This article is about the short. For the riverboat, see Steamboat Willie Riverboat.

Steamboat Willie is a Mickey Mouse cartoon that was released on November 18, 1928, produced by Walt Disney and directed by Ub Iwerks. This cartoon is notable for being both Mickey and Minnie's debut and also the start of a new era of American animated short subjects.

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Plot

The film begins with Mickey (nicknamed Steamboat Willie in this short) piloting a steamboat down a river, happily whistling along to the tune of "Steamboat Bill". He pulls a rope to sound the steamboat's three whistles. The tall and medium whistle sound off in synch but the shortest one stays quiet until it receives a good hit from the medium one. Unbeknownst to Mickey, an angry Captain Peg Leg Pete appears behind him and grabs Mickey's torso, stretching it in the process and switches places with him behind the wheel.

He proceeds to yell at Mickey and then and sends him back down to the deck. Mickey salutes weakly while Pete turns around. Behind his back, Mickey blows a raspberry. Pete turns around angrily to see Mickey weakly waving his hands, possibly indicating it was just gas. Pete goes to kick Mickey, who races down the stairs, which causes Pete's leg to miss completely and swing around to kick himself in the rear instead.

Mickey tumbles down the stairs, slips on a bar of soap, and lands in a bucket of water. A parrot nearby mocks him and begins to laugh, which provokes Mickey to throw the bucket of water on the parrot, who squawks for help as Mickey walks away. Pete, who has been watching this whole time, pulls out a slab of chewing tobacco and bites off half of it. He spits in front of him and the spit circles around and hits the bell behind him causing it to ring. Giddy, Pete attempts to do it again. He spits and turns around to watch it hit the bell but gets hit in the face instead which causes him to make a fuss.

The film then cuts to a shot of Podunk Landing with two chickens, a duck and a cow stationed on the dock. Steamboat Willie makes its way around the bend and backs up into the dock. Mickey is lowered down to the dock by a crane near the cow. He fastens a belt around the cow in order to lift him onto the ship. However, the belt is far too big and the cow far too skinny, so all that happens is the cow is caught by the udder hanging upside down.

In a panic, Mickey attempts to bring the cow back down by grabbing her tail and gets sprayed by the udder. The cow is lowered back to the dock and Mickey attempts to tighten the belt to no avail. He looks distraught until he sees a wagon of hay and grabs a big fork load to feed to the cow. The cow happily swallows the entire bale and easily fills out to the size of the belt and is raised to the ship.

Just then, Minnie Mouse appears on the scene running to catch up to Steamboat Willie. Mickey jumps aboard the ship and takes off leaving Minnie yelling at the dock. She proceeds to run alongside the river after the steamboat. Calling for help, Mickey hears her and decides to lower the crane to catch her. The crane is lowered by Minnie and the hook proceeds to gently lift of her dress and grab hold of her bloomers carrying her onto the ship. As she is lowered, Minnie drops her fiddle and "Turkey in the Straw" sheet music which bounces over to a goat.

The goat sees it and begins to eat the sheet music. Minnie is lowered to the ship and the hook pulls her dress back down. Minnie is happy to see Mickey and turns shyly away to see the goat eating her sheet music. The goat then starts on the fiddle and Mickey attempts to yank it out of his mouth. Mickey struggles but can't pull it out and falls on the ground launching the fiddle into the goat's body which proceeds to bounce around causing music notes to sound. Mickey hears this and gets the idea to use the goat as a phonograph. He opens the goat's mouth and calls Minnie over.

Minnie gets the idea and begins to "crank" the goat's tail and "Turkey in the Straw" begins to play. What follows is a lively rendition of the song where Mickey uses a barrel and garbage can as drums, bangs on pots and pans, strokes a washboard, pulls on a cat's tail to make it sing and swings it around his head, uses a duck as a makeshift bagpipe, pulls on little piglets tails to make squeaks, and finally uses the cow's teeth as a makeshift xylophone.

After the song, Mickey takes a bow and finds Peg Leg Pete scowling at him. He attempts to walk away but Pete grabs him and sends him below deck to peel potatoes. Mickey begins to work when the annoying parrot flies into the window and begins to mock and laugh at him again provoking Mickey to throw a half-peeled potato at him, sending the parrot splashing into the water. Triumphant, Mickey begins to laugh and brings the picture to a close.

