The auditions for the voice of Mickey Mouse did not go well. None of the auditioners satisfied Walt Disney, who kept making suggestions about how he felt a cartoon mouse should sound. Frustrated, one of his braver animators suggested that maybe Walt should just provide the voice. Amazingly, he did just that-for almost twenty years!
When Mr. Disney's other projects began to get bigger and occupy more of his time, he turned the voice duties over to a musician at the studio named Jimmy McDonald. Walt did do Mickey's voice one last time after his original tenure ended; that's him as Mickey Mouse on the Mickey Mouse Club.
