Walt Disney's Fantastic Cartoon World

Walt Disney's Fantastic Cartoon World
Friz Freleng from Kansas City. In February 1928, Walt went to New York to negotiate a
higher fee per short from Mintz. And Walt was shocked when Mintz announced that not
only he wanted to reduce the fee he paid Walt per short but also that he had most of his
main animators including Harman, Ising, Maxwell, and Freleng under contract and would
start his own studio if Walt did not accept the reduced production budgets. Universal, not
Walt owned the Oswald trademark, and could make the films without Disney. Walt
declined Mintz's offer and lost most of his animation staff.
2.2. Mickey Mouse
After losing the Oswald, Walt felt the need to develop a new character to replace him.
He based the character on a mouse he had adopted as a pet while working in a Kansas City
studio. Ub Iwerks reworked on the sketches made by Walt, so that it was easier to animate
it. However, Mickey's voice and personality was provided by Walt. Many of animators
have commented, "Ub designed Mickey's physical appearance, but Walt gave him his
soul." Besides Oswald and Mickey, a similar mouse character is seen in "Alice Comedies"
which featured a mouse named Ike the Mouse, and the first Flip the Frog cartoon called
Fiddlesticks, which showed a Mickey Mouse look like playing fiddle. The initial films
were animated by Iwerks, his name was prominently featured on the title cards. The mouse
was originally named "Mortimer", but later christened "Mickey Mouse" by his wife Lillian
Disney who thought that the name Mortimer did not fit. Mortimer later became the name
of Mickey's rival for Minnie, who was taller than his renowned adversary and had a
Brooklyn accent.
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