Directed by: Walt Disney / Ub Iwerks

Starring: Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse
Voice Performances: Walt Disney (uncredited)

STORY

Before the steamboat. Before the whistle. Before Mickey Mouse became one of the most recognizable characters in the world — there was Plane Crazy.

Inspired by the worldwide excitement surrounding aviation and Charles Lindbergh’s historic transatlantic flight, Mickey decides that if Lindbergh can become a famous aviator, perhaps he can too.

There is just one small problem.

Mickey doesn't have an airplane.

That doesn't stop him.

With the enthusiastic confidence that would characterize these earliest Mickey adventures, he sets about constructing his own homemade aircraft. The first attempt does not go particularly well, but Mickey is nothing if not determined. Soon he has assembled another wonderfully improbable flying machine and is ready to take to the skies.

And naturally, he wants Minnie to come along.

Mickey invites Minnie aboard, and what should be a romantic airplane ride quickly becomes airborne chaos. The homemade plane climbs, dives and careens through the sky while Mickey struggles with the controls and Minnie struggles with Mickey.

Mickey also decides that flying an airplane is apparently the perfect opportunity to steal a kiss. Minnie disagrees.

Very strongly.

When Mickey becomes too persistent, Minnie fights him off — and eventually takes matters into her own hands. What follows is a wonderfully frantic combination of aerial adventure, slapstick comedy, romance gone wrong and the seemingly impossible physical gags that animation could accomplish in ways live action never could.

Eventually, Mickey's aviation experiment comes crashing back to Earth.

His romantic ambitions don't fare much better.

But the little mouse walks away from the wreckage toward something neither Walt Disney, Ub Iwerks nor anyone watching those drawings come alive could possibly have fully imagined.

History.

Because Plane Crazy isn't simply another Mickey Mouse cartoon.

It is the first Mickey Mouse cartoon ever produced.

The character was still being discovered. His personality was rougher. His behavior was considerably more mischievous. His appearance was still evolving. Even the relationship between Mickey and Minnie was being established.

The Mickey Mouse the world would eventually know wasn't finished yet.

In Plane Crazy, we get to watch him begin.

AIN BACKSTAGE SECRETS & AINTOIDS
THIS IS WHERE MICKEY BEGINS

Plane Crazy was the first Mickey Mouse cartoon produced.

Although Steamboat Willie became Mickey's famous public breakthrough, production on Plane Crazy came first.

That distinction makes this little animated short one of the most historically significant films in animation.

Before audiences heard Mickey whistle aboard a steamboat, Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks had already brought him to life here.

AND MINNIE WAS THERE TOO

Mickey didn't begin his screen life alone.

Minnie Mouse appears in Plane Crazy, meaning Mickey and Minnie were paired together from the very beginning of the Mickey Mouse series.

Their relationship may be considerably more rambunctious here than the sweet romance audiences would later associate with them, but one of animation's longest-running couples was already taking shape.

LINDBERGH MANIA

Mickey's obsession with flying wasn't accidental.

Charles Lindbergh had electrified the world in May 1927 by completing the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight from New York to Paris aboard the Spirit of St. Louis.

Lindbergh became an international celebrity, and aviation fever swept popular culture.

Plane Crazy turned that fascination into comedy.

Mickey essentially decides to become his own cartoon version of the great aviation hero — although his homemade aircraft is considerably less reliable than Lindbergh's.

UB IWERKS — THE MAN BEHIND THE PENCIL

The extraordinary Ub Iwerks was central to Mickey Mouse's creation and to the production of Plane Crazy.

Iwerks possessed almost legendary drawing speed. Working closely with Walt Disney, he helped establish Mickey's earliest visual identity and animated the character through these groundbreaking first adventures.

The importance of the Disney-Iwerks partnership to animation history is difficult to overstate.

Walt had the vision.

Iwerks had an astonishing ability to turn drawings into movement.

Together, they created something neither man could have known would still be watched nearly a century later.

