The British Film Institute announced on Monday that it discovered a cartoon by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks that was long thought lost. The cartoon features the precursor to Mickey Mouse, Oswald The Lucky Rabbit.
The BFI said that the film, titled Sleigh Bells and completed in 1928, was found in the BFI National Archive just by browsing the online catalogue of its holdings. Walt Disney animation Studios took the film and created a new preservation print and digital copies.
“We’re thrilled to be collaborating with the BFI National Archives in the restoration of the ‘lost’ Oswald short, Sleigh Bells, and to be sharing this delightful animated discovery with audiences in the UK as part of this special Disney holiday programme,” Walt Disney animation Studios president Andrew Millstein said in a statement. “The Oswald shorts are an important part of our Studios’ history, and we have been working with film archives and private collectors all around the world to research the missing titles. We are grateful to Katrina Stokes, Robin Baker, and their associates at the BFI for helping us locate and preserve Sleigh Bells.”
While the film will be screened during the BFI Southbank event in London, it’s not clear when or how it will be shown in Oswald’s native country.
In December 2014, another Oswald short, titled Empty Socks, was found in Norway’s National Library.
Oswald was born in 1927 and was a smash hit, but unfortunately for Disney, he discovered that he didn’t own the character in 1928 after a meeting with Universal, the character’s distributor. On the train ride back to California, Disney created Mickey Mouse and the rest is movie history. In 2006, Disney traded sportscaster Al Michaels to NBCUniversal to acquire the Oswald character back and released a DVD collection of the known Oswald cartoons.