I saw on Slashdot that Disney had re-acquired the rights to the character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit from General Electric.
If you are a Disney spaz, like I am, this is interesting, though practically without any actual impact. Oswald was a character developed by Disney in the days before Mickey Mouse. The character was rather successful, but there was a flaw with how Disney had set up the distribution deal with Universal. The deal was actually similar in some respects to the deal Disney made with Pixar. Disney ended up losing the rights to the character, and Universal continued to make the Oswald cartoons, though they were less well received without Disney. This also prompted Disney to create the very similar Mickey Mouse character, and never look back, until now.
It is almost like they wanted to right a wrong done so long ago by retrieving the rights to this character, even though it doesn’t even exist in the collective consciousness anymore. Odd but cool.
They got these rights as part of a package for releasing Al Michaels from his contract with ABC to go to the GE owned NBC. GE also owns Universal through a purchase last year.