Out of the competitive animation world of the early 1920s there emerged one superstar by the end of the decade, Walt Disney. After his Kansas City-based Laugh-O-Gram Films (formed with commercial artist Ub Iwerks) went bankrupt in 1923, he, his older brother Roy and Iwerks arrived in Hollywood and, on the strength of the Laugh-O-Gram short "Alice's Wonderland" (1923), soon had a production deal for six episodes of "The Alice Comedies". When the series ended three-and-a-half years later, it had provided a substantial base from which the monolith could grow. With Iwerks doing the drawing, Roy handling the business and Walt as the idea man and undisputed authority, Disney (the studio) separated itself from the pack on the strength of "Steamboat Willie" (1928), the first synchronized sound cartoon, riding the phenomenal success of its grinning rodent (and franchise player), Mickey Mouse (voiced by Walt until his death). The "Silly Symphony" cartoons began the following year, and Disney built a team of young animators while creating his company of stock characters (Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and Pluto) to put before the camera.
Combining artistry and business acumen (with Roy present to argue the case for fiscal reason), Disney's vision was anything but conservative, his ambition driven more by cutting-edge technology than ideology. "Steamboat Willie" was a perfect example. When sound came in, Walt optimistically committed to making a talking cartoon with no idea how he could accomplish it, working out the details as the project progressed. With the advent of color, he cannily protected his investment by striking a three-year exclusivity deal with Technicolor and launched production on "Flowers and Trees" (1932), a "Silly Symphony" short set to the music of Mendelssohn, Schubert and Rossini. When the color paint used on the cells baked under the hot lights and flaked off, he instructed his technical department to devise a new formula for paint that would adhere to the celluloid sheets and offer greater flexibility. Disney's development of the multiplane camera (at a cost of $70,000) revolutionized the look of animation, enabling the camera to look through a series of animation "planes" (up to seven, each lighted separately from the side) and create the depth and dimension of the landmark establishing shot of "The Old Mill" (1937)--layer upon layer of landscape from reeds and thistles in a pond in the foreground (with ripples in the pond) to the mill itself, to a procession of cows walking behind the structure, to the clouds passing in the sky.
While part of Disney's staff worked on the refinement of the studio's "stars" (Mickey, Pluto, Goofy, Donald Duck), Disney used the "Silly Symphony" series as a proving ground to achieve greater sophistication in layout and backgrounds, as well as an opportunity to create new and sympathetic characters for each seven-minute short. His perfectionism, embodied by ever-increasing investment in his films, made the leap to features inevitable in order to hurdle the inherent money-making limitations of the short form. Proving the naysayers wrong, he scored a commercial and artistic triumph with the full-length "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937) but rued how much they had discovered en route, saying, " . . . I wish I could yank it back and do it all over again." Even true believers could not have imagined it would take in over $8 million (compared with the $2 million grossed by "The Wizard of Oz" two years later). "The Three Little Pigs" (1933) had successfully differentiated three like characters, but "Snow White" topped that with the creation of seven distinct dwarfs, employing meticulous animation detail no other studio could approach. After missing the target with "Fantasia" (1940), despite its remarkably artful mixture of animation and classical music coupled with cutting edge Fantasound, he hit the bullseye with his next three features ("Pinocchio" 1940, "Dumbo" 1941, "Bambi" 1942) before the war and the strike at his studio conspired to effect his product adversely.
The self-made Disney felt the personal glow of success and naively thought his co-workers would share that feeling. There was a bonus payment plan for what Disney deemed top-quality animation, but his standards were high. Many people worked nights and weekends to meet deadlines and rankled that there were no overtime salaries to compensate them. His stubborn anti-union attitude and firing of union activists only exacerbated the situation until some 500 picketers lined up outside the studio on May 28, 1941. As a result of the strike, Disney lost some of his best talent, and the atmosphere of the studio forever changed, affecting the work produced there for years to come. He devoted most of his energy during World War II to films for the US Armed Forces, afterwards returning for the first time since the "Alice" series to mixing live-action and animation with "The Three Caballeros" (1945). The follow-up, "Song of the South" (1946), featuring the latest technological developments of Ub Iwerks, would set a standard for the marriage of live-action and animation that would last nearly 20 years. It would be 1950 before he produced a new "classic" animated feature but because "Cinderella" and the two succeeding it ("Alice in Wonderland" 1951, "Peter Pan" 1952) did not startle the viewer with awesome visual innovations, there was the tendency to take the efforts of the Disney crew for granted. They had reached a level of perfection where they made what they did look easy.
Disney set the precedent for marketing with its licensing of toys in 1930, followed by the immensely successful Ingersoll Mickey Mouse watch in 1933, and, in another stroke of genius, began periodically re-releasing its classic features, starting with "Snow White" in 1944. Six US re-releases later, it would bring in more than $45 million in its 1987 reissue alone, and it was finally through such subsequent showings that "Fantasia" managed to recoup its initial investment. Though Disney did not venture into live-action feature-length movies until "Treasure Island" (1950), he had begun producing the "True Life Adventure" series in 1945, which earned five consecutive Academy Awards (1950-55) in the Best Short Subjects category. Seeing the potential in TV before any of the other studios, he initially ventured into the new medium with specials to promote his upcoming features before taking the plunge completely in 1954 as host of the "Disneyland" (ABC) series, its popular "Davy Crockett" episodes exhibiting television's ability to influence the market as "coonskin cap" mania swept the country. He used the money from that series and "The Mickey Mouse Club" (ABC, 1955-59) to fund the Disneyland theme park, which opened at Anaheim in 1955, and remained as host for his continuous primetime series under various names (and a move to NBC) until his death in 1966, collecting five Emmy Awards along the way.
Disney had sold his vacation home and borrowed on his life insurance policy to get the theme park project started. In later years, he more and more left the making of movies in the hands of trusted associates while he concentrated on Disneyland and the even grander Disney World in Florida, the largest private construction project undertaken to that time, with grounds 180 times larger than the California park. Though he died before its completion, he did live to savor the success of "Mary Poppins" (1964), a state-of-the-art blending of live-action and animation in which Julie Andrews became the first player in a Disney film to win an Oscar. He finally gave up the ghost after supervising one last animated feature, "The Jungle Book" (1967).
The impact of Walt Disney on the world is staggering. Forget about what Disney (the company) is today. Corporate raiders could have just as easily gutted it during the 80s had new leadership not stepped forward to carry the empire-builder's vision into the 21st century. Disney (the man) whistled a happy tune, one which he relentlessly strove to share with everyone as his name became synonymous with family entertainment. You can take issue with the saccharine sweetness of the message, but you can't argue with the man's genius for story. He left his stamp on animated features that still engage modern children and inspired the recent new wave of Disney cartoon successes (e.g., "Beauty and the Beast" 1991, "The Lion King" 1994). His abiding legacy (as he well knew) is Mickey: "I hope we never lose sight of one thing," he used to say, "it all began with a mouse."