Mickey Mouse Animation Cel Brings Ninety Eight Thousand Dollars At Auction

An incredibly rare piece of animation history, an all-original, unrestored production cel and master background from Walt Disney’s 1935 classic “Mickey’s Service Station,” featuring Mickey Mouse and Goofy, realized more than $98,000 USD http://click.ems.ha.com/?qs=a0b6f777c8e9164555c159500ceacad54ad319a092d48c8921bd30eb14370065a07914702d97f374  at Heritage Auctions in New York on July 1, as part of the company’s $1.28+ million Animation Art Signature® Auction, at the Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion (2 E. 79th Street, at 5th Ave.).

“It’s an extraordinary price for an extra ordinary piece,” said Jim Lentz, Director of Animation Art at Heritage. “This is really a Holy Grail piece of animation and one of the best I’ve ever seen, from one of the best early Mickey cartoons and one of the very last black and white Mickey cartoons before Disney changed everything by going to color.” Besides the rarity of the cel and the background, it is also believed that this is the only known black and white production cel featuring Goofy in private hands. In the classic cartoon Mickey (voiced by Disney himself), along with Goofy and Donald, do their best to find a squeaking sound in Pete’s roadster. Naturally, they take the car apart looking for the source of the annoying sound, which turns out to be a cricket.

One of the great surprises of the auction came in the form of a set of 1961 storyboards from The Bullwinkle Show (Jay Ward Studios), three extremely rare trimmed storyboards by Roy Morita for the episode “Buried Treasure,” on Ward Inc. storyboard paper, which crushed its $750+ USD pre-auction estimate to finish, amidst very spirited bidding, at $44,460 USD. One panel features Rocky and Bullwinkle, one has a close up of Bullwinkle, and one is an amazing drawing of Frostbite Falls, Minnesota, with the handwritten notation “B+R House” and an arrow pointing out the specific abode.