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 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