Mickey Mouse and Ub Iwerks. Iwerks again served as the head animator, assisted by Johnny Cannon, Les Clark, Wilfred Jackson and Dick Lundy. This short was intended as a parody of Buster Keaton's "Steamboat Bill, Jr.", first released on May 12 of the same year. Although it was the third Mickey cartoon produced, it was the first to find a distributor, and thus is considered by The Disney Company as Mickey's debut. "Willie" featured changes to Mickey's appearance (in particular, simplifying his eyes to large dots) that established his look for later cartoons and in numerous Walt Disney films. The cartoon was
Mickey Mouse The Walt Disney Company and of the United States itself. For this reason, Mickey has been used frequently in anti-American satire, such as the infamous underground cartoon ""Mickey Mouse in Vietnam"" (1969). There have been numerous parodies of Mickey Mouse, such as the 2-page parody ""Mickey Rodent"" by Will Elder (published in "Mad" #19, 1955) in which the mouse walks around unshaven and jails Donald Duck out of jealousy over the duck's larger popularity. The grotesque Rat Fink character was created by Ed "Big Daddy" Roth over his hatred of Mickey Mouse. In "The Simpsons Movie", Bart Simpson puts a