Characters

Production Notes

In a test screening from family and friends, Walt Disney recalls the first public reaction to his new sound Mickey Mouse cartoons:

“ When the picture was half finished, we had a showing with sound. A couple of boys could read music and one of them, Wilfred Jackson, could play a mouth organ. We put them in a room where they could not see the screen and arranged to pipe their sound into the room where our wives and friends were going to see the picture. The boys worked from music and sound effects score. After several false starts, sound and action got off with the gun. The mouth organist played the tune; the rest of us in the sound department blamed tin pans and blew slide whistles in the beat. The synchronism was pretty close. The effect on our little audience was nothing less than electric. They responded almost instinctively to this union of sound and motion. I thought they were kidding me. So they put me in the audience and ran the action again. It was terrible, but it was wonderful! And it was something new! ”

The cartoon was written and directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The title is a parody of the Buster Keaton film, Steamboat Bill Jr. Music for Steamboat Willie was put together by Wilfred Jackson, one of Disney's animators — not, as sometimes reported, by Carl Stalling — and comprises popular melodies including Steamboat Bill and Turkey in the Straw.

Releases

Television

Home video

VHS

Laserdisc

Mickey Mouse: The Black and White Years - Volume One

The Spirit of Mickey

DVD

Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in Black and White, Volume 1

Vintage Mickey

Walt Disney Treasures: The Adventures of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

Blu-ray

Trivia

Though "Steamboat Willie" was the first cartoon in Mickey's lineup to be released, two cartoons "Plane Crazy" and "The Gallopin' Gaucho" were produced before but released after this cartoon.

Steamboat Willie is generally considered to be the first popular cartoon with synchronized sound, along with being the very first Walt Disney Animation Studios short film to do so. Contrary to belief, it was not the first cartoon in history to feature synchronized sound (there was Paul Terry's Dinner Time and the Fleischer Brothers' Koko Song Car-Tunes before that), nor was it Disney's first produced cartoon.

is generally considered to be the first popular cartoon with synchronized sound, along with being the very first Walt Disney Animation Studios short film to do so. The title is a parody of the Buster Keaton film, Steamboat Bill, Jr. , also released in 1928.

, also released in 1928. The film's original release date, November 18, 1928, was later declared as Mickey's official birthday in the early 1970s.

In 1998, the Library of Congress added Steamboat Willie to the National Film Registry.

to the National Film Registry. Steamboat Willie was briefly referenced in the film, Saving Private Ryan . After the main characters capture the machine gun nest, a captured German soldier mentions the film. As the soldier's real name is never stated, he is often nicknamed "Steamboat Willie."

. After the main characters capture the machine gun nest, a captured German soldier mentions the film. As the soldier's real name is never stated, he is often nicknamed "Steamboat Willie." The part where the goat eats the music sheets and the instrument, as well as Mickey turning the goat into a phonograph, mirrors an exact event from the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon called Rival Romeos.

In The Simpsons episode, "Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie", the fictional TV characters, Itchy and Scratchy pay tribute to Steamboat Willie by mimicking the signature pose in a monochrome format. Ironically, the director of that episode is Rich Moore: a director at Walt Disney Animation Studios best known for directing Wreck-It Ralph and Zootopia .

episode, "Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie", the fictional TV characters, Itchy and Scratchy pay tribute to Steamboat Willie by mimicking the signature pose in a monochrome format. Ironically, the director of that episode is Rich Moore: a director at Walt Disney Animation Studios best known for directing and . Steamboat Willie pioneered a film and animation technique referred to as Mickey Mousing. It involves syncing the accompanying music of a scene with the actions on screen. This technique gained popularity with other animation producers of the era and has since inspired several Disney productions, namely Fantasia .

pioneered a film and animation technique referred to as Mickey Mousing. It involves syncing the accompanying music of a scene with the actions on screen. This technique gained popularity with other animation producers of the era and has since inspired several Disney productions, namely . Many thought the parrot was speaking gibberish like Mickey, Minnie, and Pete, but thanks to research, and listening really closely due to the quality of the audio, he actually says to Mickey, both times, "Hope ya don't feel hurt, big boy! Ha ha ha ha ha!", and after Mickey harms the parrot in some way, he shouts, "Help! Help! Man overboard!", making this the only true spoken dialogue in the film.

References in Later Disney Media

Gallery

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