicted as a mechanical doll filled with nuts and bolts (hence his "nutty" behavior). In 1944, with the addition of writer John Stanley, the stuffed animal motif was dropped, as were Maggie Lou, Woody, and Wahoo. Oswald and Toby became flesh and blood characters living as roommates in "Lantzville". Initially drawn by Dan Gormley, the series was later drawn by the likes of Dan Noonan and Lloyd White.
In 1948, Toby adopted two orphan rabbits for Oswald to raise. Floyd and Lloyd, "Poppa Oswald's" new sons, stuck around; Toby was relegated to the sidelines, disappearing for good in 1953. Later stories focused on Oswald adventuring with his sons, seeking odd jobs, or simply protecting the boys from the likes of rabbit-eating Reddy Fox and (from 1961) con man Gabby Gator—a character adapted from contemporary Woody Woodpecker cartoon shorts. This era of Oswald comics typically featured the art of Jack Bradbury, known also for his Mickey Mouse work.
Post-1960s Oswald comics tended to be produced outside the United States, for example in Mexico and Italy. Through the end of the 20th century, the foreign comics carried on the look and story style of the Dell Oswald stories. More recently, they featured a "retro" attempt at recreating the original Disney Oswald.
A 1995 Bonkers comic story in Disney Adventures ("Temple of Doom" in the March and April 1995 issues) had Bonkers and Lucky Piquel, in their quest to save the fabled Toonstone, meet its keeper, Nimrod the Rabbit. This character is designed looking very similar to Oswald, and also resembles how Oswald would have looked if he had gone through a redesign similar to that of Mickey's. Especially with adding pupils in the black dot eye, the same with Mickey Mouse when Fantasia was made in the late 1930s.[10]
In 2010, Oswald starred in the digi-comic series Epic Mickey: Tales of the Wasteland, a prequel to the Epic Mickey video game, telling about what the Wasteland was like before Mickey arrived there.
Not long before Disney reacquired Oswald, Universal was marketing the character actively overseas. In 2004 and 2005, Oswald products were popular in Japan, and were primarily made available as prizes in UFO catchers. Typically manufactured by Taito and/or Medicom, these products included puppets, inflatable dolls, keyrings, and watches. They were generally based on a navy-blue version of the original Disney/Iwerks character.[11] Oswald made his first Disneyland appearance at Tokyo Disneyland on March 31, 2010 as an Easter float.[12]
Oswald plays the role of one of the central protagonists, in the Wii video game Epic Mickey, which was released in 2010. The world of Epic Mickey is called "Wasteland"[13] and it is similar to Walt Disney World,[14] but it is for forgotten Disney characters, including Oswald[14] who rules the place.[13] Actually, Oswald fashioned it after Disneyland, but he put images of himself in the place of Mickey in the statue with Walt Disney and other places throughout the town.[15] Oswald was the first cartoon character to be "forgotten" and inhabit Wasteland.[15] Oswald dislikes Mickey for stealing his popularity that he felt he deserved.[16] Oswald tries to make Wasteland a better place for forgotten characters, especially his "bunny children" and his wife Ortensia.[16] The Blot, the main villain of the game, put Oswald's wife in suspended animation by soaking her in thinner.[17] At the end of Epic Mickey, Oswald's girlfriend "Ortensia" is revived by a rain of paint caused by the death of the Blot, Oswald and Ortensia kiss and cuddle. Both Mickey and Oswald have also reconciled becoming more like true friends.[18] And it has been confirmed that Epic Mickey(Epic Mickey 2) will have a sequel in which Oswald will also be playable.
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