IT STARTED WITHOUT SOUND

Plane Crazy was originally produced as a silent cartoon.

A preview screening was held in May 1928, but Walt Disney was unable to secure a distributor for the silent version.

Then everything changed.

Disney moved forward with another Mickey cartoon designed around synchronized sound.

That cartoon was Steamboat Willie.

Its success transformed Mickey's prospects, and Plane Crazy was subsequently given a synchronized soundtrack and commercially released in 1929.

So the first Mickey cartoon made was not the first Mickey cartoon officially released.

Early Mickey history is wonderfully out of order.

THE MICKEY ORDER

For anyone trying to follow the birth of Mickey Mouse, here is the fascinating distinction:

Plane Crazy — first Mickey cartoon produced.

The Gallopin’ Gaucho — second Mickey cartoon produced.

Steamboat Willie — third Mickey cartoon produced.

But Steamboat Willie became the first of the three to receive a theatrical release.

That is why November 18, 1928 — the release date of Steamboat Willie — became the date traditionally celebrated as Mickey Mouse's birthday.

MICKEY BEFORE MICKEY

The Mickey of Plane Crazy may surprise viewers who know the friendlier character of later decades.

This Mickey is mischievous, impulsive, stubborn and more than a little badly behaved.

His pursuit of Minnie is particularly aggressive by modern standards, and Minnie makes it abundantly clear that she isn't interested in cooperating.

That roughness is historically fascinating because Mickey's screen personality had not yet been refined.

Walt Disney and his collaborators were still discovering exactly who Mickey Mouse was.

MINNIE FIGHTS BACK

Minnie is no passive passenger.

When Mickey becomes overly persistent about getting a kiss, Minnie resists him — and she is perfectly capable of defending herself.

Eventually she escapes Mickey's unwanted attention, turning the romantic airplane ride into anything but the date Mickey imagined.

Even at the very beginning, Minnie had a personality of her own.

ANIMATION COULD DO ANYTHING

One of the delights of Plane Crazy is watching the filmmakers discover just how elastic their animated world could be.

Animals become part of machinery. Bodies stretch. Objects behave in impossible ways. Gravity works when the joke requires it and disappears when it doesn't.

Animation wasn't required to obey reality.

That freedom became one of the foundations of cartoon comedy.

AINTOID: MAY 15, 1928

A silent version of Plane Crazy was given a test screening on May 15, 1928.

That date is enormously important in Mickey Mouse history because it represents the earliest known public showing of a Mickey Mouse cartoon.

But the screening did not lead to the distribution deal Walt Disney needed.

Mickey's breakthrough would have to wait.

AINTOID: STEAMBOAT WILLIE CHANGED EVERYTHING

The failure to secure distribution for the silent Plane Crazy helped push Disney toward the innovation that would make Steamboat Willie famous.

Synchronized sound gave Mickey something audiences had not experienced in quite the same way before.

Once Steamboat Willie succeeded, Disney could return to his earlier Mickey cartoons and add sound to them as well.

Sometimes the project that doesn't immediately succeed helps create the breakthrough that does.

AINTOID: THE SOUND VERSION

The synchronized-sound version of Plane Crazy was released on March 17, 1929.

By then Mickey Mouse was no longer simply an experimental character Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks were trying to sell.

He was becoming a star.

AINTOID: THE BEGINNING OF MICKEY AND MINNIE

Think about what is contained inside this one little cartoon.

The first Mickey Mouse cartoon produced.

The first Minnie Mouse cartoon produced.

The beginning of Mickey and Minnie's screen relationship.

The extraordinary animation of Ub Iwerks.

Walt Disney searching for the character that could rebuild his young studio.

And an airplane inspired by the aviation fever sweeping the world.

Nobody involved could have known where it would lead.

But nearly a century later, we can.

We are watching the beginning.

META TAGS

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DATE RELEASED

March 17, 1929
Silent preview screening: May 15, 1928

COUNTRY RELEASED

United States