Walt Disney

WALT 
DISNEY

1901-1966

(1) Walt Disney's name is known around the 
world, but even better known are the charac- 
ters which he created — Mickey Mouse, Don- 
ald Duck, Goofy, and counties other cartoon 
personalities. Disney was a cartoonist, a show- 
man , and a businessman of giant proportion, 
But basically he was a storyteller in the tra- 
dition of the Greek fabulist Aesop, or the other 
wise sages from different world cultures.

(2) Walt Disney was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 
1901. At the age of five, his family bought a 
farm in Western Missouri, and as a small boy, 
Walt, drew sketches of the barnyard crea- 
tures and the scenes he saw around the farm.

In 1910 his father sold the farm and moved 
the family to Kansas City, where he bought a 
newspaper delivery business. Walt and his 
older brother Roy were expected to help in 
this work, and at the early age of ten Walt 
was getting up at 3.30 a.m. to get the morn- 
ing edition of the Kansas City Star ready for 
delivery. His interest in drawing continued, 
however, and his father allowed Walt to take 
Saturday clashes at the Kansas City Institute.

(3) When the United States became involved in 
World War, Walt wanted to enlist in the 
navy, but he was under age. Instead he joined 
the Red Cross to serve as an ambulance driv- 
er. Though the war ended before he even got 
to Europe. Walt was briefly assigned to 
France, where, besides driving health vehi- 
cles, he acted as his unit's unofficial artist.

(4) When he returned to the United States in 
1919, he was determined to make a career 
in commercials art. He eventually found 
work with the Kansas City Film Ad Com- 
pany which drew commercial for use in lo- 
cal movie theatres. Experimenting with the 
use of cardboard figures in animation, the 
Kansas City Film Ad gave Disney valuable 
training, and in a short time he began to 
form his own production company. Under 
the company name Laugh-o-drams, Disney 
and a talented draftsman from Holland 
Iwerks, produced a number of animated 
cartoons, choosing for their subject mat- 
ter topics of local current interest as fairy 
tales. Running out of money in 1923, Walt 
closed his business in Kansas City and 
moved to California. There, in partnership 
with his brother Roy, and a capital base of 
$280, the Disney Studio was begun.

(5) While Walt and his staff of artists were 
responsible for creating the animated car- 
toons, Roy was responsible for the manage- 
ment side. This division of authority worked 
remarkably well. The first series which the 
studio produced was "Alice in Cartoonland" 
which combined a live "Alice" with cartoon 
drawings. After 60 episodes in this series, 
the Disney Studio created the character, "Os- 
wald, the Lucky Rabbit"; but not having 
full copyright for Oswald, Disney looked for 
a new character which the studio would dis- 
tribute itself.

(6) Mickey Mouse was the product of the collab- 
oration of Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. Find- 
ing that circular forms were simpler to ani- 
mate than elongated shapes, Iwerks construct- 
ed Mickey from two large circles, one for his 
body and one for his head, to which were at- 
tached two smaller circles for ears, hose-like 
arms and legs, large hands, and large feet. 
Walt Disney himself defined kind of person- 
ality which Mickey would have and 20 years 
provided the falsetto voice which Mickey had.

(7) The Mickey Mouse who appeared for the 
first time in 1928 in the cartoon, "Steam- 
boat Willie", was not the well-behaved char- 
acter which the world knows today. He was 
mischievous and he did get into trouble, 
though he did not have the mean streak 
which many cartoon characters have in 
"Steamboat Willie". Mickey stretches a cat's 
tail to make a stringed instrument, makes 
musical melody as he milks a cow's udder 
and uses a cow's teeth as a xylophone.

(8) After the first Mickey Mouse cartoons suc- 
ceeded in making Mickey a sort of little 
man's hero, Disney found that the public 
expected him to act properly at all times. 
When Mickey stepped out of line a car- 
toon, the Studio would receive letters from 
countless people and organizations who felt 
their model for correct behaviour was be- 
ing compromised. This made it more diffi- 
cult to put Mickey into comic situations 
and he came more and more to act in the 
role of a straight man, and the proper lit- 
tle gentle mouse we know him to be. Laugh- 
ter was sparked by new cartoon characters 
which Disney's artists created. Pluto, Mick- 
ey's faithful but slow-witted bloodhound 
appeared in 1930; the incompetent Goofy 
in 1932; and the notorious, incomprehen- 
sible Donald Duck, voiced by Clarence

. "Ducky" Nash.

(9) In addition to the Mickey Mouse cartoons, 
the Disney Studio in the late 1920s and ear- 
ly 1930s worked on a new kind of animated 
film, which they called the "Silly Sympho- 
nies", in which music and cartoon anima- 
tion joined together in telling a story. This 
format allowed Disney to experiment with 
different types of subject matter and with 
different technical processes, such as the use 
of Technicolor. Of all the "Silly Symphonies", 
Disney's "Three Little Pigs" (1933) was the 
most successful, and its popularity which the 
public set Walt to thinking an even more 
unheard of project — an animated cartoon 
story with would run for more than an hour.

