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Mickey Mouse may have a bit of a checkered past considering he was originally created as a stand in for the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon. It began as Disney asked for more money for the Oswald project and was told that he could continue his Oswald the Rabbit series but only if he agreed to the aforementioned budget cut. Since Oswalds creator Mintz owned Oswald and had never been on the payroll he really thought he had Disney over the barrel. However, he wasn't prepared for when Disney completely rejected him and began to create a character to replace him and his work.
The original staff that helped to create the history of Mickey Mouse included Ub Iwerks as well as his loyal co worker and apprentice Les Clark. The following spring of 1928, Disney approached Ub and asked him to begin the process of creating new character ideas for him to choose from. Although Ub tried various sketches and different animals such as cows, horses and cats nothing really seemed to take with Disney.
However Disney himself offered the background history for the mouse that would later become the iconic Mickey from his experience with a pet mouse that he used to own on his old farm. Although his chosen name for this mouse creation was Mortimer Mouse, his wife talked him down to a more people friendly name and thus Mickey Mouse in name was born. However this is not without its own controversy as Mickey Rooney after a visit with Disney himself claimed that the mouse was named after him.
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