I am very disturbed what has happened to Mickey. Now there's a horror movie, called Mickey's Mouse Trap.

This horror movie looks really good, and it's an interesting way of using Mickey's first drawing.

Never a horror movie fan, but I hope you all see it. I'm curious how all the cartoon kids on here will feel when it's released.

Here's my blogpost on the whole ordeal:
https://thegoldenageofan...ws-for-mickey-mouse.html 

Honestly, the fact that Mickey's design is in the public domain seems to me to be a fair return, especially when you consider all the dirty tricks Walt used to prevent his competitors from using Mickey's design. Disney even went so far as to sue the Van Beuren studio because they used a similar Mickey character in two of their cartoons, and Walt also sent numerous threatening letters to Rudolf Ising asking him to remove the main character of his Merries Melodies, Foxy, on the grounds that he resembled Mickey.
Charles Mintz also used a Minnie clone in some of his Krazy Kat cartoons, a clone that was mysteriously replaced by a dog with no apparent explanation.

In any case, it's great news that any artist can now freely use Mickey's first design without risking lawsuits and threats from Disney Studios.

So, I guess Walt was supposed to be okay with ripoffs? Interesting do-as-I-say logic.

He could very well have accepted the rip-offs yes, frankly, I don't see what the problem is with other animators trying to design their own version of Mickey. Myself, if I created a cartoon character and another animator plagiarized it and put it in his or her own cartoon, I would feel very honored because it would show that the animator appreciated my work.

Unfortunately, Walt Disney had a businessman's logic: he thought that Mickey's rip-offs made him lose money, and it was this way of thinking that led him to harass his competitors to prevent them from using their own version of Mickey, even if it meant using dirty methods.

Walt also sent numerous threatening letters to Rudolf Ising asking him to remove the main character of his Merries Melodies, Foxy, on the grounds that he resembled Mickey.

Where'd you hear about this? I knew Walt had told Rudy to stop using the character of Foxy for legal reasons, but I'm not familiar with the "threatening letter" aspect to the tale.

As nickramer noted to me, I did indeed confuse this event with the trial episode between Van Beuren and Disney, sorry for the confusion.

He could very well have accepted the rip-offs yes, frankly, I don't see what the problem is with other animators trying to design their own version of Mickey. Myself, if I created a cartoon character and another animator plagiarized it and put it in his or her own cartoon, I would feel very honored because it would show that the animator appreciated my work.

Unfortunately, Walt Disney had a businessman's logic: he thought that Mickey's rip-offs made him lose money, and it was this way of thinking that led him to harass his competitors to prevent them from using their own version of Mickey, even if it meant using dirty methods.

You need to remember that Walt Disney did not have a lot of control over how his characters and cartoons were utilized and distributed prior to Mickey Mouse. The Alice Comedies and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons were work-for-hire affairs (this is why saying Oswald was “stolen” from Walt is somewhat misleading; Walt never had the rights to the character to begin with).

Universal could (and did) produce new Oswald cartoons without his involvement or approval. Similarly, the companies that purchased the Alice Comedies could reissue them to theaters, the home movie market, etc. without Walt’s approval.

Pretty sure the whole Oswald debacle made Walt Disney a lot more cautious and protective of his properties, hence his responses to Van Beuren and Rudolf Ising.

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Mintz cutting Disney from Oswald is a far more interesting case when you take a look at the timeline. Let’s quickly look at the series Winkler initially distributed

Felix and Inkwell, 1921: Margaret Winkler picked up both series after Sullivan and Fleischer needed a new distributor for different reasons (Paramount ended their magazine after briefly making it an all cartoon series, Fleischer left Bray to start his own studio). Both had created their own characters beforehand and retained the rights. In 1923-24, Fleischer decided to become his own distributor and formed RED SEAL, taking Inkwell with him. This left Winkler in need for a new novelty cartoon series, so it was good timing for her to see Disney’s ALICE pilot, and she picked up an Alice series. Meanwhile, by 1923 Sullivan and Winkler had issues getting along and by 1925 he signed with Educational, retaining Felix. Winkler immediately hired away Bill Nolan to begin work on a new Krazy Kat series. Sadly, for Winkler/Mintz, Alice and Krazy never reached the heights of the other series, and their departure seemingly taught a lesson to both; control your series and characters

