--- title: Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse Censored in 1931 — Because of a Cow description: The studio was founded on Oct. 16, 1923 canonical: https://time.com/3507973/disney-censorship/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-16T16:00:31.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T10:47:32.615Z article:section: History og:title: This Disney Censorship Story Is Udderly Ridiculous og:description: The studio was founded on Oct. 16, 1923 og:url: https://time.com/3507973/disney-censorship/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt79c1af3e5c66353c/698760d3524fc04b6bde9d9e/mickey.jpeg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Disney And Mickey og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Disney Censorship Story Is Udderly Ridiculous twitter:description: The studio was founded on Oct. 16, 1923 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt79c1af3e5c66353c/698760d3524fc04b6bde9d9e/mickey.jpeg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Disney Censorship Story Is Udderly Ridiculous  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Oct 16, 2014 4:00 PM UTC  Walt Disney with Mickey Mouse, circa 1935 Walt Disney with Mickey Mouse, circa 1935General Photographic Agency / Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Oct 16, 2014 4:00 PM UTC When the Disney Brothers Studio got its start on this day, Oct. 16, in 1923, Walt Disney couldn’t have predicted that his animation studio would become the entertainment powerhouse that it’s been for nearly a century. He also probably failed to predict that, within a decade, he’d get hit with what must be one of the sillier censorship cases in history. Here’s how TIME [described](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,741079,00.html) what happened in February of 1931: --- > “” --- That’s right: Clarabelle Cow’s udders were deemed inappropriate for tender American audiences, who one must presume did not know where milk comes from. Clarabelle was also censored at one point, in Ohio, after she was seen reading a racy book. But, it turns out, Clarabelle wasn’t the only one of Disney’s creations to get adjusted by decency boards during the studio’s first decade. Canada banned another cartoon because of the way a fish got too close to a mermaid’s thigh, and German censors objected to a cartoon in which Mickey and friends were approached by cats wearing German military garb, which was seen as offensive to Germans. (It’s unclear from TIME’s coverage whether the German censors objected to being compared to undignified felines or to anti-Mickey predators.) It was probably not because of her udders, but Clarabelle has largely faded away from the list of popular Disney characters, which means that–to paraphrase another cartoon icon, Bart Simpson–most of the studio’s movies these days do not, in fact, have a cow, man. **_Read TIME’s 1937 cover story about Walt Disney here, in the archives:_** [Mouse & Man](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,758747,00.html) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3507973/disney-censorship/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3507973/disney-censorship/"},"headline":"This Disney Censorship Story Is Udderly Ridiculous","datePublished":"2014-10-16T16:00:31.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T10:47:32.615Z","description":"The studio was founded on Oct. 16, 1923","url":"https://time.com/3507973/disney-censorship/","keywords":["movies","Disney","Censorship","Walt Disney"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt79c1af3e5c66353c/698760d3524fc04b6bde9d9e/mickey.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt79c1af3e5c66353c/698760d3524fc04b6bde9d9e/mickey.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Disney And Mickey","caption":"Disney And Mickey","creditText":"General Photographic Agency / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3507973/disney-censorship/","name":"This Disney Censorship Story Is Udderly Ridiculous"}}]}] ```