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
Steamboat Willie not the first cartoon with synchronized sound. Starting in May 1924 and continuing through September 1926, Dave and Max Fleischer's Inkwell Studios produced 19 sound cartoons, part of the "Song Car-Tunes" series, using the Phonofilm sound-on-film process. However, the "Song Car-Tunes" failed to keep the sound fully synchronized, while "Steamboat Willie" was produced using a click track to keep his musicians on the beat. As little as one month before "Steamboat Willie" was released, Paul Terry released "Dinner Time" which also used a soundtrack, but "Dinner Time" was not a financial success. In June 1927, producer Pat Powers made an