Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, also known as Oswald the Rabbit, Oswald Rabbit, and Ozzie, is an animated cartoon character created in 1927 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks for Universal Pictures. He starred in the titular series of short films released to theaters from 1927 to 1938. Twenty-seven animated Oswald shorts were animated at the Walt Disney Studio and produced by Winkler Pictures, while the rest were produced by Walter Lantz Productions. After Universal took control of Oswald's character in 1928, Disney created Mickey Mouse as a replacement to Oswald, surpassing Lantz's Oswald in popularity as the series was eventually made redundant in favor of other Universal series. The films established both Walt Disney Studio and Walter Lantz Productions as major players in the American animation industry in the golden age of American animation.

In 2003, Buena Vista Games pitched a concept for an Oswald-themed video game to then-Disney President and future-CEO Bob Iger, who became committed to acquiring the rights to Oswald. In 2006, The Walt Disney Company acquired the trademark of Oswald and the rights to the Disney-era films (with NBCUniversal effectively trading Oswald for the services of Al Michaels as play-by-play announcer on NBC Sunday Night Football).

After his fade into obscurity, Oswald has since had a modern resurgence in popularity, and is considered a cult character, particularly in the Disney theme parks. Oswald returned in Disney's 2010 video game, Epic Mickey. The game's metafiction plot parallels Oswald's real-world history, dealing with the character's feelings of abandonment by Disney and envy toward Mickey Mouse. He has since appeared in Disney theme parks and comic books, as well as two follow-up games, Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two and Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion. Oswald made his first appearance in an animated production in 85 years through his cameo appearance in the 2013 animated short Get a Horse! Oswald films produced before 1931, including the entirety of the Disney-era films, are in the public domain.

Characteristics

thumb|left|172px|Oswald doing a [[handstand.]]

While under Disney's creative control, Oswald was one of the first cartoon characters that had personality. As outlined by Walt himself: "Hereafter we will aim to [make] Oswald a younger character, peppy, alert, saucy, and venturesome, keeping him also neat and trim". Not only were gags used, but his humor differed in terms of what he used to make people laugh. He presented physical humor, used situations to his advantage and presented situational humor in general and frustration comedy best shown in the cartoon The Mechanical Cow. He would use animal limbs to solve problems and even use his own limbs as props and gags. He could be squished as if he was made of rubber and could turn anything into a tool. His distinct personality was inspired by Douglas Fairbanks for his courageous and adventurous attitude as seen in the cartoon short Oh, What a Knight.

In order to make his Oswald cartoons look "real", Disney turned away from the styles of Felix the Cat, Koko the Clown, Krazy Kat, and Julius the Cat and began emulating the camera angles, effects, and editing of live-action films. To learn how to base gags on personality and how to build comic routines, rather than heaping one gag after another, he studied Laurel and Hardy, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, and Buster Keaton. In order to stir emotion in an audience, Disney studied and scrutinized the shadow effects, cross-cutting, and staging of action in films featuring Douglas Fairbanks and Lon Chaney.

Walt Disney did not want for Oswald to simply be "a rabbit character animated and shown in the same light as the commonly known cat characters", as well as merely just a peg for gags. Instead, his stated intention was "to make Oswald peculiarly and typically OSWALD".

History

Creation

In 1927, because of cost and technical restrictions, Disney and his chief animator Ub Iwerks ended their work on the Alice Comedies and Julius the Cat. Around the same time, Charles Mintz got word that Universal Pictures wanted to get into the cartoon business, so he told Disney to create a new rabbit character that he could sell to Universal, because there were too many cat characters (Krazy Kat, Felix the Cat, etc.). After Oswald was created, Winkler signed a contract with Universal on March 4 the same year, which would guarantee 26 Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons. Work on both the character and series began soon after Disney moved his studio to Hyperion Avenue. Disney, together with Iwerks, created a second cartoon titled Trolley Troubles featuring a much younger, neater Oswald. The short, released on September 5, 1927, officially launched the series and proved to be Universal's greatest success to date. Poor Papa was later released in 1928 and the storyline was reused in a Mickey Mouse short five years later, in Mickey's Nightmare.

