After losing the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney introduced Mickey Mouse to the world in Steamboat Willie. It was Disney's first motion picture with synchronized sound.It was produced in black-and-white by Walt Disney Studios and was released by Celebrity Productions. The cartoon is considered the debut of Mickey Mouse and his girlfriend Minnie, although both the characters appeared several months earlier in a test screening of Plane Crazy.
Steamboat Willie was the third of Mickey's films to be produced, but was the first to be distributed because Walt Disney, having seen The Jazz Singer, had committed himself to producing one of the first fully synchronized sound cartoons. The success of Steamboat Willie not only led to international fame for Walt Disney, but for Mickey as well. On November 21, Variety magazine published a review which read in part "Not the first animated cartoon to be synchronized with sound effects, but the first to attract favorable attention.Steamboat Willie represents a high order of cartoon ingenuity, cleverly combined with sound effects. The union brought laughs galore. Giggles came so fast at the Colony [Theater] they were stumbling over each other."
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