Oswald the Lucky Rabbit November 1928, as a replacement to compete with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks created Mickey Mouse for the Walt Disney Studio. In 2003, Buena Vista Games pitched a concept for an Oswald-themed video game to Disney President and COO Bob Iger, who then became committed to bringing Oswald back to Disney. In 2006, nearly 80 years after the Disney studio broke away from Universal, The Walt Disney Company managed to acquire the intellectual property of Oswald and the catalog of Disney-produced Oswald films (with NBCUniversal effectively trading Oswald for the services of Al Michaels as play-by-play
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit NBC for the Sunday night package. Universal transferred the copyright of the character to Disney, and in exchange, Disney released Michaels from his employment contract, allowing him to sign with NBC. The deal included the rights to the character and the original 26 short films made by Disney (namely, most of the Oswald films produced from 1927 to 1928). Rights to the Winkler and Lantz/Universal-produced Oswald films are kept by Universal and other related products was not included, and therefore Oswald appears in both Disney releases and in Universal's "Woody Woodpecker and Friends" collection. Iger had been interested in the