Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Mouse cartoon to be filmed was "Plane Crazy" in the summer of 1928, but it was produced as a silent and held back from release. The first Mickey Mouse film with a synchronized soundtrack, "Steamboat Willie", reached the screen that fall and became a major hit, eclipsing Oswald. "Plane Crazy" was later given its own synchronized soundtrack and released on March 17, 1929. Mintz, meanwhile, opened his own studio consisting primarily of former Disney employees, where he continued to produce Oswald cartoons, among them the first Oswald with sound, "Hen Fruit" (1929). While things were going in Mintz's favor, animators
Elmer the Great Dane Elmer was pulled out of retirement and made a guest appearance in "Wrestling Wrecks" (1953). There, he was recast as the dog of Woody Woodpecker. He would still show up more than a decade later in the Halloween special "Spook-A-Nanny" (1964). This time, he was redesigned with a smaller head and a larger nose. Elmer the Great Dane Elmer the Great Dane is a Walter Lantz character in the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon series. The character's name is most likely a reference to "Elmer, the Great", a 1933 film. When Universal's then biggest cartoon star Oswald the Lucky Rabbit