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.
Uncle Tom's Cabin
One of the unique and controversial variants of the Tom Shows was Walt Disney's "Mickey's Mellerdrammer", a United Artists film released in 1933. The title is a corruption of "melodrama", thought to harken back to the earliest minstrel shows, as a film short based on a production of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by the Disney characters. In that film, Mickey Mouse and friends stage their own production of "Uncle Tom's Cabin".
Mickey Mouse was already black-colored, but the advertising poster for the film shows Mickey dressed in blackface with exaggerated, orange lips; bushy, white sidewhiskers made out of cotton; and his trademark white gloves.