[2] It was produced in black and white by Walt Disney Animation Studios and was released by Pat Powers, under the name of Celebrity Productions.

[a] The film has received wide critical acclaim, not only for introducing one of the world's most popular cartoon characters but also for its technical innovation.

Mickey Mouse was created as a replacement for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, an earlier cartoon character that was originated by the Disney studio but owned at the time by Universal Pictures.

[11] The first two Mickey Mouse films produced, silent versions of Plane Crazy and The Gallopin' Gaucho, had failed to gain a distributor.

[13] Starting in May 1924 and continuing through September 1926, Dave and Max Fleischer's Inkwell Studios produced 19 sound cartoons, part of the Song Car-Tunes series, using the Phonofilm sound-on-film process.

However, the Song Car-Tunes failed to keep the sound fully synchronized, while Steamboat Willie was produced using a click track to keep his musicians on the beat.

In June 1927, producer Pat Powers made an unsuccessful takeover bid for Lee de Forest's Phonofilm Corporation.

Landing on deck, Minnie accidentally drops a ukulele and sheet music for the song "Turkey in the Straw", which are eaten by a goat.

Mickey uses various objects on the boat as percussion accompaniment, and later on begins to "play" the animals like musical instruments via pulling the tail of a cat, stretching a goose's throat, tugging on the tails of a nursing sow's piglets and using said sow as an accordion, and using a cow's teeth and tongue to play the song as a xylophone.

When Mickey falls into a bucket of soapy water, the bird says, "Hope you don't feel hurt, big boy!

[19] The production of Steamboat Willie took place between July and September 1928, which according to Roy O. Disney's personal notes had a budget of $4,986.69 (equivalent to $88,485 in 2023), including the prints for movie theaters.

Ub Iwerks set up a bedsheet behind the movie screen behind which he placed a microphone connected to speakers where the audience would sit.

Wilfred Jackson played the music on a mouth organ, Ub Iwerks banged on pots and pans for the percussion segment, and Johnny Cannon provided sound effects with various devices, including slide whistles and spittoons for bells.

The response of the audience was extremely positive, and it gave Walt Disney the confidence to move forward and complete the film.

"[22] Walt Disney traveled to New York City to hire a company to produce the soundtrack, since no such facilities existed in Los Angeles.

If the same combination of talent can turn out a series as good as Steamboat Willie they should find a wide market if the interchangeability angle does not interfere.

[29]The Film Daily (November 25, 1928) said: This is what Steamboat Willie has: First, a clever and amusing treatment; secondly, music and sound effects added via the Cinephone method.

Incidentally, this is the first Cinephone-recorded subject to get a public exhibition and at the Colony [Theater], New York, is being shown over Western Electric equipment.

[31] In 1998, the short was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

[40] In the 1990s, former Disney researcher Gregory S. Brown determined that the film was likely in the U.S. public domain already due to errors in the original copyright formulation.

[42][41] Arizona State University professor Dennis Karjala suggested that one of his law school students look into Brown's claim as a class project.

[45] Beginning in 2022, several Republican lawmakers vowed to oppose any future attempt to extend the copyright term due to Disney's opposition of the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act.

[53][54] However, while the poster was created in 1928, it is unclear whether it was published that same year; thus, its copyright status is unknown, and Mickey Mouse's red shorts and yellow gloves are not definitively in the public domain.

[57] Ub Iwerks, the last surviving director, died in 1971, and counting from 38 years after his death plus the wartime extension, Mickey Mouse entered the public domain in Japan in May 2020.

[60] In the 1998 film Saving Private Ryan, set in 1944, a German prisoner of war, nicknamed "Steamboat Willie", tries to win the sympathy of his American captors by talking about Mickey Mouse.

[61] In the 2008 film of the TV series Futurama titled The Beast with a Billion Backs, the opening is a parody of Steamboat Willie.

[70][71] In 1993, to coincide with the opening of Mickey's Toontown in Disneyland, a shortened cover of the cartoon's music was arranged to be featured in the land's background ambiance.

[72] In 2007, a Steamboat Willie clip of Mickey whistling started being used for Walt Disney Animation Studios' production logo.

[75] The whistle in the film has been used to make sound in the Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway attraction, which opened at Disneyland in January 2023.

[76] In the 1950s, Disney removed a scene in which Mickey tugs on the tails of the baby pigs, and then picks up the mother and kicks them off her teats, and plays her like an accordion, since television distributors deemed it inappropriate.