The birth of a legend: how did Mickey Mouse come up?

What do you know about Mickey Mouse? In fact, this famous and beloved character has its own long and interesting history. Mickey Mouse was created to replace Oswald Rabbit, an earlier cartoon character that was created by Disney but owned by Universal Pictures. In 1925, the first sketches of a cartoon mouse were born — then Disney had no idea what kind of legend they were creating!

Mickey Mouse was created as a replacement for Oswald Rabbit — an earlier cartoon character that was created by Disney but owned by Universal Pictures. Walt Disney had ongoing conflicts with Charles Mintz, the intermediary between Disney and Universal. Eventually, the conflicts led to the fact that Disney severed ties with Mintz, and a new character had to be invented for the cartoons.

The animator Ab Iverks came up with the variants of the new characters. Iverks tried sketching various animals — dogs, cats, a cow, and a horse — but none of them appealed to Disney. Later, the idea of a mouse came to Disney's mind when he was sitting at his desk in the office, where there was a toy mouse figurine.

In 1925, Hugh Harman drew several sketches of mice based on Disney's ideas, after which Ab Iverks created the character. At first it was called Mortimer Mouse, but then the animator's wife persuaded him to rename it Mickey Mouse — and so the story of the legend began. There were suggestions that the character was named after the actor Mickey Rooney, but historians have refuted this.

Since 1930, in addition to many cartoons, Mickey has also been widely featured as a comic book character, as well as in the media. Today, Mickey is one of the most recognizable characters in the world, a symbol of The Walt Disney Company and American pop culture in general.