Christmas 2003 was bittersweet. It was Katelynn’s first Christmas, but it was also our last Christmas in Germany.
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2004
In December 2004, we had a Dallas Holiday Wish Celebration. The Beach Boys had a concert, and even Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto came to visit and sing and dance in front of Dallas City Hall. I have it all on videotape footage and didn’t capture too many event photos.
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2005
In 2005, we bought our house in Texas. The same year, we celebrated Christmas/Yuletide in our new home.
Mickey Mouse at the “Festival of Fantasy Parade in Walt Disney World in 2015
Mickey Mouse is more than just a character; he’s an iconic figure for the Disney brand. But he almost didn’t exist. Mickey Mouse was only created to replace Walt Disney’s original successful creation, Oswald the Rabbit. Oswald was made by the Disney studio for Charles Mintz, a film producer and distributor through Universal Studios. With so much success from Oswald, Disney asked Mintz to increase the studio’s budget, but instead, Mintz demanded Walt take a 20 percent cut. He then reminded Disney that Universal owned Oswald and that he had already signed most of Disney’s current employees to his new contract. Disney refused to sign the new contract, finished the final Oswald comic of his contract, and ended his work with Universal.
With just himself and two loyal animators, Ub Iwerks and Les Clark, Disney had to start from scratch. From this experience, he learned to ensure he owned all the rights to characters produced by his company. His inspiration for Mickey came from a tame mouse at his desk at Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, Missouri. The original name for the character was Mortimer Mouse until his wife, Lillian, convinced him to change it, ultimately creating Mickey Mouse.
On May 14, 1928, Mickey appeared in a test screening of the cartoon short “Plane Crazy”, but failed to impress audiences and attract distributors. Walt then produced a second Mickey short called “The Gallopin’ Gaucho”, which also suffered from a lack of distributor interest. “Steamboat Willy”, first released on November 18, 1928, in New York, was co-directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. Intended as a parody of Buster Keaton’s “Steamboat Bill, Jr.”, it was the third Mickey film produced and the first to find a distributor, serving as Mickey’s debut.
Under The Harvest Moon 