Western Animation / Steamboat Willie

The mouse that started it all.^note Well, not really, but he was certainly the mouse that made it big.

"By 1927-1928, audiences would groan when a cartoon came on. Animation had worn out its welcome. The novelty was gone. If sound hadn't come in, the cartoon would have vanished."

— Shamus Culhane on why Steamboat Willie was such an important film for animation

Steamboat Willie is a black-and-white Mickey Mouse short released on November 18, 1928, and is the cartoon that kicked off what we have come to know as The Golden Age of Animation. It is notable not for being the first Mickey Mouse cartoon (that honor goes to Plane Crazy^note though Steamboat Willie is the first to be distributed and released to the public. Plane Crazy would not be released to the public until a few months later in 1929), nor for being the first sound cartoon^note  Fleischer Studios' 1924 Song Car-Tune "Mother, Mother Pin A Rose On Me" holds that honor, and Paul Terry's 1928 short "Dinnertime" was released just a month before Willie hit the theaters, but for being the first cartoon with a completely post-produced soundtrack of music, dialogue, and sound effects. Namely, it was the first cartoon to get it right, bringing The Silent Age of Animation to an end.

The short itself begins with the iconic image of Mickey Mouse at the wheel of a steamboat, whistling to himself. The villain, Pete, the real captain of the ship, steps in and hassles Mickey for not doing his job. The steamboat docks to pick up a cargo of animals, and Minnie Mouse rushes to board the ship as it leaves the dock. Mickey manages to get her on board (by using a hook to pick her up by her panties no less), but an Extreme Omni-Goat eats her ukulele and her sheets of music. Somehow Mickey and Minnie are able to make the most of the situation by cranking the goat's tail, which causes it to play music. The ensuing scenes involve Mickey abusing animals in order to add to the music, by swinging a cat by its tail, choking a duck, pulling on the tails of baby pigs and then playing the mother pig's nipples. Black Comedy Animal Cruelty aside, this scene readily showed off what adding sound to cartoons could do. Pete gets angry at Mickey for slacking off again and forces him to peel potatoes. The short ends with Mickey throwing a potato at a parrot for laughing at him.

The short was revolutionary for its time, and its copyright status in the US was still up in the air for a long time — in 1998, Disney successfully lobbied the U.S. Congress to extend its copyright^note (which was originally set to expire in 2004 upon the short's 75th anniversary, plus a month and a half as copyrights always expire on January 1 of the following year) to 2024 (this is part of the reason that the Copyright Term Extension Act is occasionally derisively called the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act"), though by the original law it should have fallen into the public domain years ago. It may in fact have already been in the public domain during that time due to errors in the original copyright formulation, but no one wanted to challenge Disney's lawyers. As of January 1, 2024, the short, along with Mickey, Minnie and Pete as they appear in the short, are now definitively in the United States public domain.^note Before you get to making your own Mickey content, though, even though the copyright for this cartoon has expired, Disney hasn't lost complete control of their classic characters, as later versions of these characters are still copyrighted and trademarked. You are now able to use Steamboat Willie and Gallopin' Gaucho's version of Mickey, Minnie and Pete as much as you want, but not later versions of them still as they are under Disney's copyright. You also cannot use Mickey as a trademark as that would cause customer confusion, unless you want to get sued by Disney. Additionally, you can use the IMAGE of Mickey's unnamed (in the short) boss, but actually calling him "Pete" is... iffy. Pete himself dates back to 1925, but as a bear, not a cat. So Pete the BEAR is fair game. The cat character seen in Steamboat Willie wasn't retroactively declared to be Pete until 1930, leaving the whole thing a legal tangleweb. It should be noted that in several other countries, including Canada and Russia, the short has been in the public domain for several years. Predictably, an indie horror movie project is already on track to be made. A horror video game is in the works, and a First-Person Shooter game inspired from this short named Mouse is in development.

In 1998, 70 years after its debut, the short was chosen for preservation in the National Film Registry. It can be watched on Walt Disney Animation Studios' official YouTube channel here or on its Wikipedia article here.

---

Steamboat Willie provides examples of:

