Steamboat Willie and included the songs "Steamboat Bill", a composition popularized by baritone Arthur Collins during the 1910s, and "Turkey in the Straw," a composition popularized within minstrelsy during the 19th century. The title of the film is a parody of the Buster Keaton film "Steamboat Bill, Jr." (1928), itself a reference to the song by Collins. Walt Disney performed all of the voices in the film, although there is little intelligible dialogue. While the film has received some criticism, it has also received wide critical acclaim, not only for introducing one of the world's most popular cartoon characters, but for its
Walt Disney Animation Studios Carl Stalling and businessman Pat Powers, who provided Disney with his bootlegged "Cinephone" sound-on-film process. Subsequently, the third "Mickey Mouse" cartoon, "Steamboat Willie", became Disney's first cartoon with synchronized sound and was a major success upon its November 1928 debut at the West 57th Theatre in New York City. The "Mickey Mouse" series of sound cartoons, distributed by Powers through Celebrity Productions, quickly became the most popular cartoon series in the United States. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, the "Silly Symphonies", debuted in 1929 with "The Skeleton Dance". In 1930, disputes over finances between Disney and Powers led