Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

In 1927, because of cost and technical restrictions, Disney and his chief animator Ub Iwerksdecided to end their work on the Alice Comedies series in search of new creative opportunities. Coincidentally, Universal Studios wanted to get into the cartoon business and needed a cartoon character of their own. So Disney's distributor Charles Mintz told Disney and Iwerks to create a new character they could sell to Universal. Wanting to make cartoons with an all-animated look, Disney signed a contract with Universal Studios leading to the creation of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Universal's first cartoon series.^[1]

The first Oswald cartoon, Poor Papa, was rejected by the Universal studio heads for its poor production quality and the sloppiness and age of Oswald.^[2] Disney, together with Iwerks, decided to create a second cartoon titled Trolley Troubles featuring a much younger, neater Oswald. The short, released on September 5, 1927, ^[3]officially launched the series and proved to be Disney's greatest success to date. Poor Papa was finally released a year later.^[2] Oswald the Lucky Rabbit became Disney's first major hit in 1927, rivaling other popular cartoon characters, such as Felix the Cat and Koko the Clown.^[1][4]

In the spring of 1928, Disney traveled to New York City in hopes of negotiating a more profitable contract with his producer Charles Mintz. But as economic problems were apparent at the time, Mintz figured Disney should settle for a 20% cut, although large turnarounds were promised if the studio's finances showed considerable growth. While his fellow animators remained at Mintz's studio, Disney decided to quit his job and therefore leave the character he created. On his long train ride home, he came up with an idea to create another character. He and Iwerks would go on to develop a new cartoon in secret, which would later be known as Plane Crazy, the first Mickey Mouse cartoon.^[1]