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In what might be the coolest discovery of the year, a lost Disney short featuring a precursor to Mickey Mouse has been found by the BFI National Archive.

1928's six-minute Christmas-themed cartoon Sleigh Bells was thought to be missing, before a researcher located it in the BFI's archive.

Lost 1927 Walt Disney cartoon Empty Socks discovered in Norway

Sleigh Bells features the long-eared Mickey look-a-like Oswald the Lucky Rabbit on a skating escapade with his ladylove Ortensia the cat.

The BFI will be screening a restored version of Sleigh Bells on December 12 as part of its 'It's A Disney Christmas: Seasonal Shorts' presentation.

Walt Disney Animation Studios president Andrew Millstein hailed the rediscovery, saying: "We're thrilled to be collaborating with the BFI National Archives in the restoration of the 'lost' Oswald short, Sleigh Bells, and to be sharing this delightful animated discovery with audiences in the UK as part of this special Disney holiday programme.

A copy of a Walt Disney cartoon from 1927 - long thought to have been lost - has been discovered in Norway.

The footage is an almost complete version of the first Disney Christmas film, Empty Socks.

The discovery was made during an inventory at the Norway National Library facility in Mo i Rana on Thursday (December 11).

"At the beginning, we didn't know it was a lost cinematographic treasure," said library archivist Kvale Soerenssen.

"The film was in two reels which weren't clearly labelled."

The original version of Empty Socks was 5 minutes and 30 seconds long, but approximately 30 seconds in the middle of the film are missing from the footage.

The film stars Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, who was created before Mickey Mouse and appeared in 26 Walt Disney movies.

Before this find, the only known copy of Empty Socks was a 25-second sequence preserved at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Is this a Christmas miracle? A 1927 Disney Christmas cartoon thought to be lost was discovered in Norway, Agence France reports. See more Hollywood's 100 Favorite Films "Empty Socks," Disney's first Christmas, was found during an inventory of one of the facilities of Norway's National Library. The film starred Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a precursor to Mickey Mouse. But the discover nearly wasn't made. "At the beginning, we didn’t know it was a lost cinematographic treasure," library archivist Kvale Soerenssen said in a statement. “The film was in two reels which weren’t

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Disney is synonymous with Mickey Mouse, so to find out there was another character before his existence is pretty surprising! But lo and behold, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, did exist, thanks to a 1927 Disney cartoon that was discovered in Norway! Experts once believed that only 25 seconds of the cartoon, Empty Socks, existed, but archivists at Norway's National Library found an almost complete version of the film at the library's facility near the Arctic circle, according to The Guardian.  "At the beginning, we didn't know it was a lost cinematographic treasure," Kvale Soerenssen, an archivist at the library, said in a statement. "The film was in two reels which weren't clearly...

Effa: Actress-turned-director Penny Marshall, who helmed 1992's A League of Their Own starring Geena Davis (above), is finally making another baseball movie. She'll direct Effa, based on the life story of Effa Manley, co-owner and business manager of the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League in the 1930s and 1940s -- and the first woman inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. [Deadline]   Empty Socks: Long thought to be lost, Walt Disney's first Christmas movie has turned up in Norway. Empty Socks, a short animated film featuring Oswald, the Lucky Rabbit, was released in 1927; it was one of 26 shorts Disney made for Universal Studios before striking out on his own the following year with a new character: Mickey Mouse. [The Guardian]   The...

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