Mickey Mouse (film series)
The name "Mickey Mouse" was first used in the films' title sequences to refer specifically to the character, but was used from 1935 to 1953 to refer to the series itself as in "Walt Disney presents a Mickey Mouse." In this sense "a Mickey Mouse" was a shortened form of "a Mickey Mouse sound cartoon" which was used in the earliest films. Films from 1929 to 1935 which were re-released during this time also used this naming convention, but it was not used for the three shorts released between 1983 and 1995 ("Mickey's Christmas Carol", "The Prince and the Pauper", and "Runaway Brain"). Mickey's name was also used occasionally to market other films which were formally part of other series. Examples of this include several "Silly Symphonies", "Don Donald" (1937), and "Goofy and Wilbur" (1939).
"Mickey Mouse" began production in April 1928 after the Disney studio lost the license to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. The first two films, "Plane Crazy" and "The Gallopin' Gaucho", were previewed in theaters but failed to pick up a distributor. For the third film, Disney added synchronized sound, a technology that was still in its early stages at the time. "Steamboat Willie" debuted in New York in November 1928 and was an instant success. The revenues from the film provided the studio with much needed resources, and the studio quickly began to produce new cartoons as well as releasing sound versions of the first two.
Goofy
Goofy first appeared in "Mickey's Revue", first released on May 25, 1932. Directed by Wilfred Jackson this short movie features Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow performing another song and dance show. Mickey and his gang's animated shorts by this point routinely featured song and dance numbers. It begins as a typical Mickey cartoon of the time, but what would set this short apart from all that had come before was the appearance of a new character, whose behavior served as a running gag. Dippy Dawg, as he was named by Disney artists (Frank Webb), was a member of the audience. He constantly irritated his fellow spectators by noisily crunching peanuts and laughing loudly, till two of those fellow spectators knocked him out with their mallets (and then did the same exact laugh as he did). This early version of Goofy had other differences with the later and more developed ones besides the name. He was an old man with a white beard, a puffy tail and no trousers, shorts, or undergarments. But the short introduced Goofy's distinct laughter. This laughter was provided by Pinto Colvig. A considerably younger Dippy Dawg then appeared in "The Whoopee Party", first released on September 17, 1932, as a party guest and a friend of Mickey and his gang. Dippy Dawg made a total of four appearances in 1932 and two more in 1933, but most of them were mere cameos.