Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is a Disney character few in the modern age would be familiar with. That’s because he started life as the main character in a series of animated shorts that made their theatrical debuts from 1927 to 1938. In total, 27 of these shorts were made by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks for Universal Pictures. Unfortunately, Universal Pictures liked the shorts so much that they direct control of the character in 1928. This left Disney with no choice but to replace Oswald with their own animated character. Who is that character, you might ask? Well, the name Mickey Mouse might be familiar to some folks here.

Unfortunately, unlike Mickey Mouse, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit proved to be significantly less popular. After only a few decades of gradually waning popularity, he eventually ended his cartoon career with a cameo in a Woody Woodpecker cartoon in 1951 before disappearing from the cartoon scene altogether. Oswald still lived for a brief while after that in comic book form. However, even that gradually ended as the character lost popularity. The assassination of JFK by Lee Harvey Oswald actually helped accelerate that downfall due to the coincidental naming. Oswald would end his comic book appearances sometime in the 1970’s as, once more, a cameo in Woody Woodpecker comics. Clearly, at this point, Oswald feels like a sidekick for Woody.

Fortunately, Disney reacquired the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit from NBCUniversal in 2006. Since then, he has made a bit of a renaissance, with younger readers remembering him as the main antagonist of Epic Mickey back in 2010. Surely, Oswald will become more well-known now that he will get an animated / live-action hybrid series on Disney+. Complete with Jon Favreau (Iron Man, The Mandalorian, The Lion King) writing and producing for the series, according to Deadline.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit In The Works From Jon Favreau to be a Hybrid Disney+ Series

Unfortunately, there’s a complete lack of any info on this Oswald the Lucky Rabbit series beyond what I just gave you. No other production cast, no voice actors, and definitely no release window. We don’t even know if that will be the title or not. It’s just a placeholder until we find out more about it. We will just have to wait for Disney to release that info at a later date. Fortunately, what we do get is very exciting. I’ve always been fond of those hybrid animated / live-action media. From Pete’s Dragon (1977) to Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) to Enchanted (2007), such films have always stood out for how creative they are in blending the two media forms. It certainly will be interesting to see what Jon Favreau does, both for the genre and Oswald himself.

What do you all think? Is this Oswald’s time to shine at long last, and earn a place besides Mickey Mouse? Let us know what you all think in the comments section below.

Source: Deadline