Disney’s Steamboat Willie is a landmark in the history of animation. The first film starring Mickey Mouse to be released with synchronized sound, it threw silent animation into obsolescence and launched an empire. Previously, there had been little to distinguish Disney’s cartoons from those of his competitors. He was facing bankruptcy when director Alan Crosland’s film The Jazz Singer—with long sequences of song and dialogue—took the United States by storm in 1927. Sensing that movies with sound meant big business, Disney decided to stake all on his talking mouse. The movie opened at New York’s Colony Theater on November 18, 1928, a date that would become known as Mickey’s birthday.
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