I was reading this Mickey Mouse book I have last night, and saw the name Charles Mintz, which was in a page about Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. I was thinking how weird that was, and figured that the people at Pixar probably had a reason for making Charles Muntz have almost the same last name. Apparently Charles Mintz stole Oswald from Walt after the rabbit got popular, leaving Disney to come up with a new character, Mickey Mouse. The Pixarians borrowed Mintz’s name for Muntz. I just thought it was weird 
I actually found that out while doing a project on Walt before Up was released. 
I’m not sure if it was intentional, but if not it’s a pretty crazy coincidence.
Yeah It has to be on purpose, but still I think it’s weird that they would pick him. Mintz’s name was in the book once; maybe he’s symoblic or something…
Oh yeah, I remember hearing about that! Nice little reference. On another note, I’m glad Disney finally got the rights to Oswald back!
Interesting find, Evangeline! It has to be intentional, otherwise that would be a super crazy coincidence. 
Maybe you’re right, that there is some symbolic meaning to this…So, Charles Mintz stole something from someone else and claimed it as his own, right? Did Muntz do that in any way? I guess he spent his whole life doing that, discovering new species of animals and saying that they were his when in fact, no-one can truly claim something like that for themselves. Though that’s a pretty tenuous link!
Yeah, it is! I can’t believe that they’d go that into it, but you never know… I have to find this out! It will forever haunt me 
I’m doing a project on the history of animation in the United States, and I found out a little about him.
Disney came to renegotiate his deal with Mintz to make Oswald shorts. Mintz had a deal himself with Universal Pictures. Anyway, Disney planned to ask for a higher budget as the cartoons were pretty high quality. But Mintz deliberately offered less money because he wanted Oswald’s rights to fall into his hands. So Disney rejected Mintz’s offer, and the new Oswald cartoons were more cheaply made by Universal. Ub Iwerks designed Mickey Mouse for Disney and the rest is history 
That’s it more or less. I might be wrong in a few places. I simplified it a bit so that I wouldn’t have to write as much.
Anyway, does anyone else think that Mintz was doing something similar to what Disney did a few years back? Disney were planning on making cheap sequels to Pixar films after their contract expired. It’s not exactly the same (obviously Disney wanted to keep Pixar, and did in the end) but it’s the same kind of principle.
It probably was an intentional reference- the people at Pixar have inserted animation in-jokes before.
I remember reading about that, and as much as I love love love love love Disney, I have to take Pixar’s side on this one.
And the stories do sound similar. This pretty much just proved to me that it was intentional, even though I was 99.99% sure before
I can’t recall reading anything directly from the Pixar people themselves about it being a direct reference, but it is certainly a coincidence, especially since Charles Mintz was a bit like Walt’s rival, and we all know how Muntz is in Up.
I will have to credit this film for indirectly teaching me who Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is, however.