Lost Disney Cartoon That Predates Mickey Mouse Found in Japan

While Mickey Mouse is the character on which Walt Disney built his empire, the creator had an even earlier iteration of the cartoon that many fans tend to forget about. Before Mickey, there was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Of course, any animations Disney did of Oswald are now incredibly valuable, and several have long been thought to be lost. That changed this week, when one of his very first cartoon films was discovered in Japan.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, an anime historian in Japan has been in the possession of one of Disney’s Oswald cartoons for almost 70 years.

The 1928 cartoon is called Neck ‘n’ Neck, and it features the Oswald character. The sole copy of the cartoon is on 16mm film and it owned by anime historian Yasushi Watanabe, who apparently bought the film back in high school nearly seven decades ago. Watanabe, who is now 84 years old, bought the film at a toy wholesaler near his home in Osaka.

He never thought anything of it until recently, when he read the book Oswald the Lucky Rabbit: The Search for the Lost Disney Cartoons, by Disney animator David Bossert. After reading the book, which was published last year, Watanabe realized that his film was one of the lost cartoons.

When Watanabe purchased the film, it cost him around $4.40. Of course, it’s nearly priceless now.

“As I’ve been a Disney fan for many years, I’m happy that I was able to play a role,” Watanabe told the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. After speaking with Watanabe, the paper reached out to the Walt Disney Archives and confirmed that it was one of seven of the 26 Oswald cartoons that had been thought to be lost for good.

Watanabe’s copy of Neck ‘n’ Neck is being kept at Kobe Planet Film Archive, which has more than 16,000 titles in its library. The 16mm copy of this Oswald cartoon is only two minutes long, though the original cut was five minutes.

Oswald was created by Disney in 1927, but was lost in a contract dispute one year later. Producer Charlez Mintz ended up taking Oswald to Universal, which in turn led to the creation of Mickey. In 2006, Disney regained the rights to Oswald in a deal with Universal, where CEO Bob Iger essentially sent Al Michaels to Sunday Night Football on NBC in exchange for the return of the character and its films.