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
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit "Oh, What a Knight". In regards to Oswald's personality, Disney historian David Gerstein highlights the distinct differences between Mickey and Oswald as thus: In order to make his Oswald cartoons look "real", Disney turned away from the styles of Felix the Cat, Koko the Clown and Krazy Kat and began emulating the camera angles, effects and editing of live-action films. To learn how to base gags on personality and how to build comic routines, rather than heaping one gag after another, he studied Laurel and Hardy, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. In order to stir emotion in an