Steamboat Willie

Mickey Mouse takes the wheel of a riverboat, toots the whistle, and turns livestock into a one-mouse band — a goat for bagpipes, a cow’s teeth for xylophone, a cat for bagpipes again. Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks’s 1928 short is not the first Mickey cartoon drawn, but it is the one that made him immortal: the first Disney film with fully synchronized sound, premiered at New York’s Colony Theatre months after The Jazz Singer had taught the country to listen. Mickey, Minnie, and a furious Captain Pete sail through gags timed to the music with a precision that changed animation. The mouse who would become the face of a studio empire starts here, whistling at the wheel.