What was Steamboat Willie's original poster?



Recently, while browsing, I've come across this product, a poster for Steamboat Willie (1928):

(c) 2020 The Walt Disney Company.

My knee-jerk reaction is that the art was a clever faux-vintage work by Disney Consumer products. Indeed the image has appeared on other products as well. However, When I think to the poster most commonly associated with Steamboat Willie (see below) I wonder if either are actually authentic?

(c) The Walt Disney Company

Neither mentions a distributor, which seems unusual. The later poster seems more in line for what we saw for Mickey Mouse's 50th Anniversary retrospective at MOMA and the Lincoln center, where Disney provided recreated title cards stripped of United Artists,Columbia, and Celebrity Pictures names. The second also features the more familiar MICKEY MOUSE logo font in it's finalized form, where the first is much more organic and unrefined.

Did Celebrity Pictures ever issue posters for Mickey's early films? It seems that they did, though several Faux posters exist. If we look at posters for Plane Crazy (1929), the first seems pretty authentic, listing both the sound process (Cinephone), Walt's distributor Celebrity Pictures, and the "Walt Disney Comic" name. The following, which has appeared in the Disney parks seem to be Faux posters designed to match those produced in the mid 30s by United Artists.

(c) The Walt Disney Company

(c) The Walt Disney Company

Though It does seem that Columbia (the series's second distributor) may have re-released some of the Celebrity Pictures era Mickey Mouse cartoons, It's unclear if they reissued Willie.

(c) The Walt Disney Company
So the question remains, What was the original Steamboat Willie poster? Did it exist? For a film that so famous in terms of film history, it would be interesting to see what others have to say on the subject.




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