Now, in 1926, Mintz was taking the cartoons to bigger heights, signing with FBO for wider distribution, and was already making arrangements to move Krazy the following season to Paramount, and start a new series with Disney under Universal. At Krazy, in order to better meet deadlines, Bill Nolan had been subcontracting a few to John Terry, and soon Mintz would do the same with slick talkers Ben Harrison and Manny Gould for six Krazies. Their cartoons undercut Nolan, apparently at 900 dollar budgets (I think only about 15K today!) which gave Mintz the idea to give the Krazy to them instead, which happened in spring 1927. This was the other big thing, budgets. Alice and Krazy had smaller budgets than Koko and Felix, and now Krazy’s budget was even smaller, but since the cartoons still delighted the audiences that cared, it didn’t matter.

I’m surprised with this history in mind, Disney didn’t see he was next, that the Oswald contract was be taken elsewhere to be produced on lower budgets while still as entertaining. If Walt did, I don’t think he expected the new animators to be his own animators. Oswald was the first big thing to happen to Winkler since their initial cartoons, so it is very understandable why Mintz would want to ensure that the Oswalds could be produced without issues relating to the team’s ambition, somewhat squashed during the 28-29 season. And who would care, Walt, Ub, weren’t big names in this period. So, out Walt went

Mintz kinda got what he deserved for undercutting Disney and Nolan. Besides Universal deciding to undercut Mintz by producing the Oswalds in house, Paramount didn’t give the Inkwell Imps and Krazy Kats a lot of marketing or attention, which definitely bugged Winkler Productions, who built their series on advertising. Trade pieces imply Mintz almost didn’t sign the 1928-29 contract with Paramount. Beyond this, the cartoons Paramount distributed should’ve been making half the product, both series suffering having to make 26 cartoons per season and lost their ambition, in which that tight $900 budget most definitely hurt the Krazies more than the Imps

Mintz cutting Disney from Oswald is a far more interesting case when you take a look at the timeline. Let’s quickly look at the series Winkler initially distributed

Felix and Inkwell, 1921: Margaret Winkler picked up both series after Sullivan and Fleischer needed a new distributor for different reasons (Paramount ended their magazine after briefly making it an all cartoon series, Fleischer left Bray to start his own studio). Both had created their own characters beforehand and retained the rights. In 1923-24, Fleischer decided to become his own distributor and formed RED SEAL, taking Inkwell with him. This left Winkler in need for a new novelty cartoon series, so it was good timing for her to see Disney’s ALICE pilot, and she picked up an Alice series. Meanwhile, by 1923 Sullivan and Winkler had issues getting along and by 1925 he signed with Educational, retaining Felix. Winkler immediately hired away Bill Nolan to begin work on a new Krazy Kat series. Sadly, for Winkler/Mintz, Alice and Krazy never reached the heights of the other series, and their departure seemingly taught a lesson to both; control your series and characters

Now, in 1926, Mintz was taking the cartoons to bigger heights, signing with FBO for wider distribution, and was already making arrangements to move Krazy the following season to Paramount, and start a new series with Disney under Universal. At Krazy, in order to better meet deadlines, Bill Nolan had been subcontracting a few to John Terry, and soon Mintz would do the same with slick talkers Ben Harrison and Manny Gould for six Krazies. Their cartoons undercut Nolan, apparently at 900 dollar budgets (I think only about 15K today!) which gave Mintz the idea to give the Krazy to them instead, which happened in spring 1927. This was the other big thing, budgets. Alice and Krazy had smaller budgets than Koko and Felix, and now Krazy’s budget was even smaller, but since the cartoons still delighted the audiences that cared, it didn’t matter.

I’m surprised with this history in mind, Disney didn’t see he was next, that the Oswald contract was be taken elsewhere to be produced on lower budgets while still as entertaining. If Walt did, I don’t think he expected the new animators to be his own animators. Oswald was the first big thing to happen to Winkler since their initial cartoons, so it is very understandable why Mintz would want to ensure that the Oswalds could be produced without issues relating to the team’s ambition, somewhat squashed during the 28-29 season. And who would care, Walt, Ub, weren’t big names in this period. So, out Walt went

