Is this a Christmas miracle?
A 1927 Disney Christmas cartoon thought to be lost was discovered in Norway, Agence France reports.
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“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 clearly labelled.”
“Empty Socks” initially had a 5 minute, 30 seconds runtime, but approximately 30 seconds are missing from the discovered footage. Previously, only about 25 seconds was known to have survived. That footage is held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The newly discovered film once belonged to a private individual. Norway’s National Library has digitized a copy to send to Disney.
