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
Steamboat Willie like a crank. Mickey uses various objects on the boat as percussion accompaniment and "plays" the animals like musical instruments. This ends with them using a cow's teeth to play the song as a xylophone. Finally Captain Pete is unamused and puts Mickey to work peeling potatoes. In the potato bin, the same parrot that laughed at him earlier appears in the port hole and laughs at him again. The mouse throws a peeled potato at him, knocking him into the river below. The film ends with Mickey laughing. According to Roy O. Disney, Walt Disney was inspired to create