Mintz kinda got what he deserved for undercutting Disney and Nolan. Besides Universal deciding to undercut Mintz by producing the Oswalds in house, Paramount didn’t give the Inkwell Imps and Krazy Kats a lot of marketing or attention, which definitely bugged Winkler Productions, who built their series on advertising. Trade pieces imply Mintz almost didn’t sign the 1928-29 contract with Paramount. Beyond this, the cartoons Paramount distributed should’ve been making half the product, both series suffering having to make 26 cartoons per season and lost their ambition, in which that tight $900 budget most definitely hurt the Krazies more than the Imps

I agree about Mintz getting his comeuppance, but at the same time I think he has been obervillified, since it was his character, and even though its left as a mystery, Diz may have been doing something to upset the balance, even though he's polite in the telegrams. Probably Harman was feeding Mintz full of supposed horror stories. As much as I love Diz and his work, he has qualities that could be irritating, such as his mind games to make himself "king". Nobody's perfect, even cartoon's greatest genius.

What do you think?

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What do you think?

For one (this goes for a few people on the forum recently), it would be much easier for me to respond if people were to trim their quotes when they reply on this forum except for the primary points. It only takes a minute, but that's not what I was asked

As for what you think happened, it sounds wrong for a multitude of reasons. Mintz was always at edge with young Walter, who was an ambitious nobody who wanted more money to make better cartoons, which was the opposite trend at the time and in Mintz's head (re: Harrison-Gould Krazies). Sometime during 1925, Mintz sent Margaret's brother George Winkler to better supervise the studio on his behalf (I think Disney also had him head ink and paint). This helps clear up the picture some people paint of Mintz; true, he was a businessman interested in cutting costs, but was well liked by the animators at Harrison-Gould, perhaps because they followed him more. George Winkler, by all accounts, seems to of actually been the character people think Mintz was, a nasty man who didn't care about art but rather about business and getting the work out

How does this apply to Oswald? Well, the shorts became Disney's very success, and the success got bigger and bigger by each short usually improving over the last. Evidently, George Winkler was paying attention to these improvements and the tension building over Walt beginning to build his studio like it would become in its prime; where Walt made all the shots and everyone listened to him. Since most of these guys had been good friends, its understandable why they weren't happy with this. I am NOT saying this with certainty, but its possible George saw this developing and noticed the opportunity to cut Disney out of the picture while having talented staff produce the cartoons on trimmed budgets in a way that could see the success continue, and began signing the animators for Mintz after proposing his idea. I doubt Harman fed "horror stories", thats a very out of character thought for the man he was, and a story that belongs more so in WILD MINDS. Walt's kindness in the telegraphs is highly respectable as he maintains professionalism needed to keep decent relations without losing everything by saying something too fowl. Walt was a very "in the middle" guy, someone who did as much good as bad, and this creates a very hard to look at him today as we consider a lot about him to get to this point

But I still need to repeat, why would Mintz want to get rid of Disney? As I've stated before, nobody really knew or thought Disney would be a big name and had ambition and habits that bothered others, which again can be seen good or bad, like spending more than he made to create better cartoons, or trying to get everyone to listen to his orders only to make the cartoons he wanted. Walt hadn't created animated movies, won Oscars, produced a cartoon that dictated an appealing way to use sound with animation, or even created the Mouse, so its easy to see why people would doubt him. Its understandable why the animators would leave, but it seems they regretted this right away and wished they'd stay with Disney or went on their own directly; most of the animators NEVER discussed the days at Winkler Studios out of embarrassment it seems, making research on the inner workings very difficult. That said, it can be seen from trade reviews and surviving examples that the team still had ambition and found ways to express it through the tighten budgets (still not as bad as Krazy), and were able to keep Oswald's momentum through the 1928-29 season

I hope this is easy to read and clears what I think happened with context to the inner thoughts of the time

Honestly, I still consider Walt to be Mickey's CO-CREATOR with Ub Iwerks, but that my two cents.

@S.C. MacPeter I always wondered why Mintz pried about creativity but by the time he got his own studio he was more on a par with Max Fleischer and Fred Quimby in the sense that he didn't care.

I think I. Klein said he made them watch that Color Classic about the swans and told them to imitate it.

