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 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. Plot: 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. 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.

Production: The cartoon was written and directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The title is a parody of the Buster Keaton film, Steamboat Bill Jr. Music for Steamboat Willie was put together by Wilfred Jackson, one of Disney's animators — not, as sometimes reported, by Carl Stalling — and comprises popular melodies including Steamboat Bill and Turkey in the Straw.

Trivia:


 * Though "Steamboat Willie" was the first cartoon in Mickey's lineup to be released, two cartoons "Plane Crazy" and "The Gallopin' Gaucho" were produced before but released after this cartoon.
 * Steamboat Willie is generally considered to be the first popular cartoon with synchronized sound, along with being the very first Walt Disney Animation Studios short film to do so.
 * Contrary to belief, it was not the first cartoon in history to feature synchronized sound (there was Paul Terry's Dinner Time and the Fleischer Brothers' Koko Song Car-Tunes before that), nor was it Disney's first produced cartoon.
 * The title is a parody of the Buster Keaton film, Steamboat Bill, Jr., also released in 1928.
 * The film's original release date, November 18, 1928, was later declared as Mickey's official birthday in the early 1970s.
 * In The Simpsons episode, "Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie", the fictional TV characters, Itchy and Scratchy pay tribute to Steamboat Willie by mimicking the signature pose in a monochrome format. Ironically, the director of that episode is Rich Moore: a director at Walt Disney Animation Studios best known for directing Wreck-It Ralph and Zootopia.