Mickey Mouse 80th Birthday

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oi-Suparna Chakaraborthy

By Suparna Chakaraborthy

Thursday, November 18, 2010, 12:14

“I hope that we never lose sight of one thing: that it was all started by a Mouse." - Walt Disney. We remember these famous words on 80th Mickey Mouse birthday.

Today is the official Mickey Mouse birthday. On November 18th 1928, First film Steam Boat Willie was showcased in a colony theater in New York City. It was a great hit and thus the date was officially declared to be Mickey Mouse birthday.

The image of a mouse came to Walt Disney in early 1928, on his train journey back to Los Angeles when he was trying to approve more money for Oswal pictures. Walt Disney said, " Mrs. Disney and I were coming back from New York on the train and I had to have something I could tell them. I've lost Oswald so, I had this mouse in the back of my head because a mouse is sort of a sympathetic character in spite of the fact that everybody's frightened of a mouse including myself."

Then after Walt Disney started building the character in his imagination with red velvet pants and named him 'Mortimer'. His wife thought the name was too pompous and renamed it 'Mickey Mouse'. After the first hit movie which is now claimed as Mickey Mouse birthday it did not take long for the cartoon to gain popularity and Walt Disney received Oscar for his creation.

Mickey got it's first makeover n 1935 by an young animator named Fred Moore. Till then the mouse was drawn as circles which restricted it's movement. He gave him the pear shaped body, big pupils, white gloves and shortened nose. This made the mouse look cuter. The first person to do the voice over for Mickey was done by Walt Disney himself and then it was Jim Macdonald.

On 18th November 2010, Mickey Mouse 80th birthday, we still remember him in his vibrant clothes running about and charming the viewers.