The cancelled Oswald cartoon show, and the cameo in Disney Dreamlight Valley

Heya friends, I just wanted to talk a little bit about my favorite cartoon character today. As you may know I am referring to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. He’s been on my mind a lot recently. In addition to doing some illustrations featuring the character I began thinking about the projects that could have been. Like another entry in the Epic Mickey series, which was sadly cancelled by Disney. Warren Spector, and the team at Junction Point deserved much more support from the parent company. Great games take time to create, they aren’t anything at all like animated films, or live action projects. They require a unique set of skills, and the right kind of leadership.

They only thing that breaks my heart more than a cancelled game featuring Oswald was the cancellation of the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon show. I had actually talked a little bit about this show way back in 2025. This cartoon series was scheduled to debut on Disney+ in December 2021, but was postponed several times. It was eventually cancelled. A live action show produced by Jon Favreau was announced for 2025, but got pushed back to 2026, and eventually 2027.

A ton of art was revealed about the project while it was still in development. I thought it was very interesting that Oswald was wearing the single strap similar to his redesign by Universal Studios in the late ‘90s. A couple of drafts were proposed, the suspender was cut, and eventually he appeared very similar to the way he did in Epic Mickey.

Various locations were proposed for the series, including his service station. This was based on the service station that actually exists in Disney’s California Adventure. The sister park to Disneyland in Anaheim. A good portion of the first merchandise available in the USA featuring Oswald was exclusive to the service station.

The big city that Oswald would eventually find himself at was Coneyopolis. It was an Art Deco metropolis-meets-Coney Island. Which would have been very appropriate for the era that he was created in. Walt Disney, and his brother Roy founded their studio in Hollywood during the peak of the Roaring 20’s. Oswald made his debut for Universal Studios in 1927, and a year later Walt lost the rights, and created Mickey Mouse for his own company. Thankfully he was successful, and the rights to the rabbit eventually ended up with Walter Lantz, the creator of Woody Woodpecker. Disney, and Lantz were friends, and he was grateful that he kept the rabbit around in his cartoons, and comics through the ‘50s.

The animation concept art featured all sorts of locations, vehicles, allies, and villains as well. It was a shame that we wouldn’t get a proper cartoon from Disney’s original animated star. Animation fans had been hoping that the success of the Oswald live action show might lead to the studio revisiting an animated series. The only downside is that most of the animators that were at Disney were let go, or went to different studios after the project was cancelled. So in typical form Disney would have to start from scratch. You would imagine how losing key animators, and storytellers, and starting with inexperienced team members wouldn’t make for a better project. But I digress…

Oswald did manage to turn up in a few game cameos. One of the better ones in the past few years was Disney Dreamlight Valley. The MMO was released in September 2022. The game allowed players to meet characters from across the massive library of Disney films. As with other MMO’s the players were tasked with missions all over the game universe. They could customize their own avatar, and could collect items to build their homes.

Oswald had an amazing design. The rabbit model was designed by Francois Bouquet. He was small, and round, with shapes even more pronounced than the original designs by Ubbe Iwerks, or the modern designs of Eric Goldberg. He was also filled with tons of classic animation gags, the kind you would expect to see in a rubber-hose style of character. In the initial encounters he didn’t speak, which was the way I preferred for the character to be. This meant that he had to do a lot of pantomime in order to communicate. Eventually you could unlock his voice so you could finally clearly understand him. Even then he spoke with a lot of 1920’s slang.

Players could complete side missions in order to unlock his home. A theater popped up out of the ground, with Oswald’s name in the marquee. The inside was actually a very classy jazz club. There were tables, and a coffee bar. There was even a stage with an old-timey microphone. Seeing this building made me wish for the days of classic toy playsets. I’d buy Oswald’s home, and an Oswald figure to go with it in a heartbeat. At the very least the design by Mr. Bouquet definitely deserved to be recreated in physical form. That’s about all I wanted to talk about today. I’d like to know if there was a cancelled film, cartoon, or game that you wish had come out. Tell me about it in the comments section. If you enjoy this blog there are several ways you can support me. You can sponsor me directly on Patreon. Or like and subscribe to my videos on YouTube. You can even subscribe to the Pink Monorail Podcast featuring my wife, and myself. 

 

What about touch-based fighting games? - A 1UP Classic from April 7, 2011

Since fighting games are on the mind right now and the GDC had recently past I was reminded of an arcade fighter that came and went. SegaNerds covered Yu Suzuki talking about a cancelled fighting game project called Psy Phi. The veteran game designer and godfather of 3D fighters was trying to bring entirely new mechanics to the arcade with a touch screen based fighter. 

I mentioned this game years ago here and was not impressed when 1UP declared it the best game of the 2005 JAMMA show. I have tremendous respect for Mr. Suzuki but the game did not have groundbreaking gameplay elements. The idea of warriors with awesome psychic powers, or at the very least fighters that could fly are nothing new in gaming. These genres were done before the Dragon Ball Z series went 3D. The two best console standouts in the genre were Bastard! on the Super Famicom and Psychic Force on the Dreamcast.

 

I was never sold on the concept of a fighting game using touch screen controls. Requiring gamers to move and activate special moves by sliding their hands all over the screen seemed to make the game more complex than it had to be. Yu was trying to make a fighting game more accessible to gamers but I felt his control scheme was far too cumbersome. It would be easy to lose an opponent if they moved behind an arm as it crossed the screen. Plus most fighting games require quick reflexes and reaction times, having to move by clicking the corners of the screen would have slowed down the gameplay tremendously. Who wants to play a sluggish fighter after all?

   

What do you think of touch based gaming? Does it work on the small screen of the DS or iPad but lose it's practicality on a larger scale? I know my wife would love a MS Surface but what types of games work best on touch-based TV-sized displays? Perhaps a strategy game, StarCraft or the like would make more sense than a fighter. I know a Dawn of War on a table-sized monitor would be mad fun. What do you think? As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!