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 title. Since the release of "Meet the Robinsons" (2007), the scene of Mickey at the ship’s wheel whistling "Steamboat Bill" has been used for Walt Disney Animation Studios' production logo. A modification was used for "Tangled" (2010) to mark that film as the 50th in their Classics line, the text saying "Walt Disney Animation Studios: 50th Animated Motion Picture" with the Mickey scene in the "0". An 8-bit version of the logo was used for "Wreck-It Ralph" (2012), and in "Frozen" (2013) and "Moana" (2016), Mickey's whistling was muted to allow their respective opening themes to play out over the