Steamboat Bill, Jr. Steamboat Bill, Jr. Steamboat Bill, Jr. is a 1928 silent comedy film starring Buster Keaton. Released by United Artists, the film is the last product of Keaton's independent production team and set of gag writers. It was not a box-office success and became the last picture Keaton made for United Artists. Keaton ended up moving to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer where he made one last film in his trademark style, "The Cameraman", before his creative control was taken away by the studio. Charles Reisner directed the film, and the credited story writer was Carl Harbaugh, although Keaton wrote the script and publicly called
Golden age of American animation be the one to receive credit for the creation of Mickey Mouse. In 1928, "Plane Crazy" became the first entry into the Mickey Mouse series; however, it was not released because of a poor reaction from test screenings and failed to gain a distributor. The second Mickey Mouse cartoon "The Gallopin' Gaucho" also failed to gain attention of the audience and a distributor. Disney knew what was missing: sound. Sound film had been captivating audiences since 1927 with "The Jazz Singer" and Walt decided that the next cartoon "Steamboat Willie" would have sound. "Steamboat Willie" was not the first sound