The success of the Oswald series allowed the Walt Disney Studio to grow to a staff of nearly twenty. Walt's weekly salary from the series was $100 while Roy Disney's was $65. The Disney brothers earned $500 per Oswald short and split the year-end profits, with Walt receiving 60% ($5,361), and Roy receiving 40% ($3,574).

As time passed, Disney feared that Mintz would forgo renewal of the contract, partly due to Iwerks informing Disney that George Winkler, at the behest of Mintz, had been going behind Disney's back during pick-up runs for Oswald reels and hiring away his animators. Eventually, Disney traveled with his wife Lilly to New York to find other potential distributors for his studio's cartoons, including Fox and MGM, prior to meetings with Mintz. As Walt later recalled, he placed two Oswald prints under one arm and—feeling "like a hick"—marched "one half-block north" on Broadway to MGM to visit Fred Quimby. During this period, Walt and Lillian attended the premier of the Oswald short Rival Romeos, which debuted at the Colony on 53rd and Broadway.

Walter Lantz takes control

thumb|upright|right|An ad for [[The Merry Old Soul featuring a version of Oswald redesigned by Manuel Moreno.]]

Mintz, meanwhile, opened his own studio (later known as Screen Gems) consisting primarily of former Disney employees, where he continued to produce Oswald cartoons, among them the first Oswald with sound, Hen Fruit (1929). Coincidentally, Disney and Mintz each produced nine cartoons the first year and 17 the next, before others took over Oswald. Animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, unhappy with Mintz, asked Universal head Carl Laemmle to remove Mintz, suggesting they would be the ones to continue the Oswald series. Laemmle terminated Mintz's contract but, instead of hiring Harman and Ising, he opted to have the Oswald cartoons produced right on the Universal lot. Laemmle selected Walter Lantz to produce the new series of Oswald shorts (the first of which was 1929's Race Riot). Featuring Bill Nolan as an animator (and later director), the Lantz-produced Oswalds had a decidedly different tone and aesthetic than the Disney shorts, with more slapstick and surreal visual gags, some contributed by a young Tex Avery. Over the next decade, Lantz produced 142 Oswald cartoons, for a total of 194 films featuring the character, spanning the work of all three producers. Walt Disney reacted positively to Lantz's takeover of the series, holding Lantz's work in high regard and forming a friendly rivalry that lasted until his death.

Oswald's look changed to some degree over the following years: Oswald got white gloves on his hands, shoes on his feet, a shirt, a "cuter" face with larger eyes, a bigger head, and shorter ears. With 1935's Case of the Lost Sheep, an even more major makeover took place: the character was drawn more realistically now, with white fur rather than black, shoes are removed, plus wearing suspenders instead of a shirt and shorts. Both redesigns were done by Manuel Moreno, who recalled that in the 1935 redesign that Lantz said to make Oswald cute and to get rid of the black on him, because Disney updated his characters' designs. The cartoons containing the new, white-furred Oswald seemed different from their predecessors in more than one way, as the stories themselves became softer. Minor changes in the drawing style would continue, too. With Happy Scouts (1938), the second-to-last Oswald film produced, the rabbit's fur went from being all-white to a combination of white and gray.

Unlike the Disney shorts, in which Oswald did not speak, Lantz's cartoons began to feature actual dialogue for Oswald, although most of the cartoons were still silent to begin with. Animator Bill Nolan performed the voice of Oswald in Cold Turkey (1930), the first Lantz cartoon with dialogue, and the following year Pinto Colvig, who was working as an animator and gag man at the studio, started voicing Oswald. When Colvig left the studio in 1931, Mickey Rooney took over the voicing of Oswald until early in the following year. Starting in 1932, Lantz ceased to use a regular voice actor for Oswald, and many studio staff members (including Lantz himself) would take turns in voicing the character over the years. June Foray provided Oswald's voice in The Egg Cracker Suite (1943), which was the final theatrical short to feature him. She later voiced him again for an unaired radio pilot, Sally in Hollywoodland (1947). Walter Lantz Productions went independent in 1935, taking Oswald's rights with it, though Universal remained the distributor of his films.

