Premiering in 1928, Steamboat Willie was the first of Disney's Mickey Mouse cartoons to feature sound, which helped to launch the character's phenomenal career. Unlike other cartoons of the time where sound served simply as a background to the action, both music and sound effects were essential to the film's structure and visual rhythm. The clever animal concert (in which Mickey plays a cow's teeth like a xylophone and transforms a nursing sow into a bagpipe) illustrates Disney's ability to successfully blend sight and sound, so that neither element dominates the other. It also anticipates the complex musical sequences, featured in later films like Fantasia, which transformed the art of animation and became key to Disney's financial success.

Further Reading:

Maltin, Leonard. Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons. New York, McGraw-Hill Company, 1980.

Schickel, Richard. The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art and Commerce of Walt Disney. New York, Simon and Schuster: 1968.

Watts, Steven. The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life. New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997.