Mickey almost wasn't the mouse with fans across the globe!
The Walt Daily
Mortimer and Lillian
Hi everyone! Mickey Mouse, a name that instantly sparks so many feelings of joy and happiness in the hearts of people across the globe, but it almost wasn't Mickey who would gain fans all around the world. Instead, it would have been Mortimer. Mortimer Mouse. First, a little background. In 1928, after a string of successful cartoons by Walt Disney starring Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, the distributor working with Disney took the cartoons and animators to a new studio, leaving Disney without most of his team and a star character. This bump in the road is what led Walt to dream up a mouse character who would now be the star of his new series of cartoon shorts. A mouse, he called Mortimer. Walt read a script to his wife Lillian, starring Mortimer Mouse, but Lillian couldn't focus on the script because she was so upset. "The only thing that got through to me was that horrible name, Mortimer, horrible for a mouse at least." Well, it's said that Lillian ended up making quite a scene about the name, and Walt had to calm her down. After a while, Walt asked quietly, "What would you think of Mickey? Mickey Mouse." To which she said, it sounded better than Mortimer. So really, Lillian disliking the name Mortimer for a mouse character so much is what gave us the icon that we know so well today, Mickey. the way. (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]