Editing Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (section)

==Characteristics==
[[File:Oswald handstand.png|thumb|left|172px|Oswald doing a [[handstand]].]]
While under Disney's creative control, Oswald was one of the first cartoon characters that had personality.{{citation needed|date=June 2024}} As outlined by Walt himself: "Hereafter we will aim to [make] Oswald a younger character, peppy, alert, saucy, and venturesome, keeping him also neat and trim".<ref name=bbc/> With Oswald, Disney began to explore the concept of "personality animation", in which cartoon characters were defined as individuals through their movements, mannerisms, and acting, instead of simply through their design. Around this period, Disney had expressed: "I want the characters to be somebody. I don't want them just to be a drawing".<ref name=nytimes>{{cite news |title=Life Before Mickey |newspaper=The New York Times |date=July 10, 1994 |last=Canemaker |first=John |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/10/books/life-before-mickey.html?pagewanted=all |access-date=December 20, 2015}}</ref> Not only were gags used, but his humor differed in terms of what he used to make people laugh. He presented [[physical humor]], used situations to his advantage and presented situational humor in general and frustration comedy best shown in the cartoon ''[[The Mechanical Cow]]''. He would use animal limbs to solve problems and even use his own limbs as props and gags. He could be squished as if he was made of rubber and could turn anything into a tool. His distinct personality was inspired by [[Douglas Fairbanks]] for his courageous and adventurous attitude as seen in the cartoon short ''[[Oh, What a Knight]]''.<ref name=PW/>

In regard to Oswald's personality, Disney historian [[David Gerstein]] describes the difference between Mickey and Oswald: "Imagine Mickey if he were a little more [[egotistical]] or fallible, or imagine [[Bugs Bunny]] if he talked the talk but wasn't as good at walking the walk".<ref name="rotoscopers">{{cite news |title=[INTERVIEW] Historian David Gerstein Talks Oswald's Rediscovered Short, Relation to Mickey Mouse |publisher=Rotoscopers |date=January 25, 2016 |last=Taylor |first=Blake |url=https://www.rotoscopers.com/2016/01/25/interview-historian-david-gerstein-talks-oswalds-rediscovered-short-relation-to-mickey-mouse/ |access-date=May 26, 2016}}</ref>

In order to make his Oswald cartoons look "real", Disney turned away from the styles of [[Felix the Cat]], [[Koko the Clown]], [[Krazy Kat]], and [[Julius the Cat]] and began emulating the camera angles, effects, and editing of live-action films. To learn how to base gags on personality and how to build comic routines, rather than heaping one gag after another, he studied [[Laurel and Hardy]], [[Harold Lloyd]], [[Charlie Chaplin]], and [[Buster Keaton]]. In order to stir emotion in an audience, Disney studied and scrutinized the shadow effects, cross-cutting, and staging of action in films featuring Douglas Fairbanks and [[Lon Chaney]].<ref name=nytimes/>

Over several cartoons, Disney and his animators would develop Oswald's persona: an "emotive, fast-moving wise guy, alternately ebullient and grouchy".<ref>{{cite book |last=Bossert |first=David |title=Oswald the Lucky Rabbit: The Search for the Lost Disney Cartoons, Revised Special Edition |date=2019 |publisher=Disney Editions |isbn=978-1-368-04207-9}}</ref>

Walt Disney did not want for Oswald to simply be "a rabbit character animated and shown in the same light as the commonly known cat characters", as well as merely just a peg for gags. Instead, his stated intention was "to make Oswald peculiarly and typically OSWALD".<ref>{{cite book |last=Gabler |first=Neal |title=Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination |date=October 9, 2007 |publisher=Vintage Books |isbn=978-0-679-75747-4}}</ref>