On January 1 one of Disney’s most famous animation characters entered the public domain, Steamboat Willie’s Mickey Mouse. The copyright contract ended after 95 years.

The film, Steamboat Willie, was first featured in was released on Nov. 18,

1928, and is known as Mickey Mouse’s debut in the animation department. 

Steamboat Willie may be looked upon as Mickey Mouse’s first appearance on screen but it technically was not. In May of 1928, Walt Disney held a test screening for his new short film starring a mouse. The short film was called “Plane Crazy” and featured a much meaner version of Mickey Mouse and his girlfriend, Minnie Mouse. This short film received negative feedback from the audience and movie distributors refused to show the film. At this time Walt Disney may have looked at this as a failure but animation historians look at it as a humble beginning.

After failing to distribute the short film, Walt Disney took some time to create a new version of Mickey Mouse. He was motivated to have his famous character be a mouse because of a tamed mouse he kept at his office in Kansas back in 1925. It took him and his team two months to create the animation however, he still needed to add sound.  He was determined to make the sound realistic because it was something so new at the time and he believed it would make the short film feel complete. So after two weeks of recording sound, the short film was ready. This was the first animation film to have synchronized sound and just like Disney had hoped, the movie was distributed to theaters.

 The success of this short film led to international fame for Walt Disney and the character, Mickey Mouse. This film is looked upon as one of the most significant films in animation history and is the standard that Walt Disney set for animation.

It may not have been in the public domain for long but developers are already finding ways to use Steamboat Willie’s Mickey Mouse in their productions. A movie in the horror genre, “Mickey’s Mouse Trap”, has already released a trailer for the upcoming film featuring a man disguised as Mickey Mouse going on a murderous rampage in a small town. Another product created with this version of Mickey Mouse is a video game also in the horror genre called “Infestation: Origins” which is set to release in late 2024.

Steamboat Willie’s Mickey Mouse may now be in the public domain but don’t expect him to be wearing red shorts because that version of Mickey Mouse is still copyrighted by Disney. Disney stated that they will be paying close attention to see if anyone uses any version of Mickey Mouse other than Steamboat Willie’s and are prepared to take legal action against anyone who does.

The character of Steamboat Willie’s Mickey Mouse will always be a historical and inspirational piece of animation to the world and that won’t change even though it is in the public domain.