mickeymouse.jpgToday marks the 75th Birthday of Mickey Mouse, pop culture icon originally created by Walter Elias Disney in 1928. I can honestly say that Mickey Mouse for me was the personification of all that is, was and always will be Walt Disney. The character has symbolized the professionalism of Disney throughout the 75 years since Mickey was originally conceived by Mr. Disney himself.

According to http://www.geocities.com/disneysmouse:

“Mickey Mouse was born in Walt Disney’s imagination early in 1928 on a train ride from New York to Los Angeles. Walt was returning with his wife from a business meeting at which his cartoon creation, Oswald the Rabbit, had been wrestled from him by his financial backers. Only 26 at the time and with an active cartoon studio in Hollywood, Walt had gone east to arrange for a new contract and more money to improve the quality of his Oswald pictures. The moneymen declined, and since the character was copyrighted under their name, they took control of it. ”

. . . So I was all alone and had nothing,” Walt recalled later. “Mrs. Disney and I were coming back from New York on the train and I had to have something I could tell them. I’ve lost Oswald so, I had this mouse in the back of my head because a mouse is sort of a sympathetic character in spite of the fact that everybody’s frightened of a mouse including myself” Walt spent the return train ride conjuring up a little mouse in red velvet pants and named him “Mortimer,” but by the time the train screeched into the terminal station in Los Angeles, the new dream mouse had been rechristened. Walt’s wife, Lillian, thought the name “Mortimer” was too pompous and suggested “Mickey.” A star was born!”

http://www.local6.com/entertainment/2643696/detail.html