Live-action animated film match with a live kitten. In a variation from this and inspired to do so Walt Disney's first directorial efforts, years before Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was born in 1927 and Mickey Mouse in 1928, were the live-action animated "Alice Comedies" cartoons, in which a young live-action girl named Alice interacted with animated cartoon characters. Many previous films combining live action with stop-motion animation using back projection, such as Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen films in the United States, and Aleksandr Ptushko, Karel Zeman and more recently Jan Švankmajer in Eastern Europe. The first feature film to do this was
Empty Socks bunker in Mo i Rana. On December 17, 2014, a digitized version of the recovered nitrate film was shown at the National Library of Norway, along with "Tall Timber". Empty Socks Empty Socks (1927) is a short animated film made by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks that was considered a lost film until its rediscovery in Norway in 2014. The film stars Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Disney lost the rights to the Oswald character to Universal Pictures, and then reacquired the rights from Universal in 2006. The film was directed by Walt Disney while working for M. J. Winkler Productions.