From the February 28, 1928 issue of The Film Daily:
On this particular trip, Walt Disney was in New York to meet with Charlie Mintz about negotiating a higher fee per short. Mintz was married to Margaret Winkler, whose company distributed the early Alice Comedies, and then later, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.
Not only did Mintz rebuff Disney's request, but he demanded Disney take a 20 percent pay cut. When Disney refused, Mintz informed him he had hired away many of his key animators. Disney was also told he retained no rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and in fact, Universal owned the character.Walt Disney and his wife returned home dejected.
Never one to stay down for the count, Disney and his remaining staff began work on a new cartoon series starring a new creation. His name? None other than Mickey Mouse.
A great two-page ad from the September 4, 1929 edition of The Film Daily.
This could be, perhaps, one of the very first public announcement of Disney's groundbreaking accomplishment.
This six line announcement appeared in the October 2, 1928 edition of The Film Daily.
A great new addition to a resource I'd previously known about was uncovered by Leonard Maltin and subsequently announced on the animation site Cartoon Brew. The research site, internetarchive.org, has hundreds of entries ranging from magazines to films.
I've used the site previously to search through 1930s magazines they've posted online, but hadn't visited recently. The site just uploaded a run of a The Film Daily, a trade magazine from the 1920s, and it's proving to be a trove of information for Disney geeks like me.Over the past several days I have been searching through the issues that have been posted online, and I have to admit I've been amazed and delighted with the Disney content I've uncovered. I've located several dozen Disney-related ads, articles, and reviews, dating back to 1922.The following Laugh-O-Gram ad was published in the June 19, 1922 edition. A little over one year after this ad appeared, Walt Disney had left Kansas City, Missouri, for Hollywood, California.
The following Walt Disney biography appeared in the June 27, 1925 edition. Just under one month after this ad was published, Walt and his brother Roy would place a down payment on a small plot of land on Hyperion Avenue, in the Los Feliz district of Los Angeles. The Hyperion location would undergo drastic expansion over the next 14 years, eventually occupying the whole block. The Hyperion Studio would become home to Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Snow White and many other timeless characters.
I'll be posting many more of these great finds over the ensuing weeks. Enjoy!
On this particular trip, Walt Disney was in New York to meet with Charlie Mintz about negotiating a higher fee per short. Mintz was married to Margaret Winkler, whose company distributed the early Alice Comedies, and then later, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.
