Animated cartoon released in 1928. It was directed and written by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks and featured the vocal talents of Disney as Mickey Mouse and Marcellite Garner as Minnie Mouse. The cartoon was, of course, in black and white. This was both the debut of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse and the first cartoon with sound. It was based on an old Buster Keaton silent movie called "Steamboat Bill, Jr."
Mickey didn't actually talk in this cartoon -- the only sound he produced was whistling "Turkey in the Straw" and utilizing various barnyard animals as musical instruments. There is a parrot who has several lines of dialogue, but that's it.
As far as creaky old cartoons go, this one is pretty good. There's action, there's music, there's crazed surreal stuff. It's an important piece of film history and a fun cartoon, and Disney can be justifiably proud of it.
The cartoon should've entered the public domain way back in 1955, but Disney lobbied Congress hard to engineer outrageously long copyright extensions, just to keep the first Mickey cartoon out of the public's grasp. In fact, Disney once threatened to sue a law student who'd pointed out that the original copyright application had serious errors that meant the cartoon may have already been in the public domain. Still, not even Disney gets to stand in the way of progress forever -- "Steamboat Willie" finally entered the public domain in 2024.