Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is an animated cartoon character created by Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney for cartoons distributed by Universal Studios in the 1920s and 1930s.

Creation under Disney

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Oswald was first introduced in 1927 after Disney's series of Alice Comedies had run its course. Disney signed a new contract with Universal head Carl Laemmle where he would produce a series of cartoons for Charles B. Mintz and George Winkler. 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.

A few of Oswald's adventurses dealt with humour related to the procreative abilities of his species, as illustrated in the episode description of Poor Papa: "Oswald gets a visit from the stork... again and again and again. He has to resort to a variety of strategies to stop the continual flow of babies." Other cartoons generally placed Oswald in more human-type conditions and situations.

In spring 1928, with the series going strong, Disney asked Mintz for an increase in the budget. But Mintz instead demanded that Walt take a 20% budget cut, and as leverage, he reminded Disney that he owned the character, and revealed that he had already signed Disney's current employees to his new contract. Disney refused the demand and quit. While he finished the remaining Oswald cartoons owed to Mintz under the old contract, Disney, along with Ub Iwerks and Les Clark (who had remained loyal to Walt and refused the Mintz deal) created what would become the symbol of The Walt Disney Company, Mickey Mouse (a loosely based version of Oswald), the most famous of Walt Disney's characters.

Universal takes direct control

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Mintz, meanwhile, opened his own studio consisting primarily of former Disney employees, where he continued to produce Oswald cartoons, among them the first Oswald with sound, Hen Fruit (1929). But Laemmle was dissatisfied with Mintz, terminated his contract and opted to have the Oswald cartoons produced right on the Universal lot instead (by a coincidence, both Disney and Mintz produced 9 cartoons the first year and 17 the next before Oswald was taken over by others). Laemmle selected Walter Lantz to produce the new series of Oswald shorts (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, spanning the work of all three producers. After he took over the production in 1929, the character's look was changed in some degree over the next years, giving his hands white gloves, a "cuter" face with larger eyes, bigger head and shorter ears. And in 1935 Oswald got a major makeover with the Case of the Lost Sheep, the first cartoon released by Lantz after his studio had become independent, where the character was drawn more realistic and with a white fur. This new version was a direct copy of a rabbit from another Lantz cartoon; Fox and the Rabbit (1935 and 2-strip Technicolor), released as the last of the early Cartune Classics between two and three months earlier. It is a philosophical question if the rabbit from Fox and the Rabbit took over Oswald's name, or if Oswald took over the other rabbit's look. The cartoons containing the updated character seemed to be different from their predecessors in more than one way, as the stories themselves became softer. Minor changes in the drawing style would continue also after the introduction of the "new" Oswald, and with Happy Scouts (1938), the second last Oswald film to be made, his fur went from a single color to two colors.

In 1930 Oswald appeared as a cameo in an animation containing both sound and color (2-strip Technicolor) for the first time, in a 2 1/2 minute animated sequence of the live action movie The King of Jazz. But it was not until 1934 he got his own color sound cartoon (2-strip Technicolor) with Toyland Premiere, only to return to black and white for the rest of his career, expect for the last Oswald cartoon to be made; The Egg Cracker Suite (1943), released as a part of the Swing Symphonies. It was not just the last one, it was also the only one to use three-strip Technicolors. But before he was permanently retired, Oswald made a final cameo appearances in Woody Woodpecker Polka (1951), also in three-strip Technicolors which by then had become the rule in the cartoon industry.

Return to Disney ownership: the Al Michaels "trade"

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In February 2006, a number of minor assets including the rights to Oswald were acquired by The Walt Disney Company from NBC Universal, as part of a deal which sent sportscaster Al Michaels from Disney's ABC and ESPN to NBC Sports. At the time, ABC had lost its contract for National Football League broadcast rights, and despite recently signing a long-term contract with ESPN, Michaels was interested in rejoining broadcast partner John Madden at NBC for the Sunday night package.

While popularly characterized in the media as a "trade", and a decidedly lopsided one at that, that characterization is faulty. The ownership rights to a cartoon character were transferred from NBC to Disney, and in exchange Disney simply released Michaels from his employment contract, allowing him to sign with NBC.

The deal includes the rights to the character and the original 26 short films made by Disney. Rights to the Universal-produced Oswald films and other related products were not included.

Walt Disney's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, issued the following statement after the deal was announced:

When Bob (Iger) was named CEO, he told me he wanted to bring Oswald back to Disney, and I appreciate that he is a man of his word. Having Oswald around again is going to be a lot of fun.

It was noted to Michaels that the Kansas City Chiefs gave the New York Jets a draft pick as compensation for releasing coach Herm Edwards from his contract.

Oswald is definitely worth more than a fourth-round draft choice. I'm going to be a trivia answer someday.

The comic book

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Oswald's first comic book appearance came in 1935, when DC featured him in the series New Fun (later More Fun). His adventures, crudely drawn by Al Stahl, were serialized one page to an issue for the magazine's first year, after which they ceased. The original black-furred version of Oswald was featured, even though Oswald was by this time a white rabbit on screen.

Oswald's second run in the comics began in 1942, when a new Oswald feature was initiated in Dell's New Funnies, this time modelled after the latest cartoon version of Oswald and influenced by the drawing style of other Lantz comic book characters at the time. Following the typical development seen in most new comics, the New Funnies stories slowly morphed the character in their own direction.

At the start of the New Funnies feature, Oswald existed in a milieu reminiscent of Winnie the Pooh: he was portrayed as a live stuffed animal, living in a forest together with other anthropomorphized toys. These included Toby Bear, Maggie Lou the wooden doll, Hi-Yah Wahoo the wooden Indian, and Woody Woodpecker -- depicted as a mechanical doll filled with nuts and bolts (hence his "nutty" behavior). In 1944, with the addition of writer John Stanley, the stuffed animal motif was dropped, as were Maggie Lou, Woody, and Wahoo. Oswald and Toby became flesh and blood characters living as roommates in "Lantzville." Initially drawn by John Gormley, the series was later drawn by the likes of Dan Noonan and Lloyd White.

In 1948, Toby adopted two orphan rabbits for Oswald to raise. Floyd and Lloyd, "Poppa Oswald's" new sons, stuck around; Toby was relegated to the sidelines, disappearing for good in 1953. Later stories focused on Oswald adventuring with his sons, seeking odd jobs, or simply protecting the boys from the likes of rabbit-eating Reddy Fox and (from 1961) con man Gabby Gator -- a character adapted from contemporary Woody Woodpecker cartoon shorts. This era of Oswald comics typically featured the art of Jack Bradbury, known also for his Mickey Mouse work.

Post-1960s Oswald comics tended to be produced outside the United States, for example in Mexico and Italy. Through the end of the 20th century, the foreign comics carried on the look and story style of the Dell Oswald stories. More recently, they featured a "retro" attempt at recreating the original Disney Oswald.

Filmography

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The Lantz years

See also

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• Animation Before Hollywood: The Silent Period
• The Golden Age of American animation

External links

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• Oswald on Toonopedia.com
• Of Rocks and Socks: The Winkler Oswalds (1928-29) by David Gerstein and Pietro Shakarian
• The Walter Lantz Cartune Encyclopedia: Cartune Profiles: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
• Walt Disney's 1927 Animated Star Returns to Disney, a February 2006 press release

Disney characters | Fictional rabbits | Universal Studios cartoons and characters | Walt Disney