Mickey Mouse
Audiences at the time of "Steamboat Willie"'s release were reportedly impressed by the use of sound for comedic purposes. Sound films or "talkies" were still considered innovative. The first feature-length movie with dialogue sequences, "The Jazz Singer" starring Al Jolson, was released on October 6, 1927. Within a year of its success, most United States movie theaters had installed sound film equipment. Walt Disney apparently intended to take advantage of this new trend and, arguably, managed to succeed. Most other cartoon studios were still producing silent products and so were unable to effectively act as competition to Disney. As a result, Mickey would soon become the most prominent animated character of the time. Walt Disney soon worked on adding sound to both "Plane Crazy" and "The Gallopin' Gaucho" (which had originally been silent releases) and their new release added to Mickey's success and popularity. A fourth Mickey short, "The Barn Dance", was also put into production; however, Mickey does not actually speak until "The Karnival Kid" in 1929 when his first spoken words were "Hot dogs, Hot dogs!" After "Steamboat Willie" was released, Mickey became a close competitor to Felix the Cat, and his popularity would grow as he was continuously featured in sound cartoons. By 1929, Felix would lose popularity among theater audiences, and Pat Sullivan decided to produce all future Felix cartoons in sound as a result. Unfortunately, audiences did not respond well to Felix's transition to sound and by 1930, Felix had faded from the screen.
History of film
This awkward period was fairly short-lived. 1929 was a watershed year: William Wellman with "Chinatown Nights" and "The Man I Love", Rouben Mamoulian with "Applause", Alfred Hitchcock with "Blackmail" (Britain's first sound feature), were among the directors to bring greater fluidity to talkies and experiment with the expressive use of sound (Eyman, 1997). In this, they both benefited from, and pushed further, technical advances in microphones and cameras, and capabilities for editing and post-synchronizing sound (rather than recording all sound directly at the time of filming).
Sound films emphasized black history and benefited different genres more so than silents did. Most obviously, the musical film was born; the first classic-style Hollywood musical was "The Broadway Melody" (1929) and the form would find its first major creator in choreographer/director Busby Berkeley ("42nd Street", 1933, "Dames", 1934). In France, avant-garde director René Clair made surreal use of song and dance in comedies like "Under the Roofs of Paris" (1930) and "Le Million" (1931). Universal Pictures begin releasing gothic horror films like "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" (both 1931). In 1933, RKO Pictures released Merian C. Cooper's classic "giant monster" film "King Kong". The trend thrived best in India, where the influence of the country's traditional song-and-dance drama made the musical the basic form of most sound films (Cook, 1990); virtually unnoticed by the Western world for decades, this Indian popular cinema would nevertheless become the world's most prolific. ("See also Bollywood.")