Disney gets Oswald back! Finally!
 

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excerpt:
Fantastic news! Now when does the Treasures DVD tin come out?

This wams the cockles of my heart! I hope Walt pauses a minutes from spinning in his grave to smile.

Good thing Disney got the copyright/public domain laws revised in '98 otherwise those cartoons would now be in the public domain (as of 2002-3).

No grudge is ever really buried, is it?

Now that they have Oswald, what are they going to do with him?

The best part is that the brilliant Al Michaels doesn't have to work with that blowhard Joe Theismann.

But still has to work with John "state the obvious really loudly between bites of turducken" Madden.

I doubt they'll do very much with him other than perhaps use the shorts as the basis for another DVD collection. As a merchandising opportunity, he's probably not much more valuable than the Alice comedies.

I just hope they don't try to bring Oswald back in an updated Poochie (it's the Simpsons episode where they introduce a rapping dog to the Itchy and Scratchy cartoons) sort of way.
Yuck.

This is good news!

I remember seeing Oswald posters and such in various Art of Disney and animation books. Dumb question, have any Oswald cartoons been available?
Donna

Well, there were basically three groups of Oswald cartoons: the Disney ones, the Mintz ones and finally the Walter Lantz ones. Some of the Disney ones have appeared through the years on collections of "public domain" cartoons (whether they are actually public domain is questionable). They're not bad - not quite Mickey - more similar to Felix the Cat in my opinion.

Whether they're in the public domain depends on whether their initial copyright registration was renewed in the '60s. If not, then they are in the public domain, if so then they won't enter the public domain until 2022-2023.

Then there is also the trademark issue, if one is on file. Trademarks don't enter the public domain as long as they're maintained so it could be that Disney was also buying Oswald related trademarks from Universal (which would allow them to use the image in marketing and whatnot).

okay, cool and thanks! That gives me a general idea. I never wuite knew how close Oswald might have been to Mickey. Of course, stating the obvious, Mickey went through significant personality changes as he evolved.
So did Ub Iwerks, I find his Flip the Frog cartoon rather crass! Very pre-code toons!

Donna

Ub did some really great crass cartoons in his post Disney years. As well as some really silly cartoons about eggs.

Lordy, there were some 169 Oswald cartoons by Walter Lantz, all the way through 1943. Um, other than via Disney, I've never heard of Oswald. Disney did only 26 Oswald cartoons.

In looking for some info on Oswald, I came up with this site TOONOPEDIA
And I thought my site had too many pages, but my this is informative :snap:

Donna

I remember wishing that Oswald had made an appearance in WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT. I thought it would have been fun to see him walk past Mickey and say something derogatory about Charles Mintz. (I was also disappointed that Screwy Squirrel was nowhere to be seen.)