The Walt Disney Company
In 1928, to recover from the loss of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Disney came up with the idea of a mouse character named Mortimer while on a train headed to California, drawing up a few simple drawings. The mouse was later renamed Mickey Mouse (Disney's wife, Lillian, disliked the sound of 'Mortimer Mouse') and starred in several Disney produced films. Ub Iwerks refined Disney's initial design of Mickey Mouse. Disney's first sound film "Steamboat Willie", a cartoon starring Mickey, was released on November 18, 1928 through Pat Powers' distribution company. It was the first Mickey Mouse sound cartoon released, but the third to be created, behind "Plane Crazy" and "The Gallopin' Gaucho". "Steamboat Willie" was an immediate smash hit, and its initial success was attributed not just to Mickey's appeal as a character, but to the fact that it was the first cartoon to feature synchronized sound. Disney used Pat Powers' Cinephone system, created by Powers using Lee de Forest's Phonofilm system. "Steamboat Willie" premiered at B. S. Moss's Colony Theater in New York City, now The Broadway Theatre. Disney's "Plane Crazy" and "The Gallopin' Gaucho" were then retrofitted with synchronized sound tracks and re-released successfully in 1929.
Mickey Mouse
About this time, story artists at Disney were finding it increasingly difficult to write material for Mickey. As he had developed into a role model for children, they were limited in the types of gags they could make. This led to Mickey taking more of a secondary role in some of his next films allowing for more emphasis on other characters. In "Orphan's Benefit" (August 11, 1934) Mickey first appeared with Donald Duck who had been introduced earlier that year in the "Silly Symphonies" series. The tempestuous duck would provide Disney with seemingly endless story ideas and would remain a recurring character in Mickey's cartoons.