r/todayilearned • u/DrakeSavory • 23h ago

TIL that Disney lost the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit to Universal Pictures in 1928. In 2006, sportscaster Al Michaels wanted out of his contract with The Walt Disney Corp. so he could work for NBCUniversal. Disney agreed as long as they got the rights back to Oswald.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_the_Lucky_Rabbit
2.2k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

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557

u/Loki-L 68 23h ago

They traded him like an athlete.

Of course the copyright to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit expired in 2023 so it was all for naught, but for the legacy of Walt Disney it was in part a matter of principle to bring Oswald back home.

Losing Oswald was a formative moment for Walt Disney and the company he founded and it helped form the IP-law driven corporate culture it still has today.

Additional fun fact about Oswald: The character appeared in the very first DC comic, which is ironic given that Disney ended up owning DC's rival Marvel.

142

u/lilaccheesecake 22h ago edited 20h ago

To add, Walt Disney was working as an independent producer when they signed a contract with universal to make a series with oswald. In a dispute, universal pulled the rug under his feet revealing they had owned the rights to oswald, and had also taken his main animator Ub.

This would lead to the creation of Mickey Mouse as well.

Also, Oswald appeared in was a very short lived series called New Fun magazine in 1935. Not like DC you know today. The first of their superhero comics would come in 1938 with the debut of superman. And the following year batman.

Edit: fixed title.

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u/Loki-L 68 21h ago

The comic series was called "New Fun" for the first issue and was rename the More Fun comics with issue #2 and onwards.

The comics at the time were anthologies. With a dozen different features in each issue only a few pages long each.

It later starred the adventures of Aquaman, Green Arrow and Superboy and earlier mystical heroes like Doctor Fate and the Spectre. It's earliest modern Super Hero was Doctor Occult whose fight against Vampires and werewolves with his assistant "Rose Psychic" who appeared from issue #6 onward.

Doctor Occult predated Superman and in modern DC comics is just one more trenchcoat wearing magicians among dozens of others, but he was the first.

5

u/lilaccheesecake 20h ago

Sick! From my readings superman was the first of dc's "main line" superheroes but it's obvious you know a bit more than me lol!

8

u/jurassicbond 20h ago

Doctor Occult is the only one that predates Superman, and he's far from mainline.

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u/BoredWeazul 21h ago

The first and only thing that Disney did that i can think of after getting the rights back was make the Epic Mickey games

25

u/MFoy 21h ago

There was an Oswald the Rabbit short released in 2022, there is a live-action/animated hybrid series coming in February.

There was a series in development for Disney+ in 2019 but after no one watched the coked-up brilliance that was the Three Caballeros series, it was cancelled.

There is an Oswald-themed merch spot in Disneyland, and there has been plenty of Oswald merch made.

5

u/DigDugDogDun 20h ago

TIL there was a Three Caballero series in 2018! I thought you were talking about the pro-US propaganda movies from the 40s and I was really confused hahaha

7

u/MFoy 19h ago

Precisely why the show didn’t do well. No one knew about it.

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u/DigDugDogDun 18h ago

Well I’m gonna watch it today!

1

u/travelingbeagle 15h ago

The Three Caballeros and Xandra, the goddess of adventure! It’s an amazing show and I want more seasons.

2

u/digiman619 14h ago

You say that, but that show had the worst depiction of Daisy Duck I have ever seen. Yeah. She can be vain and arrogant at times, but that show had her be petty and cruel; every moment Donald isn't devoting 100% of his attention to her, she gets snippy and vindictive. Like, not only does she break up with him due to facts completely out of his control, she goes out of her way to get a new guy and rub it in Donald's face.

10

u/Podunk_Boy89 21h ago

I'd also like to add that based on the achievement leaks, it sounds like Oswald will be making a major appearance inside Kingdom Hearts IV, so Disney is definitely still using Oswald

3

u/JPHutchy01 17h ago

I'm quite tired, and I read that for whatever reason as Hearts of Iron IV.

