The Daily News Online.com has reported that the original hand-drawn storyboards from Plane Crazy, the 1928 animated cartoon in which Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse made his first appearance will be on display in Buffalo, New York on April 4, 2009.
Drawn by Ub Iwerks who, along with Walt Disney, designed Mickey, these drawings are considered the rarest and most valuable Disney art in the world.
On April 4, 2009 The Buffalo International Film Festival in partnership with Shea's Performing Arts Center, 646 Main St., and The Walt Disney Company is presenting "Mickey Mouse Movie Masterpieces: A Celebration of Walt Disney." The all-day event will include 10 original, rare Mickey Mouse cartoons from the Disney Studio Archives and the complete uncut 1940 Fantasia, unseen since 1990 on the Shea's screen.
Tickets are available through Ticketmaster and the Shea's box office.The event benefits various children's charities in Western New York, the restoration fund for Shea's Buffalo, and The Buffalo Film Festival.
The storyboards will be hand-carried to Buffalo by Michael Carbonaro, noted comic historian. Originally part of the collection of Mort Walker's National Comic Art Museum in Boca Raton, Fla., the artwork will eventually find a home at Steve Geppi's Entertainment Museum in Baltimore, Md.
Iwerks, Walt and Roy Disney's original partner in their animation company, drew Plane Crazy all by himself, in secret, after the Disney’s lost the rights to their highly successful animated character Oswald the Rabbit in early 1928. Plane Crazy, however, was not released to the general public until after Steamboat Willie the first Mickey Mouse sound cartoon and the first cartoon designed specifically for sound. Steamboat Willie (also supervised and co-animated by Iwerks) was a smash hit, prompting the later release of Plane Crazy and Gallopin' Gaucho (the second Mickey cartoon) with synchronized sound tracks.
The drawings are warm and charming: Mickey Mouse - newly created - displays all of his iconic appeal in these first drawings.
Pat Powers, creator of Powers Cinephone, supplied his sound system to the Disney brothers in 1928 and made it possible for Mickey Mouse to talk. Mr. Powers' family was from Buffalo. Ralph Kent, another Buffalo native, became the "Keeper of the Mouse." Along with John Hench, he was the most respected Mickey Mouse artist at the studio and received a "Disney Legends" award.
For more information on Shea’s Performing Arts Center visit: http://www.sheas.org/.