Milton Mouse

Milton Mouse is an animated character created at Fables Studios for Paul Terry's cartoon series Aesop's Fables (later Aesop's Sound Fables). The character was introduced in 1921, and appeared in dozens of cartoon shorts through 1931. Milton often appeared alongside a girlfriend mouse, usually named Rita.

In 1929, animator John Foster redesigned Milton and Rita to look more like Mickey and Minnie Mouse, who had become incredibly popular following the 1928 release of the Walt Disney cartoon Steamboat Willie.

Milton's new, Mickey-inspired design debuted in the cartoon A Close Call, released in 1929. Further cartoons released in 1930 included Western Whoopee, Circus Capers and The Office Boy. A lawsuit filed by Walt Disney in 1931 claiming copyright infringement put a stop to Milton's appearances.

History
Paul Terry and Amadee J. Van Beuren established Fables Pictures in 1920, and began producing Aesop's Fables cartoons in 1921.

Terry has been credited with being the first animator to use mouse characters, in the July 26, 1921 film Mice in Council, which told the story of mice tying a bell to a cat's neck. The next film, July 31's Country Mouse and City Mouse, established that Terry's mouse characters wore gloves and boots.

The character of "Milton Mouse" has been credited to Terry employee William Ferguson in 1921. The September 27, 1922 cartoon The Fable of the Romantic Mouse was the first to establish a female mouse character, who in this picture was called Lizzie. Later films called Milton's girlfriend Rita or Mary.

Milton Mouse and his girlfriend appeared in dozens of cartoons made under the supervision of Paul Terry. At first, Milton was a mischievous character trying to find treasure or steal food, in appearances including The Fable of the Fortune Hunters (Nov 1922), The Fable of Cheating the Cheaters (Dec 1922) and The Pearl Divers (July 1923). Later, Milton played the hero, rescuing Rita from villainous cats and other threatening animals, in films including Sink or Swim (Jan 1927), The Big Tent (Sept 1927), Saved By a Keyhole (Nov 1927), Our Little Nell (July 1928), A Lad and His Lamp (March 1929) and The Enchanted Flute (July 1929).

Terry directed most of the Fables Pictures films until 1929, when he was fired by Van Beuren over disputes related to disagreements about sound synchronization and financial profits. Terry formed his own studio, Terry-Toons, and animator John Foster took Terry's place.

Milton's redesign
Once Terry left the studio, Van Beuren renamed the enterprise Van Beuren Productions. The boss allowed Foster to change the character designs of Milton and Rita, to make them look more like the increasingly popular Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

According to Hal Erickson, author of a book on the Van Beuren studio: "Beginning with A Close Call in December 1929, Milton and his sweetie took on a rounder, cuter look, especially in the vicinity of the nose and ears. Milton also acquired a pair of white shorts while his lady friend wore a frilly white dress. When the two mice make their first appearance in A Close Call skipping through a field of musical flowers, one is startled by their strong resemblance to Mickey and Minnie Mouse."

As Van Beuren continued to release Milton cartoons in 1930, the design grew even more Mickey-like. Further cartoons included Singing Saps (February 1930), Western Whoopee (April 1930), Hot Tamale (August 1930), Circus Capers (September 1930), and Stone Age Stunts (December 1930).

The November 1930 cartoon The Office Boy is seen as a particularly vulgar use of the Mickey and Minnie clones. In this short, Milton works as the janitor and receptionist at E.X.Y. Railroad, a job that entails him sitting on a stool outside the president's door, greeting approaching guests. Rita, the president's gum-chewing secretary, carries on a flirtation with Milton, and they type love notes to each other on Rita's typewriter. The boss also flirts with Rita, and Milton sees through the keyhole that the pair are dancing in the office. The boss tries to kiss Rita, and we see in silhouette Rita's attempts to fight him off. When the president's battle-axe wife approaches, Milton is happy to usher her into the office to catch her husband in a compromising position. Milton and Rita sneak away as the married couple battles in the office. In Mickey's Movies, Gijs Grob writes: "In this cartoon, the designs and animation of Milton and Rita are terrible, but too close for comfort, and some of Mickey's mannerisms have clearly been copied." This cartoon would lead to trouble for the Van Beuren studio.

Lawsuit
On January 28, 1931, Walt Disney saw The Office Boy at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles, and took umbrage at the flagrant use of his characters. Disney filed suit against the Van Beuren Corporation in March, charging them with copyright infringement. Disney sought an injunction to keep Van Beuren from using characters "in any variation so nearly similar as to be mistaken" for Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and alleged that the mouse was portrayed in a "jerky and amateurish style, ugly, unattractive and lacking in personality." A United Press wire service story noted that Mickey and Minnie had been copyrighted in 1928 by Disney, and alleged that Van Beuren had made one million dollars from their use of the ersatz mouse.

On April 30, a temporary court injunction was filed against the Van Beuren company, charging character infringement.

In court, Van Beuren argued that Milton Mouse had appeared in films as early as 1921, and therefore pre-dated Mickey. Disney's lawyers held that the Van Beuren mice were redesigned to look exactly like Mickey and Minnie after the pair had become famous. Several animators filed affidavits to address the proposed infringement.

In August 1931, Federal Judge George Cosgrave ruled that Disney's copyright had been infringed, and prohibited Milton's creators from "employing or using or displaying the pictorial representation of 'Mickey Mouse' or any variation thereo so nearly similar as to be calculated to be mistaken for or confused with said pictorial representation of 'Mickey Mouse'."

The parties settled the lawsuit on Sept 2, 1931. Despite the claims that Van Beuren had profited on the use of Mickey's image, the Disney studio simply asked Van Beuren to stop making any further cartoons featuring Milton and Rita. Roy O. Disney later said: "We just stopped him. That's all we were out to do. We didn't ask any damages. We even let him finish marketing his pictures. We wanted to establish our right. That's what we were after. To establish a copyright like that is a big thing and that's an important thing to do."

Milton Mouse wasn't the only cartoon character of the time to copy Mickey's look; in 1931, former Disney employees Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising introduced a character named Foxy, a fox character who looked very much like Mickey but with slightly pointed ears and a fluffy tail. Foxy and his Minnie-lookalike girlfriend appeared in three 1931 cartoons: Lady, Play Your Mandolin!, Smile, Darn Ya, Smile! and One More Time. Walt Disney personally asked Ising to stop using the lookalike character, and Ising acquiesced.

Selected filmography
The following are the Milton Mouse shorts produced after the Mickey Mouse-resembling redesign:


 * A Close Call (December 1, 1929)
 * Singing Saps (February 7, 1930)
 * Western Whoopee (April 13, 1930)
 * Hot Tamale (August 3, 1930)
 * Circus Capers (September 28, 1930)
 * The Office Boy (November 23, 1930)
 * Stone Age Stunts (December 7, 1930)
 * Toy Time (January 27, 1931)
 * Cowboy Blues (February 15, 1931)