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Nic, I would've brought up Ub but his involvement with Mintz cutting Disney off the Oswald contract isn't much to be said beyond loyalty (and respect for telling Walt when it began to unfold), I didn't. Ub is definitely one of Mickey's father, but after the first 9 or so Mickeys, his role is actually minimal, where he usually only animated non-Mickey scenes after WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY, focusing on other characters and directing the earliest Silly Symphonies. He's important as a father to Mickey at the start, but there are other artists at Disney who did a lot for him that deserve the credit as much as Iwerks, (especially Fred Moore, Fyold Gottfredson). Iwerks wasn't a creative genius but a technical one, who could do good cartoons when working with creative likeminds like Disney and Carl Stalling. I would've written this on the recent Flip thread, but that one went too off topic when people used it as a way to give their unneeded opinions on the Iwerks cartoons without contributing anything especially important

So, I guess Walt was supposed to be okay with ripoffs? Interesting do-as-I-say logic.

Julius the cat who appears in Alice Comedies is a Felix-style scam, and yet Pat Sullivan has never tried anything against Disney.

How can you explain that?

Bonny, if you want to get along with people here and be a good contributor, you shouldn't write in an accusatory tone. To keep it blunt, Felix's popularity lead to animation forming into what it is today; someone creates something popular and everybody follows them up. But Felix wasn't the only popular cat in the Paramount Magazine lineup; Bud and Susie also had a similar cat. And by the time Felix was with Winkler, Fables also had similar cats in their cartoons. It just wasn't worth the time. When Mickey came along, Disney cared that everyone else following him didn't have characters that looked like Mickey, which is why he went after Van Beuren when they redesigned Milton and Rita to look more like the Disney characters who had initially ripped off them, and asking Rudy politely to stop using Foxy (a little hypocritical given how harsh he was with VB, but he was making a show out of them and since they did cause audience confusion more than the rest). Today, we can still see that when somebody creates a cartoon that is popular, everyone wants a piece of the pie. The most recent case to my mind is Adventure Time where the networks then wanted more shows in that vein

Nic, I would've brought up Ub but his involvement with Mintz cutting Disney off the Oswald contract isn't much to be said beyond loyalty (and respect for telling Walt when it began to unfold), I didn't. Ub is definitely one of Mickey's father, but after the first 9 or so Mickeys, his role is actually minimal, where he usually only animated non-Mickey scenes after WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY, focusing on other characters and directing the earliest Silly Symphonies. He's important as a father to Mickey at the start, but there are other artists at Disney who did a lot for him that deserve the credit as much as Iwerks, (especially Fred Moore, Fyold Gottfredson). Iwerks wasn't a creative genius but a technical one, who could do good cartoons when working with creative likeminds like Disney and Carl Stalling. I would've written this on the recent Flip thread, but that one went too off topic when people used it as a way to give their unneeded opinions on the Iwerks cartoons without contributing anything especially important

You forgot to mention that Ub Iwerks continued to do layouts on Mickey's cartoons which helped the other animators considerably, plus Iwerks was also the first cartoonist to work on Mickey's comics.

In any case, Ub Iwerks' role is clearly not comparable to Fred Moore's. Iwerks is a genius who had a decisive influence on the history of animation, but what role did Fred Moore play other than redesigning Mickey Mouse (which is totally awful, by the way)?

I would have liked to have been able to develop my opinion in more detail on the subject on Flip, but unfortunately, as you can see, it was blocked, which is a real shame.

Bonny, if you want to get along with people here and be a good contributor, you shouldn't write in an accusatory tone. To keep it blunt, Felix's popularity lead to animation forming into what it is today; someone creates something popular and everybody follows them up. But Felix wasn't the only popular cat in the Paramount Magazine lineup; Bud and Susie also had a similar cat. And by the time Felix was with Winkler, Fables also had similar cats in their cartoons. It just wasn't worth the time. When Mickey came along, Disney cared that everyone else following him didn't have characters that looked like Mickey, which is why he went after Van Beuren when they redesigned Milton and Rita to look more like the Disney characters who had initially ripped off them, and asking Rudy politely to stop using Foxy (a little hypocritical given how harsh he was with VB, but he was making a show out of them and since they did cause audience confusion more than the rest). Today, we can still see that when somebody creates a cartoon that is popular, everyone wants a piece of the pie. The most recent case to my mind is Adventure Time where the networks then wanted more shows in that vein

I am sincerely sorry, I let my emotions get the better of my mind and this detracted from the discussion, I should have first asked ArcLordOne for an explanation rather than directly accusing him of slander, but I was shocked by his accusations as I never sought to denigrate Walt Disney and his cartoons, something you can see for yourself by searching the history.

