One day in 1927, MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer reluctantly agreed to a 

meeting with his creative staff. It was so damn annoying, these so-called artists 

wanting to bother him with their smutty ideas. The mogul felt that family films 

were what the public wanted; to stray from clean content was a mistake. His 

employees always wished to push the envelope with what they called more adult 

subjects, like rape and murder. Now they were all excited to show him a new 

comedy. The lights went down and Mayer was horrified by the images he saw 

on the screen. “Stop the projector! I ought to fire all of you! Imagine if that 

thing were ten feet tall in theaters. All the pregnant women would flee out into 

the street.” 

     Mayer abruptly left, while his astonished personnel wondered who would tell 

the nervous young filmmaker in the next room that MGM would not distribute 

his Mickey Mouse cartoons. 

Extra: Mickey Mouse’s film debut was called Plane Crazy (1927), based on 

famed aviator Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight. The rodent was presented 

as a sometimes nasty character, who in midair tried to force himself on his 

girlfriend Minnie after she rejected his amorous advances; the angry female 

slapped him and then escaped by bailing out of the plane.