Oswald made his return as a character in the video game Epic Mickey as well as his return to comics in the graphic novel based on the game.Īs the first forgotten Disney character, Oswald became the leader of the world of other forgotten and underrated Disney cartoons, making it resemble old Disneyland, with statues of him replacing Mickey. Meanwhile Universal has kept the rights to the other 176 Oswald films and includes some of them in its own DVD releases. They were able to release all of them on DVD in 2007 and started selling Oswald merchandise. Disney then gained full rights to the 26 Oswald films created by its founder back in the 1920s. In 2006, Universal Studios traded the rights to Oswald back to the Walt Disney Company in exchange for releasing broadcaster Al Michaels from his contract. However his status was not as prominent as Woody Woodpecker and his supporting cast. The Walter Lantz characters were also licensed to comic book companies outside the United States and Oswald kept making appearances for decades. Dell published stories starring him from 1942 to the early 1960s.

The Walter Lantz Studio then licensed him to Dell Comics along with other of its properties. He had been licensed to the company later known as DC back in 1935 and had his first appearance there in the pages of ' New Fun' #1. Oswald had more endurance as a comic book character. The character was given a cameo appearance in a 1951 Woody Woodpecker film but that was his last appearance in an animated film. While initially successful, the Oswald series was canceled as its popularity had declined by the 1940s. In all 192 Oswald shorts were released between 19. So production of the Oswald shorts was transferred first to the Winkler Studio and then to the Walter Lantz Studio.

By laws of the time it was allowed to keep the character and assign its films to other animation studios. Universal had commissioned the creation of the series and distributed the film. However Walt lost the rights to the character when he left Universal Studios. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was a 1927 creation of Walt Disney and the immediate predecessor to Mickey Mouse.

Oswald the lucky rabbit episodes