Do you believe in miracles, Oswald?

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This has to be one of my favorite news stories of the year so far.

Part of the deal under which Disney / ABC / ESPN released Al Michaels from his contract, so that he could stay with broadcast partner John Madden when Madden begins calling Sunday Night Football on NBC this fall, was that NBC Universal agreed to give up the rights to Oswald the Rabbit.

Oswald was the first successful cartoon character Walt Disney created — but he didn’t own the character, and was crushed when Universal hired his animators away from him and took production in-house, shutting Walt out. So Walt (with invaluable business assistance from his brother) started his own animation studio, and vowed that he would control the rights to all his characters. He began drawing a new character — a character who, at the time, looked very much like Oswald, only with smaller mouse ears in place of Oswald’s floppy rabbit ears.

The rights to Oswald the Rabbit are virtually worthless in terms of marketing. Nobody cares. But the Disney family wanted to reclaim Walt’s first creation, and new Disney president Bob Iger promised Walt’s daughter, Diane Disney Miller, that he would try to make it happen.

There were other factors involved in the deal to let Al Michaels out of his contract — ESPN will get increased access to NBC’s Olympics highlights, for example. I think it’s kind of nice that things worked out this way. Michaels gets to keep working with Madden (and with many other members of the “Monday Night Football” production staff who are moving to NBC), and Disney gets a part of its heritage back.

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About John

John Carney is a journalist, a certified United Methodist lay speaker, a veteran of foreign and domestic short-term mission trips, and author of a self-published novel, Soapstone.
  • http://mycropht.blogspot.com/ Katherine Coble

    It’s like that postman guy from the Simpsons. Please say you know what I’m talking about….I’m too tired to go digging through Wikipedia.

  • http://mycropht.blogspot.com/ Katherine Coble

    It's like that postman guy from the Simpsons. Please say you know what I'm talking about….I'm too tired to go digging through Wikipedia.

  • http://lakeneuron.com John

    Actually, I do know what you’re talking about — the guy who supposedly was the real creator of Itchy and Scratchy but lost the rights to them. Yes, I imagine the Simspons’ writers were familiar with history when they wrote that.

  • http://lakeneuron.com LakeNeuron

    Actually, I do know what you're talking about — the guy who supposedly was the real creator of Itchy and Scratchy but lost the rights to them. Yes, I imagine the Simspons' writers were familiar with history when they wrote that.

  • http://www.inthatnumber.com/index.php Phisch

    You know, Walt got started cartooning in Garden Grove, CA which is next door to Anaheim, CA. There’s a little building that looks like a garage (I think it is) that still houses some of his original cartoons and I *think* Oswald is among them. Because of its condition, the city of GG doesn’t make it widely known, but they occassionally let the public in somehow. I used to drive past it on my way to work.

  • http://www.inthatnumber.com/index.php Phisch

    You know, Walt got started cartooning in Garden Grove, CA which is next door to Anaheim, CA. There's a little building that looks like a garage (I think it is) that still houses some of his original cartoons and I *think* Oswald is among them. Because of its condition, the city of GG doesn't make it widely known, but they occassionally let the public in somehow. I used to drive past it on my way to work.