Julius the cat who appears in Alice Comedies is a Felix-style scam, and yet Pat Sullivan has never tried anything against Disney.

How can you explain that?

During the silent era Paul Terry not only used a Felix lookalike, he even named the cat Felix! He got in trouble with Pat Sullivan, and in addition to changing the cat's name to Henry, he also changed the character design to make him fatter.

When Mickey came along, Disney cared that everyone else following him didn't have characters that looked like Mickey, which is why he went after Van Beuren when they redesigned Milton and Rita to look more like the Disney characters who had initially ripped off them, and asking Rudy politely to stop using Foxy (a little hypocritical given how harsh he was with VB, but he was making a show out of them and since they did cause audience confusion more than the rest).

I'm surprised that Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising didn't get in trouble over "Granpappy" in "It's Got Me Again", especially since it looks like he has gout. (Maybe because "Granpappy" was in only one cartoon.) And look at all of the Mickey-like mice that Bosko tormented, especially the one that gets decapitated by a saw in "Hold Anything".

Today, we can still see that when somebody creates a cartoon that is popular, everyone wants a piece of the pie. The most recent case to my mind is Adventure Time where the networks then wanted more shows in that vein

Tom and Jerry led to Herman and Katnip at Famous Studios, Little Roquefort at Terrytoons, and even Speedy Gonzales at WB. (Though McKimson sometimes used other species as an adversary for Speedy.)

And look at how many Scooby Doo imitations there were in the 1970's, though most of them were made by Hanna-Barbera trying to make lightning strike twice. Fangface was made by the Ruby-Spears studio but of course Joe Ruby and Ken Spears were the creators of Scooby Doo (and his mystery-solving friends).

Bonny, if you want to get along with people here and be a good contributor, you shouldn't write in an accusatory tone. To keep it blunt, Felix's popularity lead to animation forming into what it is today; someone creates something popular and everybody follows them up. But Felix wasn't the only popular cat in the Paramount Magazine lineup; Bud and Susie also had a similar cat. And by the time Felix was with Winkler, Fables also had similar cats in their cartoons. It just wasn't worth the time. When Mickey came along, Disney cared that everyone else following him didn't have characters that looked like Mickey, which is why he went after Van Beuren when they redesigned Milton and Rita to look more like the Disney characters who had initially ripped off them, and asking Rudy politely to stop using Foxy (a little hypocritical given how harsh he was with VB, but he was making a show out of them and since they did cause audience confusion more than the rest). Today, we can still see that when somebody creates a cartoon that is popular, everyone wants a piece of the pie. The most recent case to my mind is Adventure Time where the networks then wanted more shows in that vein

I am sincerely sorry, I let my emotions get the better of my mind and this detracted from the discussion, I should have first asked ArcLordOne for an explanation rather than directly accusing him of slander, but I was shocked by his accusations as I never sought to denigrate Walt Disney and his cartoons, something you can see for yourself by searching the history.

???

I accept your apology, but I was not addressing you, I thought.

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???

I accept your apology, but I was not addressing you, I thought.

Again, I'm sorry, as you quoted my post, I thought you were addressing me.

If PopCornKat will unblock my topic on Flip, I will permanently delete my message to avoid any misunderstanding.

Again, I'm sorry, as you quoted my post, I thought you were addressing me.

If PopCornKat will unblock my topic on Flip, I will permanently delete my message to avoid any misunderstanding.

The topic was already heading towards an argumentative tone in the past, which is why I locked it. However, given that several folks have enjoyed contributing to that topic, I will be willing to unlock it provided that everyone in the thread remains civil and refrains from personal insults.

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The topic was already heading towards an argumentative tone in the past, which is why I locked it. However, given that several folks have enjoyed contributing to that topic, I will be willing to unlock it provided that everyone in the thread remains civil and refrains from personal insults.

I'm glad to see that you're willing to give this topic another chance, because it would be a real shame if it got stuck because of me. It's important to allow everyone to express themselves and share their points of view and I'm sure that if we all remain civil and respectful, we can have constructive and enriching discussions.

Getting back on topic.

During the silent era Paul Terry not only used a Felix lookalike, he even named the cat Felix! He got in trouble with Pat Sullivan, and in addition to changing the cat's name to Henry, he also changed the character design to make him fatter.

This is pretty interesting information, do you know if Sullivan sued Terry over this?