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
Pat Powers (businessman) time, De Forest was in too weak a financial position to mount a legal challenge against Powers for patent infringement. In 1929, Powers sold Walt Disney a Cinephone system so that he could make sound cartoons such as Mickey Mouse's "Steamboat Willie" (1928). Unable to find a distributor for the sound cartoons, Disney began releasing his cartoons through Powers' company Celebrity Pictures. After one year of successful "Mickey Mouse" and "Silly Symphonies" cartoons, Walt Disney confronted Powers in 1930 about money due to Disney from the distribution deal. Powers responded by signing Disney's head animator Ub Iwerks to an exclusive