thumb|First color appearance of Oswald as a brief cameo in King of Jazz (1930)

Oswald made a cameo appearance in the first animated sequence with both sound and color (two-strip Technicolor), a 2½-minute animated sequence of the live action movie The King of Jazz (1930), produced by Laemmle for Universal. It was not until 1934 that Oswald got his own color sound cartoons in two-strip Technicolor, Toyland Premiere (1934) and Springtime Serenade (1935). The Oswald cartoons then returned to black-and-white, except for the last one, The Egg Cracker Suite (1943), released as a part of the Swing Symphonies series. Egg Cracker was also the only Oswald cartoon to use three-strip Technicolor. Oswald's last cartoon appearance was a cameo in The Woody Woodpecker Polka (1951), also in Technicolor, which by then had become the norm in the cartoon industry. He also appeared in a 1952 theatrical commercial for the Electric Autolite Company, with his voice being provided by Dick Beals.

He made brief appearances in the Woody Woodpecker comics series until it ended in the 1970s. The story was later reprinted, as "Just Like Magic!", in the American Disney comic Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #726 (2015).

Disney acquires Oswald trademark

right|upright|thumb|[[Al Michaels acknowledged that his contract negotiations had effectively traded him for Oswald, and spoke favorably of the deal.

In February 2006, Disney CEO Bob Iger initiated a trade with NBCUniversal in which a number of minor assets, including the rights to Oswald and the 27 shorts that Walt Disney had worked on, were acquired by The Walt Disney Company in exchange for sending sportscaster Al Michaels from Disney's ABC and ESPN to NBC Sports. Walt Disney's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, issued the following statement after the deal was announced:

Around the same time, the Kansas City Chiefs and New York Jets made a similar deal, the Chiefs giving the Jets a draft pick as compensation for releasing coach Herm Edwards from his contract. Referring to this trade, Michaels said:

thumb|Oswald's Service Station on the Buena Vista Street at Disney California Adventure.

In January 2007, a T-shirt line from Comme des Garçons seems to have constituted the first new Disney Oswald merchandise. Following in December was a two-disc DVD set, The Adventures of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, included in Wave Seven of the Walt Disney Treasures DVD series. Several Oswald collectors' figurines and a limited edition grayscale plush toy appeared shortly after the DVD set's release. The Disney Store also began to introduce Oswald into its merchandise lines, starting with a canvas print and Christmas ornament that became available in Fall 2007. A standard-issue color plush toy matching Oswald's appearance in Epic Mickey appeared in late 2010. This was followed by an ongoing roll-out of clothing and other products at the Disney Store, various chain stores, and the Disney California Adventure theme park.

In 2012, the newly redesigned Buena Vista Street at Disney California Adventure included Oswald's Filling Station, an Oswald merchandise stand themed as a 1920s gas station. The shop exclusively sells "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" merchandise such as "Oswald Ears" hats (a similar style to the popular Mickey Mouse Club black mouse-eared caps), as well as shirts, t-shirts, plush toys, pins, mugs, and other special Oswald items. In 2014, Oswald began making appearances in the area near the shop.

Video games

In 1995, Oswald briefly appeared in Férias Frustradas do Pica-Pau, a Woody Woodpecker video game released for the Master System and the Mega Drive in Brazil only.

In 2006, Oswald made a cameo in the intro of a Panchiko machine game called Woody Woodpecker CR 2.

Oswald is one of the main characters in the 2010 video game Epic Mickey and its 2024 remake, Epic Mickey: Rebrushed. The world of Epic Mickey takes place in "Wasteland", a setting that mirrors elements of Disneyland but as a home for "forgotten" Disney characters, including Oswald, who rules over the environment. Oswald fashioned Wasteland after Disneyland, although it is darker and distorted. He implements his likeness into areas Mickey Mouse normally appears, such as the iconic Partners statue with Walt Disney and other imagery throughout the town. Oswald was the first cartoon character to be "forgotten" and eventually lose his relevance, now inhabiting Wasteland. Despite his resentment, Oswald tries to maintain peace and make Wasteland a better place for forgotten characters, especially his "bunny children" and his wife Ortensia. Unlike the previous game, Epic Mickey 2 features full voiced cut-scenes with Frank Welker (Welker had also provided Oswald's vocal effects in the previous game) as Oswald's first voice actor in an Oswald the Lucky Rabbit production from Disney. Bill Nolan was Oswald's first voice actor in 1929, when Walter Lantz produced the Oswald cartoons.

