When most people think of Mickey Mouse, they automatically think of Walt Disney. But the story of how this iconic character and the Disney empire came to be is incomplete without recognizing the artist behind the mouse: animator Ub Iwerks. Working hand-in-hand with Disney in the early days, Iwerks was the first to put pencil to paper and bring Mickey to life in 1928. His artistry, innovation and lightning-fast drawing skills gave Mickey his distinctive look and movement that made him an overnight sensation. This is the story of the unsung genius who made a simple cartoon mouse into an enduring symbol of American culture.
From Humble Beginnings to an Artistic Partnership
Ub Iwerks, born Ubbe Eert Iwerks in 1901 in Kansas City, Missouri, showed an early talent and passion for drawing. According to a biography by his granddaughter Leslie Iwerks, as a boy Ub would spend hours sketching and tracing cartoons from the newspaper.[^1] He had a natural gift for capturing expressions and movements in his drawings.
In 1919, at age 18, Iwerks met fellow aspiring artist Walt Disney while working at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio in Kansas City. The two young men, both from humble Midwestern backgrounds, immediately hit it off. "When Walt and I first met, he was just a kid of 17 or 18 making $18 a week," Iwerks later recalled. "We became very good friends and in our spare time we played catch."[^2]
Iwerks and Disney decided to strike out on their own, starting a small studio called Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists. It quickly failed, but it was the start of a long partnership. Throughout the early 1920s in Kansas City, they collaborated on short cartoon series like "Laugh-O-Grams" and "Alice Comedies." When their studio went bankrupt in 1923, Disney decided to try his luck in Hollywood. Iwerks soon followed his friend out to Los Angeles.
In California, the duo launched the Disney Brothers Studio, the forerunner to what would become the Walt Disney Company. Their first original creation was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in 1927. The Oswald cartoons were a success, but after a dispute with the distributor, Disney lost the rights to the character.
The Birth of Mickey Mouse
Iwerks and Disney channeled their frustration over losing Oswald into developing a new character to replace him. Disney came up with the initial concept of a spunky, adventurous mouse named Mortimer. Iwerks took Disney‘s rough sketches and refined them into a fully fleshed-out character design with a personality.[^3]
Iwerks gave the mouse oversized ears, hands and feet for exaggerated movements and expressions. He added the iconic red shorts with white buttons and the white gloves to make the hands visible against the mouse‘s black body. Disney‘s wife Lillian suggested changing the name to Mickey. With that, the most famous cartoon character in the world was born – and Ub Iwerks drew him first.
Mickey Mouse made his public debut in the cartoon short "Plane Crazy" in May 1928, animated almost entirely singlehandedly by Iwerks. But it was the third Mickey cartoon, "Steamboat Willie" released in November 1928, that made him a breakout hit, thanks to the novelty of synchronized sound.
What set Iwerks apart from other animators was his extraordinary speed, quality and work ethic. He was known to draw up to 700 frames of animation per day.[^4] By comparison, many other artists could take a week to draw that many frames. Iwerks effectively animated the first several Mickey Mouse cartoons by himself.
In addition to Mickey, Iwerks also designed other classic Disney characters like Minnie Mouse (the first female cartoon star), Clarabelle Cow, Horace Horsecollar and Pluto. Along with Disney, Iwerks co-created the Silly Symphony series which pioneered innovations like Technicolor and the Multiplane camera. Without Iwerks‘ drive and unparalleled output, the early Disney Studio and Mickey might never have gotten off the ground.
Iwerks Strikes Out on His Own
Despite their incredible success together, tensions arose between Iwerks and Disney. Iwerks was frustrated over his lack of ownership stake in Disney‘s growing studio and felt creatively stifled. In 1930, Iwerks left Disney to launch his own animation company, Iwerks Studio.
On his own, Iwerks created new characters like Flip the Frog and Willie Whopper. But none captured the public‘s imagination like Mickey had. According to film historian Leonard Maltin, "The Iwerks Studio had a reputation for very high quality…but Ub Iwerks was not Walt Disney. He just didn‘t have that story sense."[^5] After struggling for a few years, the Iwerks Studio went out of business in 1936.
During this period, however, Iwerks made one of his most influential technical contributions to animation. In 1933, he developed the multiplane camera, a massive contraption that allowed animation cels to be photographed on multiple planes, creating an illusion of depth and dimension.[^6] Walt Disney would later use an improved version of Iwerks‘ multiplane camera to create the groundbreaking feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937.
