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 Day", Mickey and Mortimer get sent to the President's office to claim a million dollars. But Mortimer pretends to be Mickey and he is shown acting in "Steamboat Willie". In Toontown Online, one of the buildings on Silly Street is named ""Steamboat Willie"." In the Goofy cartoon "How to Be a Waiter" (1999), Goofy is shown an example of a movie, and "Steamboat Willie" is shown. But in that short, "Willie" is a shortened version titled "Steamboat Goofy". The opening scene was parodied towards the end of "Aladdin and the King of Thieves" (1996). Genie, having been swallowed by the