Happy Birthday, Mickey Mouse!

I would be remiss in letting this day go by without wishing a great big happy 80th birthday to my personal friend, Mickey Mouse! "Born" on November 18, 1928, when his film, "Steamboat Willie", the world's first cartoon with sound, made its debut at the Colony Theater in New York. Mickey's creator, Walt Disney, had created Mickey after an unscrupulous film distributor pulled a fast one on Walt, and retained the rights to Walt's earlier creation, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Oswald remained the property of Universal pictures until just a couple of years ago, when NBC/Universal traded Oswald back to Disney in exchange for agreeing to release "Monday Night Football" host Al Michaels out of his contract with ABC Sports in order to join NBC's new primetime football broadcast team. Oddly enough (or not), Oswald bore a striking resemblance to Mickey, with long ears instead of round ones, but no matter. The rest, as they say, is history.

To celebrate Mickey's milestone, we present his greatest film role - as the Sorcerer's Apprentice in 1940's Disney classic, "Fantasia".