Tetsuya Nomura, creator and lead producer of the Kingdom Hearts franchise, had requested for Oswald's use in Kingdom Hearts III, but the response from Disney was that the character would be "too difficult" to use, with no further clarification or details from Disney. Nomura cites Oswald as one of his favorite Disney characters. He made an appearance in a 2013 throwback-style Mickey Mouse cartoon, Get a Horse!

While only 19 of 26 cartoons were previously known to have survived, a couple of Oswald's lost cartoons were found in the 2010s. In 2015, the British Film Institute's National Archives were found to hold his Sleigh Bells (1928) footage. The BFI and Walt Disney Animation Studios worked to restore the short. Long-term Disney animator David Bossert wrote a book, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit: The Search for the Lost Disney Cartoons which was released in 2017. A Japanese man, Yasushi Watanabe, read the book and discovered that he had a missing 1928 Oswald cartoon, Neck & Neck, since he was a teenager. Disney Television Animation veteran Matt Danner revealed that a series was in development as a follow-up for the team behind Legend of the Three Caballeros, but that they "got broken up and scattered to the wind". He expressed hope that the series could still be revived in the future and further hinted that another team would develop it, because Disney was still heavily invested in wanting to revive the character.

On December 1, 2022, an online hand-drawn animated Oswald short by Walt Disney Animation Studios was released. The short was directed by Eric Goldberg, scored by Dean McClure, and produced by Dorothy McKim, with Mark Henn and Randy Haycock working on the animation alongside Goldberg. It marked Oswald's first short produced by Disney, as well as his first short ever since Feed the Kitty (1938). Restored public domain versions of the shorts Trolley Troubles and All Wet (both 1927) were released on Disney+ in September 2023.

thumb|Oswald the Lucky Rabbit mural on an outdoor set for the upcoming TV series

In March 2025, it was reported that Jon Favreau was developing a live-action animation hybrid series based on the character for Disney+ from Walt Disney Studios. In June 2025, it was announced Ravi Cabot-Conyers, Mykal-Michelle Harris and Ryder Allen were cast in leading roles. It was later announced that Amy Sedaris was cast as main character Allen's mother. Filming started at Disneyland in late July with Kathryn Hahn joining the cast of the series. In August 2025, Steve Martin and Al Madrigal joined the cast.

Merchandise

Shortly after the rabbit starred in his black-and-white animated silent shorts between 1927 and 1928, he sold merchandise for Universal: a chocolate-covered marshmallow candy bar, a stencil set, and a pin-backed button. In 2004 and 2005, Oswald products became popular in Japan and were primarily made available as prizes in UFO catchers and as official merchandise in Universal Studios Japan, manufactured by Taito and/or Medicom, these products included puppets, inflatable dolls, keyrings, and watches. Oswald made his first Disneyland appearance at Tokyo Disneyland on March 31, 2010, as an Easter float.

Theme park appearances

thumb|left|Oswald on Buena Vista Street in [[Disney California Adventure Park]]

The Oswald character showed up at the parks in Florida and California on the day Disney reacquired Oswald and made further appearances at the time.

In 2010, Tokyo Disneyland produced a float featuring Oswald for their first Easter holiday event.

In 2011, Oswald appeared with other vintage Disney characters on the construction walls for Disney California Adventure Park's new entrance. Oswald also appeared on a poster as a magician's rabbit in Town Square Theater in Magic Kingdom park. Oswald appeared on various items of clothing available for purchase at Disneyland Paris in the shops on Main Street USA.

