Mickey Mouse’s first words and the person who said them

In his first eight sound cartoons, Mickey Mouse laughed, whistled and even cried, but never spoke.

It wasn’t until his ninth film “Karnival Kid” in 1929 that Mickey Mouse, while selling some very animated hot dogs, (take a look below) shouted ” Hot dogs! Hot dogs!”

Listen closely and you will hear that Mickey’s normal falsetto voice is a few octaves deeper. That’s because his voice was not that of Walt Disney. The voice belonged to composer Carl Stalling.

Listen to Minnie Mouse and you’ll find that voice sounds familiar. The reason, Walt Disney voiced Minnie for the cartoon. After this film, Walt took over Mickey’s speaking voice helping give him the fun

Stalling composed many of Disney films and has been credited with inventing how a film score is written for cartoons.

After working for Disney, Stalling moved on to Warner Bros. and for 22 years wrote the music for the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts.