Long-lost Disney film featuring Mickey Mouse's ancestor discovered in Japan
A long-lost Disney relic has been rediscovered in Japan, according to Japanese media sources.
A cartoon film Mickey Cartoon Speedy, which was bought by a teenager in Japan 70 years ago, has been revealed to be a rare lost work produced by Walt Disney. The film features Oswald The Lucky Rabbit, a long-eared character created by Disney in the '20s that led to his most famous work: Mickey Mouse.
The now 84-year-old owner of the film is an anime history researcher in his 80s who says he picked up the film at a toy wholesalers in Osaka as a teenager. While reading a book about the history of Oswald, he learned that seven of the 26 short films featuring Oswald were missing, which made him recall the film he bought in his childhood.
The newspaper contacted the author of the book and the Walt Disney Archives, and confirmed the reel is indeed one of the missing films, originally titled "Neck 'n' Neck."
"We're absolutely delighted to learn that a copy of the lost film exists," Becky Cline, director of the archives, told the paper.
The film features a dog policeman on a motorbike chasing Oswald and his girlfriend in a car.
"As I've been a Disney fan for many years, I'm happy I was able to play a role (in the discovery)," the researcher told reporters at Japan's Asahi Shimbun daily
Mr Watanabe's childhood purchase is now being kept at the Kobe Planet Film Archive.
Comments