Legendary Disney Character Returns for Company's 100th
The Walt Disney Company revived Oswald the Lucky Rabbit earlier this month ahead of the company's 100th-anniversary celebration in 2023. Oswald was created by Walt Disney in 1927 and appeared in cartoons released by Univeral Pictures. The new cartoon is the first Oswald short produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios in almost 95 years.
Simply titled Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, the minute-long short recreates many of the hilarious elements from the original silent cartoons. Oswald finds himself at a movie theater, where he sees the love of his life on the big screen. After he realizes that he cannot easily break into the screen, he does whatever he can to do so, even if that means turning his ears into scissors. (One of the more freaky common elements of silent cartoons was characters using detachable body parts!)
The short was directed by Eric Goldberg, who is best known for his work on Aladdin, Pocahontas, Fantasia 200, and the recent Goofy shorts. Dorothy McKim produced the short, which was released to YouTube on Dec. 1. Unfortunately, the new short has not been added to Disney+ yet.
"Oswald is such a plucky scamp. We wanted to bring Oswald back, and in the short, he literally returns to his original home, the movie screen," Goldberg said in a statement to Variety. "We wanted to have Oswald do all of the 'squash-and-stretch,' 'rubber hose'-animation style, celebrating that first generation of Walt Disney's artists."
"On the eve of Disney's 100th anniversary, it was such a joy to create the first new Oswald short from our studio since 1928," McKim added. "Our hand-drawn animation team – including our hand-drawn legends Mark Henn, Randy Haycock, and Eric Goldberg, as well our wonderful team of 2D apprentices, had a ball animating in the style of Oswald's era."
Disney and animator Ub Iwerks began working on Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons in 1927 after their popular Alice Comedies became increasingly expensive. Oswald shorts were animated at the Walt Disney Studio for Universal Pictures. In 1928, Disney lost control of Oswald and created Mickey Mouse. Disney learned from his mistakes at Universal and made sure he had complete control of the Mickey cartoons and they would lay the foundation for the Disney empire as it stands today, 100 years later. Oswald continued on without Disney and the character was completely owned by Universal.
After living on as little more than an obscure piece of movie trivia for decades, Disney and Universal put together the most bizarre deal in Hollywood history in 2006. The company traded Al Michaels to NBC Sports in exchange for the Oswald trademark. The deal included all 27 Oswald shorts Disney produced and any physical materials Universal still had. In 2007, the surviving shorts were included in The Adventures of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit DVD set as part of the Disney Treasures line. Disney also included Oswald shorts in the Signature Collection editions of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio. Sadly, none of the Oswald shorts are available on Disney+.