• Angrish: This is pretty much the only "dialogue" Pete gets when he first catches Mickey goofing off.
• Animate Inanimate Object: Steamboat whistles and hook show some anthropomorphic characteristics.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Downplayed on Pete's part, as he is last seen putting a dismayed Mickey to work peeling potatoes for the rest of the trip as punishment for slacking off on the job and mistreating the animals. But it is Mickey who gets the last laugh, both literally and figuratively, after knocking the parrot off the boat.
• Balloon Belly: In order to help a skinny cow properly fit her lift, Mickey proceeds to feed her a heap of hay large enough to round her out in just one gulp.
• Barefoot Cartoon Animal: It's unclear if Pete is this, or if he's just wearing black boots.
• Black Comedy Animal Cruelty: This is the most famous example in the early Mickey Mouse cartoons; it includes a sow played like an accordion, a cat having its tail pulled and then swung around, and a goose squeezed like a bagpipe. However, Pete himself isn't amused by this at all.
• Bootstrapped Leitmotif: The chorus to Steamboat Willie has naturally become a theme for Mickey, and by extension, Disney in general.
• Bowdlerise: Older VHS releases and TV airings of Steamboat Willie tended to edit out the scene where Mickey messes around with a sow and her nursing piglets, but modern releases like the Walt Disney Treasures line and Celebrating Mickey Blu-Ray reinstate the scene. The Redux version of the cartoon also edits out the pig scene.
• Compressed Adaptation: The Emoji retelling, due to only being a minute long, heavily steamlines the basic plot (what little there is anyway) and excises the entire ending.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Right after being ordered to get back to work, Mickey proceeds to blow a raspberry towards Pete. The captain is angry and attempts to kick Mickey, who freaks out a bit before dodging Pete's kick.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Mickey and Minnie don't have White Gloves in this short, though Mickey sports a pair in the title card.
• Everyone Has Standards: As grumpy as he can be, Pete has the right to be angry at Mickey, not only for slacking off at work, but also for mistreating the animals while playing along to "Turkey in the Straw".
• Everything Is an Instrument: When Mickey starts playing along to "Turkey in the Straw", he uses pots, pans and animals as an accompaniment.
• Extreme Omni-Goat: The goat eats sheet music and a ukulele, then is able to play music afterwards like a phonograph.
• Furry Confusion: Perhaps seeing a three-foot mouse swing a cat around by its tail is some form of twisted justice. Not to mention you have a non-anthropomorphic cat in the same cartoon as Pete.
• Iris Out: The short ends with a closing black circle.
• iSophagus: The goat, which becomes a living phonograph as a result of eating Minnie's sheet music and ukulele.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Captain Pete is presented as something of an antagonist, but he has done nothing villainous as he's rightfully angry at Mickey for goofing around on the job so much when there's work to be done. He even doesn't take it kindly after seeing that Mickey is abusing the animals just for music to impress Minnie.
• Kick the Dog: A rare example of someone doing this several times and still being the protagonist, with Mickey committing various acts of Black Comedy Animal Cruelty.
• Laser-Guided Karma: As obvious as a punishment for slacking off on the job and hurting several animals for amusement, Mickey is sentenced to peeling off potatoes for the rest of the trip, something which he himself is not happy with.
• Literal Ass-Kicking: Pete attempts to kick Mickey after the latter blew a raspberry at him, only to kick his own butt by accident. However, Pete's failed kick managed to get Mickey fall down the stairway and land his butt on a bucket of water.
• Mickey Mousing: The Trope Maker, though Ur-Examples do exist in some form; silent cartoons did have musical scores (which would have to be played by a piano player in the movie theater) and characters would often move to the beats, but not to the same extent.
• Mime and Music-Only Cartoon: Almost. The only speech comes from the parrot, but it's pretty hard to make out. The rest of the cartoon however is a picture perfect example.
• No Animals Were Harmed: It's not okay to abuse animals just so you can make music anymore. Granted, it wasn't exactly okay for Mickey either.
• Oh, Crap!: After Mickey finished his playing along with "Turkey in the Straw", he saw Pete was not happy at him, Mickey briefly looks at the audience before smiling nervously at the captain. The mouse tried to get away, but Pete punishes him by sentencing him to Peeling Potatoes.
• Peeling Potatoes: Mickey's punishment for slacking off so much is getting thrown in a room of potatoes.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis: The first scene where Mickey is seen steering the steamboat is far more famous than the rest of the cartoon.^note Perhaps most notably as the logo for Walt Disney Animation Studios. Most people know that Steamboat Willie launched Mickey Mouse as a superstar, but the amount of people who actually saw this cartoon from beginning to end is much lower.
• Prehensile Tail: Mickey uses it to pick up a hammer so he can use it to play a barrel like a drum and bang the trash can at the same time.
• Public Domain Animation: The short is in the public domain in the United States as of 2024.
• Public Domain Character: The first appearance of Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, and this version of Pete.^note He appeared much earlier in the Alice Comedies, albeit as a bear and not a cat. They are all still trademarked, though.
• Public Domain Soundtrack: The short begins with an arrangement of "Steamboat Bill", a popular song at the time that was written as a parody of murder ballads such as "The Ballad of Casey Jones". Later, Mickey and Minnie dance along to "Turkey in the Straw", which was chosen because it was the only song someone at the studio knew how to play on the harmonica.
• Rubber-Hose Limbs: As is typical of 1920s American cartoons.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Minnie has eyelashes and a flower in her hat.
• The Unintelligible: Due to the quality of the recording, it is hard to tell that the parrot is actually saying words. But thanks to extensive research, and listening very closely, he is actually saying, "Hope you don't feel hurt, big boy! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!", and when Mickey knocks the parrot into the water with a thrown potato, you can hear him say, "Help! Help! Man overboard!"
• Wedgie: Around 3½ minutes in, this is Mickey's chosen method to lift Minnie onto the boat, using the boat's hook to pull her up by the waistband of her underpants)
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Minnie isn't seen again after the concert ends, as she isn't seen receiving any comeuppance for helping Mickey slacking off on his job.

---