Thank You Walt Disney, Inc. has both a motto and a message. First the motto: “Save the house where the mouse was born.” And then the message: Kansas City and Walt Disney share a significant piece of history. For it was in Kansas City that the famous creator of Mickey Mouse labored in his first cartoon studio. The company Walt called Laugh-O-Gram was, in fact, located on the second floor of an all brick building that hugged the corner of 31st and Forest Avenue in the city’s midtown. Inside their humble walls, the spirit of creativity was alive and well.
As the story is told, on one fine day a sparkly little four-legged creature scurried out from his home in the floorboard. The lure was the tantalizing aroma of crumbs left over from Disney’s lunch. At first tentative, then driven by a gnawing hunger (for crumbs were indeed few,) the diminutive creature dashed forward, snatched the fallen bits and quickly retreated to the safety of his hole. As the scenario repeated itself with increasing frequency in the days that followed, Disney grew fascinated. Encouraging the little fellow, Disney often sprinkled a trail of crumbs. And Mortimer Mouse obligingly took the bait.
From floorboard corner to filmdom fame may seem like a long way to travel, but when the imaginative Disney decided that Mortimer, renamed Mickey, was just the infectious kind of character he was looking for, a star was born.
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