After his own studio folded, Iwerks freelanced and worked with other animation houses. He helped develop the character of Porky Pig for Warner Brothers. He also did animation for commercial studios, creating iconic characters like the "Brake for Birds" Postal Service owl and the "So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed" Lucky Strike cigarettes dancing cigarettes.
Pioneering Visual Effects Upon His Return to Disney
In 1940, Iwerks returned to Disney Studios in the role of head of special processes. He and Walt had mended fences and Iwerks was given free rein to experiment and innovate. Over the next three decades until his death in 1971, Iwerks pioneered a dizzying array of film technologies and visual effects.
One of Iwerks‘ most important breakthroughs was perfecting the technique of combining live action and animation, which created the unforgettable scenes of Gene Kelly dancing with Jerry the Mouse in Anchors Aweigh (1945) and Julie Andrews cavorting with cartoon penguins in Mary Poppins (1964).[^7] Iwerks also developed new traveling matte processes and refined the sodium vapor process for combining actors with animated backgrounds.
Iwerks won Academy Awards in 1959 for the design of the DisneyVista widescreen process and 1964 for his work on Mary Poppins.[^8] Some of the last effects Iwerks worked on at Disney were for Alfred Hitchcock‘s The Birds (1963). The techniques he developed for this film of combining animation with live birds would directly influence the special effects breakthroughs in the original Star Wars (1977).
The Enduring Legacy of Ub Iwerks
Ub Iwerks passed away in 1971 at age 70, three months before Walt Disney World opened in Florida. At the time, his contributions to animation were known within the industry but not to the wider public. To many film historians, this was an oversight that needed to be corrected.
"Iwerks was the ultimate nugget that Walt Disney mined to build his empire," argues animation historian John Canemaker. "Walt was the spark. Walt was the idea man. But Ub was the one who got it done."[^9] Without Iwerks‘ artistry, technical skills and sheer tenacity in those early days, Mickey Mouse and Disney Studios might never have gotten off the ground.
In recent years, there has been a growing appreciation for Iwerks‘ role in shaping the history of animation. His granddaughter Leslie Iwerks‘ 1999 documentary The Hand Behind the Mouse introduced his story to a new generation. "[Ub] was very humble and never bragged about himself or took credit for anything…That‘s why I wanted to make the film and give him some overdue recognition," Leslie explained.[^10]
Looking back from the vantage point of nearly a century later, Ub Iwerks casts an enormous shadow over the development of animation as a quintessential American art form. He was a visionary who saw the potential of marrying the hand-drawn image with the latest technologies to create pure magic on the screen.
So the next time you see Mickey Mouse, stop and think of the largely unsung genius who first gave him shape and life, Ub Iwerks. For every plush toy or theme park costume or animated short, there‘s a little bit of Ub in there, still working his magic after all these years. Walt Disney may have been the name and face of it all, but Ub Iwerks was the heart, hands, and soul that set the Mouse in motion.
[^1]: Leslie Iwerks & John Kenworthy, The Hand Behind the Mouse (Disney Editions, 2001), 3.[^2]: Bob Thomas, Walt Disney: An American Original (Disney Editions, 1994), 39.
[^3]: Neal Gabler, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (Vintage, 2007), 109.
[^4]: Leslie Iwerks & John Kenworthy, The Hand Behind the Mouse (Disney Editions, 2001), 45.
[^5]: Leonard Maltin, Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons (Plume, 1987), 207.
[^6]: Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation (Disney Editions, 1995), 55.
[^7]: Jeff Kurtti, Walt Disney‘s Imagineering Legends (Disney Editions, 2008), 55.
[^8]: "Ub Iwerks", Disney Legends, accessed May 20, 2023, https://legends.disney.com/legends/ub-iwerks
[^9]: John Canemaker, Walt Disney‘s Nine Old Men and the Art of Animation (Disney Editions, 2001), 64.
[^10]: Kenneth Plume, "Interview with Leslie Iwerks", IGN, Oct. 6, 2000, https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/10/07/interview-with-leslie-iwerks
Table 1: Ub Iwerks‘ key animation milestones with Walt Disney
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1919 | Iwerks and Disney first meet and begin collaborating in Kansas City |
| 1923 | They move to Los Angeles and start Disney Bros. Studio |
| 1928 | Iwerks animates Mickey Mouse in "Plane Crazy" and "Steamboat Willie" |
| 1929 | Iwerks and Disney launch Silly Symphony series |
| 1930 | Iwerks leaves Disney to start his own studio |
| 1940 | Iwerks returns to Disney as head of special processes |
