I made a post about Mickey’s birthday party September 28th. But that’s not the official
date for Mickey's birthday, so I guess I’ll have to make another post today. Steamboat Willie
premiered November 18, 1928, and that
makes Mickey 87 years today!
I’ll
celebrate that by sharing this rare birthday story:
It’s
printed on a sweepstake folder with a coloring game and a coupon on one page,
and the comic story on the other page. The back is blank.
I found it
on eBay a while ago and got curious about what it was. The seller called it a “Walt
Disney World Premium”, but after a bit of google searching I think I found out
what it really is. In the Billboard magazine July 1, 1978 I found this
article:
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| From Billboard magazine July 1, 1978 |
And the
details about the competition described in the article fits perfectly!
The
size of the folder (when folded in two) is about the same as a LP record too.
So according to the article, this little comic story was bundled together with
a cardboard display prepack with Disney records to be sold. And it was probably
given away to customers in record shops in 1978.
I don’t think this story was produced in
Europe. In USA in 1978 Román Arámbula did the daily strips, Manuel Gonzales the Sunday pages, and Paul
Murry used to make most of the Mickey stories for the comic books. But the art
doesn’t look like anything from those.
My guess is that this story is drawn by someone at Jaime Diaz Studio, that used to
make (S-coded) stories for the international market at the time. They also
used to team up Clarabelle with Mickey, Minnie and Goofy in a lot of stories. But I have to admit I’m not always that good with art recognition.
If anyone
know who made this story, or know more about this item, please let me know!
***
One last
fun-fact related to this item. The happy birthday logo above the rules can also be found on Disney covers from Western, published from August to
December the same year. Slightly edited but still the same. Now you know :)
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| 1978 issues of the "core four", all with the Happy Birthday logo |
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