(10) In making a feature-length film, Disney 
would have an opportunity to use more com- 
plex plots and develop more elaborately the 
characters in the story. He hoped to ani- 
mate a fairy story giving it a kind of magic 
which live action films could not have. Other 
movie executives in Hollywood thought he 
was making a disastrous mistake. It was 
their belief that the public would not want 
to sit through such a long cartoon feature.

(11) Disney started to set down ideas in 1934. He 
chose the story of Snow White for his first 
feature film. Early outlines and manuscripts 
show the stages which Disney, his artists, and 
writers went through in reaching their final 
product. Though Snow White, the wicked

queen, and the prince were standard fairy tale 
characters. Disney's characterization of the 
dwarfs was unique. Early manuscripts show 
how Disney narrowed down from more than 
40 names personality sketches (Biddy-Wig- 
gy, Biggo-Ego, Gaspy, Awful) to the seven 
dwarfs who are now a part of a child's cul- 
ture — Sleepy, Bastful, Happy, Sneezy, Doc, 
and Dopey. Original songs were written to 
move the story along, and a fairy tale mood 
of timelessness was created. When Snow 
White and the Seven Dwarfs opened Christ- 
mas week, 1937, it was an immediate suc- 
cess, and Disney was awarded an Academy 
Award for his significant screen innovation.

(12) In 1940 Disney gambled once again, this time 
producing the film, "Fantasia", an animated 
cartoon interpretation of classical music by 
composers such as Bach, Brahms, and Tchaik- 
ovsky. While audience reaction to the film 
was mixed, one New York critic writing about 
the film one day after its opening said, "Mo- 
tion picture history was made last night". And 
indeed, Disney had broken all precedents.

(13) "Fantasia" also shows Disney's willingness 
to experiment with technological innova- 
tions as well as with story and theme. He 
designed a sound reproduction system which 
anticipated stereophonic sound by placing 
speakers (30 in all) around the auditorium 
as well as behind the screen.

(14) Disney's other feature cartoons of the 1940s 
and 1950s have become part of a child's her- 
itage. "Pinocchio", "Dumbo", "Cinderella", 
"Peter Pan", and others showed the range of 
storyline that could be interpreted through 
cartoon animation. The Disney Studio con- 
tinued to develop new techniques and equip- 
ment to expand their creative potential.

(15) In the 1950s Walt Disney began to branch 
out into other areas of entertainment. He 
started to give more serious attention to 
live action films and to nature films. He 
began a long-running television series. And 
he opened the first of his famous amuse- 
ment parks, Disneyland.

(16) Disneyland was the realization of an idea 
which Disney had years before when he had 
taken his daughters to local amusement parks 
or playgrounds. He wanted to build an amuse- 
ment park at which adults could enjoy them- 
selves as much as the children. Planning for 
Disneyland began in 1952. Plans were drawn 
and models were built long before the site 
was chosen for Disneyland. In this sense, the 
park is the realization of a dream and not 
a product defined by the physical environ- 
ment. Disney believed the park should be cir- 
cled by a railroad train and consist of sepa- 
rate areas each identified by a single theme. 
He recognized that people had to be kept mov- 
ing in the park as he expresses in his state-

ment, "You've got to have a wienie at the 
end of every street". This means that differ- 
ent attractions had to be located in such a 
way as to act as a magnet in attracting the 
park visitors. Disney characters and refer- 
ences to Disney movies would be throughout 
the park.

(17) A site was located in southern California and 
the park was built according to the plan. Since 
the park opened in July 1955, it has become 
a part of the itinerary of nearly every trave- 
ler visiting California for the first time. 
An average of 50,000 visitors come to the 
park each day. Built almost like a movie lot, 
Disneyland's streets consist of facades which 
open into rides, entertainment areas, stores, 
and restaurants. It delights the imagination 
of the millions of men, women, and children 
who have ever spent a day there.

(18) With the success of Disneyland clearly es- 
tablished, Walt Disney began thinking of 
building a second park that would be availa- 
ble to the people on the east coast of the 
United States. He did not want to duplicate 
Disneyland, but rather create a complete va- 
cation! and in addition to the amusement com- 
plex which would be the core of the new park. 
He also envisioned a separate area which he 
called EPCOT - an experimental prototype 
community of tomorrow — which would draw 
its ideas from the new technologies.

(19) In 1964 land in central Florida was purchased 
for Walt Disney World. But Disney himself 
would not live to see his second park open. In 
October 1966, Disney learned he was suffer- 
ing from lung cancer. Though one lung was 
removed, he died December 15,1966, in a hos- 
pital directly across the street from his studio.

(20) The work which Walt Disney began contin- 
ues today. Walt Disney World was opened in 
1971 by Roy Disney, and EPCOT Center was 
inaugurated in December 1982. The first Dis- 
neyland outside of the United States was 
opened in Japan in 1983. The Disney Studio 
produced live action films regularly, and fea- 
ture-length cartoons, cinematic jewels in the 
Disney legacy, have periodically been pro- 
duced. Like few other people, Walt Disney 
succeeded in making his dreams come true.