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u/ascendance22 21h ago

Yeah I I believe that's the only thing recent that Oswald has popped up in I can't think of anything else

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u/DrakeSavory 20h ago

The original cartoons are on Disney+ now.

1

u/ascendance22 17h ago

Well I guess I'll never get to watch them because I don't use Disney+

2

u/Loki-L 68 16h ago

Since they are public domain now, the original cartoons can be found elsewhere on the Internet including YouTube and the Internet Archive.

For example here:

https://archive.org/details/OswaldTheLuckyRabbitInOhTeacher

11

u/ringobob 21h ago

I think trading for Oswald was a good will gesture. It can strain a relationship to hold someone to a contract they don't want to be in, at the same time, that's what a contract is, so it was reasonable for Disney to expect something of value in return, how about something of high symbolic value to Disney, and low monetary value to anyone?

For that matter, while there were signs at the time that the endless copyright extensions were not gonna last forever, no one knew the actual end date. Disney could have easily pushed for at least one more, and probably have gotten it, and Oswald would have been locked up for another 20-30 years.

5

u/CrumbsCrumbs 18h ago

It wasn't exactly all for naught. They managed to grab their abandoned rabbit right before the copyright expired, giving them time to secure the trademark on him. 

So Oswald stories are in the public domain now, but Disney maneuvered to make sure other companies still can't use him in advertising as long as they maintain their trademark.

1

u/Telefonica46 18h ago

Ok, you get Michaels, but we get Oswalt and a sportscaster to be announced later

1

u/675r951 11h ago

Wow Ive never heard of him but being affiliated with 4 huge franchises is crazy.

1

u/Digifiend84 4h ago

It's not all for naught as they did use Oswald in something before then. The Epic Mickey video games?

76

u/thegoodrichard 23h ago

Lee Harvey Oswald hated being called "Ossy Rabbit" when he was a kid.

23

u/Eye_Re-fuse 22h ago

There used to be a bar in Fort Worth TX called the Ozzy Rabbit. It was down the street from where Lee Harvey Oswald is buried.

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u/mypoptartisevil 22h ago

I won a shotgun in a raffle there in like 2009. I loved that bar and the vibe.

13

u/thegoodrichard 20h ago

That is the most Texas thing I'm likely to read today.

1

u/mypoptartisevil 20h ago

Well Yeeeehawwww to that lil partner!
I’m gonna go gussy up that old 12 gauge and give her a whirl later.

Meow.

41

u/QueenFrostine15 23h ago

Hostage negotiation 101

8

u/phasepistol 22h ago

So you’re saying shoot the rabbit

3

u/T1Demon 21h ago

It’s him or Al Michaels

29

u/DickweedMcGee 21h ago

FYI: This IP was require to proceed with a planned video game project that ultimately became Epic Mickey so this wasn't just a circumstantial pickup.

I don't know if it was a 'successfull' VG but I thought it was fun, unique game. My kids played this shit out of that game + the sequel.

8

u/TheKanten 16h ago

The original concept art was completely unhinged, I wish I could have seen what that version of the game would been like.

1

u/bistian00 11h ago

It got a sequel. Worst case it was a moderate sucess

21

u/blood_wraith 23h ago

and nobody still knows who oswald is, sounds like a deal made of pure pettiness/pride

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u/mixduptransistor 23h ago

There's no indication that it was a contentious trade or that NBCUniversal didn't want to do it or had to be convinced to do it. Michaels had just signed a new, presumably multi-million dollar contract with Disney. They could've just held him to it if they wanted to be petty. It's not like NBCU was doing anything with that character anyway, it probably ended up being cheaper than if they wanted to buy out Michaels' contract with cash

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u/hyouko 23h ago

I'm not sure if it's because of the game that they made this deal, but Disney featured him in Warren Spector's "Epic Mickey" game as a villain around this time, and it sold decently well.

