But Mickey didn't always wear those white gloves. When Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks first created the character of Mickey Mouse, he was drawn without gloves of any kind, but that changed quickly-just a year after Mickey danced out of Walt's imagination and onto his sketch pad for the first time. The same thinking applies to Mickey's gloves.
As Jenkins points out, Mickey donned gloves in 1929, so in 2025, you will definitely be able to put gloves on him. Steamboat Willie was the very first Mickey Mouse cartoon. While not every version became available for public use in 2024, the version of Mickey as Steamboat Willie did.
That means Mickey, without his signature, white gloves can be used by anyone. Soon, though, more versions of Mickey will be part of the public domain as we enter 2025. Steamboat Willie The Karnival Kid featuring Mickey Mouse.
Mickey Mouse's fifth short, "The Opry House," introduced a major addition to Mickey's wardrobe - his white gloves. The gloves debuted in a film short that was released on March 28, 1929. During the first four films, Mickey didn't have the gloves, so why now? The reasons are a bit more practical than you might think.
The Browne Popular Culture Library welcomed Mickey Mouse into the public domain this week by showing the first two animated short films that introduced him to the world. "Steamboat Willie" and "The Gallopin' Gaucho," both released in 1928, featured the first iteration of the world's favorite mouse and his girlfriend Minnie. A: Mickey Mouse first donned his iconic white gloves in 1929 in the short "The Opry House." Prior to this, in earlier animations, Mickey was portrayed without gloves.
Because characters like Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Goofy, and others were drawn with gloves for so long, even when color film made its debut, and the contrast was no longer necessary, the white gloves stayed on, as though they had become a part of the characters' individual identities. 3 Recently Mickey Mouse fell into public domain, but according to CNN, There are differences between the 1928 Mickey and the company's mascot today. The Mickey of "Steamboat Willie" lacks the current Mickey's gloves and oversized shoes, and his eyes are small black ovals without pupils.
An important feature -or deficiency- of the Mickey Mouse character in Steamboat Willie was that he was not wearing the big white gloves that we associate with this character. Also, Mickey Mouse never spoke in this cartoon. Image created with Hugging Face and the model created using the 1928 public domain shorts We should also note that Pierre-Carl Langlais aka Alexander Doria, who developed this Hugging Face model, also did some research on old Mickey Mouse posters.
They seem to establish the presence of the famous gloves as early as 1928.