Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
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Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was an animated cartoon character who starred in a series of cartoon motion pictures of 1920s and 1930s released by Universal Studios.
Oswald was first introduced in 1927 after Walt Disney's series of Alice Comedies had run its course. Disney wanted to go with something new and signing a new contract with Universal head Carl Laemmle to produce a series of cartoons under Charles B. Mintz and George Winkler seemed to be just the ticket. The first Oswald cartoon, "Poor Papa" was rejected by the Universal studio heads. After this, Disney, together with Ub Iwerks created a second cartoon called "Trolley Troubles". The short officially launched the series and proved to be Disney's greatest success yet. However, when Disney asked Mintz for an increase in the budget, Mintz instead offered a budget cut. Disney angrily refused and quit, taking Iwerks and a loyal apprentice artist, Les Clark, with him. Mintz, meanwhile, opened his own studio consisting primarily of former Disney employees. Dissatisfied with Mintz, Laemmle selected Walter Lantz to produce new cartoons using the character (the first of which was 1929's "Race Riot" — many sources erroneously list "Ozzie of the Circus" as the first). Over the next decade, Lantz would produce 140 Oswald cartoons, making for a grand total of 192 films that the character starred in over all three producers. The rabbit's last cartoon was "The Egg-Cracker Suite" (1943). Oswald made occasional reapperances as a character in other cartoons as late as 1951.
See also: Animation Before Hollywood: The Silent Period
External links
- Oswald on Toonopedia.com (http://www.toonopedia.com/oswald.htm)
- Of Rocks and Socks: The Winkler Oswalds (1928-29) (http://www.cartoonresearch.com/winkler/index.html) by David Gerstein and Pietro Shakarian
- The Walter Lantz Cartune Encyclopedia: Cartune Profiles: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (http://lantz.goldenagecartoons.com/profiles/oswald/index.html)