Oswald The Lucky Rabbit (Missing 1920s to 1930s Animated Shorts)

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (also known as Oswald the Rabbit) is a series of theatrical cartoons from Universal Pictures starring the titular character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Several of the cartoons are either lost, partially missing, or unrestored.

History[]

Universal Pictures was looking to get back into the cartoon business and needed a cartoon character of its own. Because of this, Winkler Pictures head Charles Mintz told the Walt Disney Studio (who they had previously produced the Alice Comedies with) to create a character he could pitch to Universal. Since Universal felt there were too many cartoon cats on the market at the time, the character was made into a rabbit. Ub Iwerks designed the rabbit and Universal's publicity department named it "Oswald" after drawing suggestions from a hat. Winkler signed a deal with Universal for 26 cartoons with the character, and had the Disney Studio animate them.

The first Oswald short to hit theaters was Trolley Troubles (1927). The rabbit enjoyed a modest success and even had his own tie-in merchandise.

Around 1928, Iwerks warned Walt that several of his animators were signing contracts with Winkler Pictures. Walt didn't think much of it at the time.

When Walt spoke with Charles Mintz about a potential budget increase. Despite the rabbit's success, Mintz not only declined the budget increase, but cut the budget by more than half and told Walt that his animators would work at his studio instead of Walt's.

The Walt Disney Studio's Oswald contract with Winkler was terminated in March 1928. Following the termination, Walt and Iwerks went on to create Mickey Mouse.

Winkler continued to produce Oswald cartoons for Universal - Mintz signed a contract that would result in three more years worth of Oswald cartoons. However, in mid-1929, when animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising called Universal head Carl Laemmle to ask him to put them in charge of Oswald instead of Mintz, Laemmle terminated Winkler's contract and established an in-house cartoon studio headed by Walter Lantz. The cartoon studio would be split off on November 16, 1935, giving Walter Lantz control of Oswald. Lantz would eventually sell the studio back to Universal in 1984, which resulted in Universal regaining the rights to Oswald.

Universal had burned most of its silent film collection in 1948. The Oswald shorts may have been part of this collection.

In February 2006, The Walt Disney Company acquired the rights to the Disney-animated Oswald shorts and the character. A DVD collection was released in 2007 containing 13 of the original 26 shorts. Two more emerged in 2008, another in 2011 and one in December 2014 but 9 of the shorts are still missing. Also missing are some of the later-era shorts, including a couple that were animated by Avery.

List of lost Oswald shorts[]

Disney[]

The Banker's Daughter (storyboards and 2 production sketches survive)
Rickety Gin (storyboards survive)
Harem Scarem (storyboards and production sketches survive)
Neck N' Neck (a 2-minute fragment taken from a bootleg Japanese print survives and is available online, an additional 50 second fragment was rediscovered, although this has not been made public, storyboards and backgrounds exist)
Sagebrush Sadie (storyboards and production sketches survive, animation cels are reused for a sequence in Tall Timber and animation was also reused in the Mickey Mouse cartoon “The Chain Gang”)
Ride 'Em Plowboy! (storyboard pages and backgrounds survive)
Hot Dogs (storyboard pages, 2 backgrounds & production sketches survive. A print of an unidentified Oswald short believed by many upon analysis to be Hot Dogs surfaced on Yahoo! Japan in 2025. However, it was sold to an anonymous buyer, meaning that the true identity of the short remains unknown. Final produced Oswald directed by Walt Disney)

Winkler[]

Mississippi Mud
Panicky Pancakes
Rocks and Socks
South Pole Flight
Bull-Oney
A Horse Tale
Hen Fruit
The Fishing Fool
Stage Stunts (advertisement poster survives)
Stripes and Stars
Ice Man's Luck

Lost Reissues[]

Yanky Clippers (1931 sound reissue lost)

Lantz[]

Cold Turkey (An incomplete reel containing animation tests was rediscovered in the 2010s and is available online, some of the animation shown here puts the rumour that this is the first cartoon where Oswald speaks audible dialogue into question, as neither Oswald nor Kitty are seen mouthing the dialogue seen in the cartoon's copyright synopsis)
Pussy Willie
Ozzie of the Circus (first Walter Lantz Studio production in general, unreleased until end of '29)
Kisses and Kurses
Bowery Bimbos (negative was discovered in 2015, but became lost again as it was sold to an anonymous buyer on eBay. Vitaphone disc of soundtrack is available online, as well as photos of the negative)
The Magic Wand (An 8mm film reel was found in EBay, but is not shown to be in Oswald’s filmography. Due to the seller also selling a film reel called “Bo Peep’s Sheep” clearly referencing Case of the Lost Sheep, its likely to assume there is a short in which Oswald uncovers a magic wand.)

Lost Audio[]

Kounty Fair

Lost Title Cards[]

The Fowl Ball (1954 TV title card only found)
Nutty Notes (italian title card found, english is lost)
Bowery Bimbos (english and italian title card lost)
Snappy Salesman (speculated to have lost laughing oswald title card, debunked)
The Navy (found title card)
The Farmer (found title card, unrestored)
Alaska (found title card)
The Fisherman (1954 TV title card only found)

Trivia[]

Several sequences were cut out of the 1931 reissues of Oh Teacher and The Ocean Hop, subsequently becoming lost. These include a particularly macabre scene from the latter where Oswald's Dachshund falls into the engine of a car, this is followed by the car raising it's rear wheel, resulting in a string of sausages popping out the exhaust pipe
Winkler-era cartoon The Wicked West seems to have been reissued by Lantz in 1931, however it is unknown wether Universal owns a print or not, thus the survival status is still uncertain