The Walt Disney Company Is Born
Alice Comedies
After returning from war in France, Walt Disney decided to go into a career in commercial art. This lead Walt into using animation for the first time. He started to make short animated films called The Alice Comedies for a local business in Kansas City. The Alice Comedies told the story of a real girl in a cartoon world. Unfortunately, Walt soon ran out of money and his company, Laugh-O-Grams, went bankrupt.
Walt did not give up on his short films. He left for California in the summer of 1923 with his unfinished print of The Alice Comedies to sell as a pilot film to sell a series of The Alice Comedies to a distributor. Soon after arriving in California, Walt met M.J. Winkler, a distributor in New York, to Distribute The Alice Comedies on October 16, 1923. This date became the official start of the Disney company. It was originally known as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, and had Walt and his brother, Roy, as partners. Roy suggested to renaming it the Walt Disney Studio, and so it was.
Walt did not give up on his short films. He left for California in the summer of 1923 with his unfinished print of The Alice Comedies to sell as a pilot film to sell a series of The Alice Comedies to a distributor. Soon after arriving in California, Walt met M.J. Winkler, a distributor in New York, to Distribute The Alice Comedies on October 16, 1923. This date became the official start of the Disney company. It was originally known as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, and had Walt and his brother, Roy, as partners. Roy suggested to renaming it the Walt Disney Studio, and so it was.
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
Walt continued to work on The Alice Comedies for 4 years. In 1927, he decided to move on to something new. Walt created a new character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. He made 26 of these cartoons in one year, but when he requested to get more money for a second year, he found out that his distributor had gone behind his back and signed up almost all of Walt's animators in order to continue making the Oswald cartoons for less money without Walt. When he reread his contract, Walt found out that he did not own the rights to Oswald- The distributor did. This valuable lesson taught Walt to make sure he owned everything that he made.
Mickey Mouse's Debut
Mickey Mouse's First Appearance Ever
With Oswald gone, Walt Disney had to create a brand new character. That character's name was Mickey Mouse. Along with his chief animator Ub Iwerks, Walt designed Mickey and gave him a personality that everyone would love. Walt and Ub created two Mickey short films, Plane Crazy and The Gallopin' Gaucho, but since they were silent films, they were undistributed due to sound revolutionizing the movie industry. Walt decided to add fully synchronized sound to Mickey's third film, and Steamboat Willie opened at the Colony Theatre in New York on November 18, 1928. The audience loved what they saw and heard. Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse became an instant hit in the animation business.
The Silly Symphonies
Flowers and Trees, the first Silly Symphony
Walt Disney didn't wait long to make another series to go along with his Mickey Mouse series, and he created the Silly Symphonies. It featured different characters and each story focused on mood, musical themes, and emotion rather than gags and humor of the Mickey cartoons. Flowers and Trees, the first Silly Sympony and first full-color cartoon, won the Academy Award for Best Cartoon in 1932, the first year that the Academy offered such a category. For the rest of the decade, a Disney cartoon won the Oscar every year. In June of 1934, The Wise Little Hen released, debuting Donald Duck.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
Walt Disney informed his animators one night in 1934 that they were going to make an animated feature film, and then told them the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Although the crew was skeptic at first, they soon became serious after catching on to Walt's enthusiasm. The process of making the film took three years. On December 21, 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre. It became an amazing hit. Snow White soon became the highest grossing film of all time, until it was surpassed by Gone With the Wind.
World War II
1942's Bambi
After the success of Snow White, work immediately started on more feature projects. The next two features, Pinocchio and Fantasia, were released in 1940. Although they were technical masterpieces, their cost was too high for a company losing most of its foreign markets because of World War II. On a limited budget, Dumbo was made in 1941. Bambi, another expensive film, was made in 1942 and caused the company to retrench. Animated films of the highest caliber would not be produced for many years.
Disneyland
Front Entrance to Disneyland
The 1950's were huge for the Disney Company. In 1950,Treasure Island, Disney's first completely live action film. 1950 also saw the return of Disney's full length feature animated films with the release of Cinderella. In 1955, The Mickey Mouse Club debuted on television, and became one of television's most popular children series. Walt always aimed higher than his goals, and one thing that interested him were amusement parks. He felt there should be a place where both parents and children could go and have a good time together. After several years of planning and construction, Disneyland opened its park gates for the first time on July 17 1955 and changed amusement parks forever. Ever since then, Disneyland has been the pattern of every amusement park built since its opening.
Walt Disney's Death
Walt Disney along with his beloved characters.
In 1963, the Enchanted Tiki Room opened in Disneyland, making the first use of Audio-Animatronics. In 1964, Mary Poppins was released and became hugely popular. But on December 15, 1966, Walt Disney died from lung cancer in Burbank, California. Walt was and still is missed by millions of people. The projects that Walt had been working on before his death still went into production and were finished. The Jungle Book was released in 1967, along with The Aristocats in 1970.