Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse was not Walt Disney's first successful cartoon creation, but he is certainly his most famous one. It was a Cross-country train trip from New York to California in 1927 that Disney first drew the mouse with the big ears. Supposedly, he took his inspiration from the tame field mice that used to scamper to his old studio in Kansas City. No one is quite sure why he dressed the mouse in the now-familiar shorts with two buttons and gave him the yellow shoes. But we do know that Disney had intended to call him Mortimer till his wife Lillian intervened christened him Mickey Mouse...