In 2012, Disney California Adventure park at the Disneyland Resort reopened with a new entry area called Buena Vista Street, themed to 1920s Los Angeles. Oswald's Service Station is a 1920s gas station (housing a gift shop) located at the north end of the street and features Oswald prominently in its logo. Oswald has been spotted making appearances near his station. In the same year, Oswald ear hats appeared at the Emporium at Walt Disney World in Florida.

As of May 2014, Oswald can be spotted on the exit of The Seven Dwarves ride at Magic Kingdom, Orlando. He is carved into a tree near the exit door. During the same year a new Oswald costumed character began meet-and-greets at Tokyo DisneySea on April 1; on September 14 of the same year, Oswald began making appearances on Buena Vista Street at Disney California Adventure.

On June 2, 2018, at the FanDaze event Oswald's spouse, Ortensia accompanied him as a VIP guest in Disneyland Paris. They also performed in the show, "Oh My, Ortensia".

Oswald was featured on the medal of the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend 10K. The event took place on January 7, 2022, as part of runDisney's WDW Marathon Weekend.

Oswald made a debut in Hong Kong Disneyland in January 2023 as part of the celebration for the 100th anniversary of The Walt Disney Company.

From January 20 to February 15, 2023, at Disney California Adventure, Oswald and his wife Ortensia appeared to celebrate Chinese New Year, which marks Ortensia's debut in an American theme park.

Filmography

Home media

  • In the 1940s and 1950s, Oswald titles could still be found in 16mm and 8mm film catalogs.
  • Some earlier Oswald shorts, including all Disney era shorts, are in the public domain. Thus, these have been available for some years in various lower-quality video and DVD compilations. Some are lost due to Universal's incomplete archive of the films.
  • An attempted restoration of the then-surviving Disney Oswald shorts, under the title The Adventures of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, appeared as a two-disc volume in Walt Disney Treasures: Wave Seven, released on December 11, 2007. The cartoons included Ozzie of the Mounted, Tall Timber, and a much-extended version of Bright Lights, all newly rediscovered at the time.
  • Six Walter Lantz Oswald cartoons, including Hells Heels and Toyland Premiere, have been included in The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection DVD.
  • Five additional Lantz Oswald shorts, including Wax Works and Springtime Serenade, are included in The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection: Volume 2 DVD.
  • The full version of Oh, What a Knight is included as an unlockable cartoon in Epic Mickey by collecting various film reels in the game.
  • The restored version of Hungry Hobos is included as part of the bonus features in the release of the Walt Disney Signature Collection edition of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on Blu-ray. Although the short is not included on the disc itself, a digital code is included with the Blu-ray that "unlocks" the short for viewing.
  • The shorts My Pal Paul and Africa are fully restored and included as extras in the Criterion release of King of Jazz.
  • The short Poor Papa was restored and included as an extra in the Walt Disney Signature Collection edition of Pinocchio.

Reception

thumb|upright=0.6|Review of Oswald Cartoons, The Moving Picture World, August 1927

During the 1920s, the Oswald shorts, as well as Oswald himself, were extremely popular and had received substantial critical acclaim. The Film Daily noted that the series was "one of the best sellers of the 'U[niversal]' short subject program". According to The Moving Picture World, Oswald had "accomplished the astounding feat of jumping into the first-run favor overnight".

Oswald won Best New Character in both Readers' Choice and Editors' Choice in Nintendo Powers Best of 2010 awards.

Tetsuya Nomura, creator and lead producer of the Kingdom Hearts franchise, lists Oswald as one of his favorite Disney characters.

See also

  • Animation in the United States during the silent era
  • Golden age of American animation

References

  • Oswald the Lucky Rabbit at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on September 7, 2015.
  • Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Theatrical Series -M. J. Winkler Prods at the Big Cartoon DataBase
  • Of Rocks and Socks: The Winkler Oswalds (1928–29)
  • The Walter Lantz Cartune Encyclopedia: Cartune Profiles: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
  • Oswald the Lucky Rabbit on IMDb
  • Lost Disney film found in the BFI National Archive