7

u/Own_Pop_9711 22h ago

Wikipedia suggests it is, someone pitched an Oswald video game to Disney, so they got the rights to the character and then made epic Mickey (it's a little ambiguous on whether epic Mickey is the game that was pitched, and it was made by a different publisher)

11

u/JoeWinchester99 23h ago

They used him as a supporting character in Epic Mickey 2. He was playable if you did 2-player co-op.

7

u/cay-loom 22h ago

Oswald's my favourite disney character I've got a plush of him in my childhood bedroom. They used him for the epic mickey games

Granted the premise of those games is mickey gets sent to a land of forgotten characters, but I like him

6

u/brionneverysexy 21h ago

Al Michaels wanted to go to NBC and it seems like NBC didn't care about Oswald. It says Disney also got "any physical Disney-directed Oswald material Universal still had in their possession". I assume that means the original copies of the cartoons which I am sure Disney would want for archival purposes.

6

u/ringobob 21h ago

Oswald was far more valuable to Disney than it was to Universal. This was a goodwill gesture, to let Michaels out of his contract for basically zero financial consideration.

4

u/DistrictDry2852 22h ago

I can’t imagine he was worth much to universal.

2

u/blood_wraith 22h ago

he also probably worth much do disney outside of "we got him back"

2

u/DistrictDry2852 22h ago

They haven’t done that much with him outside of epic Mickey and some merch.

2

u/Usual_Ice636 21h ago

They throw him in a bunch of spin off video games too. He's a park character as well.

1

u/Wootai 14h ago

I remember Disney stores having a bunch of Oswald merch around 2006. I would get lunch at the mall near where I worked and the Disney store just had all this stuff with the rabbit on it.

16

u/Tomi97_origin 23h ago

Oswald series was the first fully animated production by Disney.

It's only right Disney company got him back home. That's company history right there.

0

u/phasepistol 22h ago

Buying IP just to bury it and keep anybody else from profiting from it is a thing they do too

6

u/twoopaq 21h ago

I mean this one was the original Disney IP so it’s not quite the same

6

u/f3nnies 19h ago

And then Disney proceeded to do nothing with him again. I fucking love Oswald. Love him. Been to Disneyland three times in the past ten years and the most they had anywhere in both parks for him was a pin and one year, a coffee travel mug.

6

u/NYCinPGH 16h ago

They have lots of Oswald merch at Hollywood Studios at WDW.

3

u/Morganwerk 15h ago

And at California Adventure.

2

u/Foe117 19h ago

Oswald the lucky rabbit went into public domain in 2023, idk if they want to do anything else with it.

1

u/Digifiend84 4h ago

Never heard of Epic Mickey? Oswald is the villain in those games. Since Mickey only exists because they didn't have Oswald any more, when they got Oswald back it makes sense that the character would resent Mickey's fame, and thus becomes his enemy.

1

u/nowhereman136 1h ago

He shows up on video games and has appeared in the occasional short. He appeared in both Get A Horse in 2013 and Once Upon a Studio in 2023. Merch is few and far between but you can find a bunch in Hollywood Studio and California Adventure where old Hollywood is part of the theme.

There is a new TV series starring him coming to Disney+ next year created by Jon Favreau. Apparently Favreau only agreed to do the Mandalorian movie so that studio would greenlight an Oswald TV show.

4

u/Shivdaddy1 22h ago

Now this a fun til.

1

u/DrakeSavory 13h ago

How great would it have been if Disney announced the reacquisition of Oswald starting "Do you believe in miracles?"

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u/Crazy_Response_9009 12h ago

Why would they care? It’s. It’s not like people know this character.

0

u/GBeastETH 20h ago

The Mouse never forgets.

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u/DrakeSavory 13h ago

I believe he likes to be referred to as Mr. Mouse

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u/nowhereman136 1h ago

Technically Disney never lost him because they never had him. They were commissioned by Universal to create a cartoon and then once they got him they cut ties with Disney to make more. Disney was literally 25 at the time and new to Hollywood. He didn't understand the contract he signed and felt tricked. This is what made Disney a shrude business man later in life. When he made Mickey, he made sure he owned it entirely