Oswald the Lucky Rabbit vs. Al Michaels

Walt Disney's first great cartoon creation was not Mickey Mouse: it was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Who? Oswald appeared in short cartoons that were presented by Universal Studios in 1927 and 1928. But according to legend, distributor Charles Mintz strongarmed the rights to Oswald, along with most of Disney's animators, from Disney in 1928. Later, Oswald became the property of Universal. Through the twisted, tangled world of Hollywood corporate mergers and acquistions, the long-forgotten Oswald eventually wound up belonging to NBC Universal.

But somebody at Disney never forgot about Oswald. Starting this fall, NBC is going to show National Football League games on Sunday nights, and the network wanted broadcaster Al Michaels to announce those games. But Michaels had a contract with ABC Sports. And ABC belongs to...Disney. So when ABC Sports and NBC started talking about letting Michaels out of his contract so he could work for NBC, one of the items Disney wanted was the rights to the long-lost Oswald. And then NBC and Disney finished the deal a couple of weeks ago: Al Michaels was traded for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

To celebrate, Disney held a "Welcome home, Oswald" party for its employees. Carrot cake was served.

Comments

[jordan]

I guess it says something about your importance when you're given equal value with an 80-year-old cartoon rabbit.

[b1-66er]

no, what this says points out is the staying power of theory, concept and will.

or putting it another way ...

if you insist on this contract/deal being a balancing act of worth over a single person (which it's not), my question is this:

if al michaels is worth the cartoon that ended up spawing mickey mouse -- what would your fiscal value be?

and what news source would i read it from?

[John_Kenworthy]

I'm a bit wary of the angle that Charles Mintz 'strong-armed' the rights to Oswald. Mintz and Universal were the legal owners of the intellectual property known as Oswald. Two very talented employees of Mintz - Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks - did the design work and the production of the films. But the character was always owned by Mintz/Universal. The premise that Oswald was stolen is incorrect.

Walt and Ub wanted more money and tried to renegotiate their contract. Mintz said no and when Disney and Iwerks refused to move on their salary demands, Mintz found other animators (Walter Lantz and company) to produce him.

[mGee]

So the lesson is folks... yet again a creation that should be in the public domain, isn't. Disney was built on stories found in the public domain and they go out of their way to retain ownership of properties by shifting ownership around and lobbying congress to extend the life of properties.