FROM: Squeak of the Week Published Fridays

One Quarter, Two Dimes, and Three Nickels

Imagine a Walt Disney without a park, without any films, without even spare change for a decent meal. That's how, one day in 1928, he and his wife Lillian came to New York City to meet Charles Mintz and discuss the fate of Oswald the Rabbit.

- John Stanley Donaldson, April 8, 2011

Childs Restaurant, one of many in a cheap eatery chain, was a pre-dawn meeting place for anyone involved in the arts. F. Scott Fitzgerald, for instance, had once been of the high, after-theater tide that swirled Columbus Circle; a sea from which he, in Tales of the Jazz Age, would create Gordon Sterrett, a fellow unable to find work as an illustrator.

To such a booth, now sat an idle animator.

Walt Disney and wife Lillian had arrived in New York City to meet with one Charles Mintz. As their series, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, had seen some success, said distributor would certainly see sum success; pay praise and raise pay, as part of a new contract signing.

Or, so they thought.

The couple was fully dependent on this film income, having built a house on Lyric Avenue, in affluent Los Feliz, with a new studio on Hyperion nearby. When they entrained on the transcontinental trip, a lot was riding on those rails.

But, Mintz could well have been spelled mince, as Disney was put on a chopping block.

Not only did he offer less money per film, which would be at a loss, he let it be known that he had carted off most of Disney's key cartoonists.

Really, of any talent, only Ub Iwerks remained.

Walt was dealt, an "either" or "else." Work under Mintz; or see himself out on the street. Rights to the rabbit did not belong to Walt Disney; a shocking realization. Just one month earlier, "Charlie" had been in Hollywood, supposedly on holiday, and was warmly received at the studio.

Disney had been deceived.

Walt asked for some time to mull the matter over, but had already made up his mind.

He would not be working for Mintz.

He needed some way to keep his own boat afloat. Find some bailing for sailing.

Walternative Thinking

Winter in New York had been the first one in a while not to set-in at zero; but it was still a twenty-degree freeze. Walt and Lillian would leave their room at the Hotel Knickerbocker on West Forty-Fifth Street for a bundled, brisk, thirteen-block walk up Broadway, to Columbus Circle.

Childs Restaurant.

Since there was not to be any more money from Mintz, as soon as the current contract concluded, the Disneys needed to make a decision. The batter boys at a grill were kept busy as they stuffed on stacks of "all you can eat" flapjacks.

Pocket and purse only produced sixty cents.

One quarter, two dimes, and three nickels.

It was counted, and recounted, on the counter.

It didn't add up to anything else.

The couple could be of modest means; they had been through thin before. Best was to be wealthy; then one could afford to be poor.

What to do.

Sunrise over Central Park was the signal to start back. Along the sidewalk, at the Earl Carroll Theater, Simba, the King of Beasts, had been a rip-roaring success. The Gaucho was about to unroll at the Rivoli. Wings, at the Criterion, thirtieth week.

What to do.

As they stood to cross over at the Astor, the electric letters of that largest marquee marked, The Crowd, along with a second feature, 40,000 Miles with Lindbergh.

Walt would think of something.

You see, there are no streets of dire straits, when one is of Walternative thinking.

He would just create a new character.

Mickey Mouse.

And, you know what happened with that.

From then on, whenever Walt and Lillian would visit New York City, there would be breakfast at a certain Childs restaurant. Fifty-ninth Street and Columbus Circle.

Only sixty cents would be spent.

Once, all the money found between them.

The flavor of less favorable days.

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