Walt Disney History Essay, Research Paper

When people think of animated cartoons, one name immediately comes to mind

"Walt Disney." He is the most popular and known animator in the world.

He wasn’t successful at the beginning of his career but he was a taskmaker and

entrepreneur. Walt’s hard work and entrepreneurship made the world’s best

popular cartoon character "Mickey Mouse." As an animator and an owner

of Disney Corporation, he made a lot of influences in past and present days.

Hereby the importance of his life and influences will be discussed, in a age

order. First of all, Walter Elias Disney was born in Chicago, Illinois, on

December 5th, 1901, the fourth kid of five children of Elias and Flora Disney.

The family often moved from place to place because of Walt’s father Elias. He

tried his hand successively as a farmer, a businessman, an orange grower, a

carpenter and ?? But he expected all members of his family, no matter how

young, to spend most of their waking hours working for him without any

compensation. During Walt’s childhood and adolescence, Elias operated a farm in

Marceline, Missouri. It was there that Walt spent his early years and developed

his interest in drawing. In 1910 the family moved again, this time to Kansas

City. There he enrolled in art classes at the Kansas City Art Institute. In 1917

the family moved again, this time back to Chicago. In Chicago, Walt joined Red

Cross unit and spent nine months as a ambulance driver in France at the end of

World War I. After Walt Disney returned from France in 1919, he decided to make

art his career. He soon joined the staff of the Kansas City Film Advertising

Company, which was producing a simple type of animation. He and a colleague,

Ubbe Iwerks, learned enough about animation to try doing some of their own. They

formed a company called Laugh-O-Gram Films. The company made fun of local

problem and scandals in cartoon form. They sold well enough to give Walt and

Iwerks the courage to go into business for themselves. But the Laugh-O-Grams

didn’t hold Walt’s interest very long. He had a new idea to try, which was

illustrating updated fairy tales in series of cartoons. The cartoons he and

Iwerks produced were not bad, but Walt never got paid for hid films. Walt then

started on a new fresh project, a series of funny story featuring a girl actress

and animated characters. He called it "Alice’s Wonderland." Money was

so scarce that he couldn’t even pay for the rent. With such meager fund all he

could produce was a pilot film for the Alice series. He thought Kansas City was

not the place that earns much money, so he decided to move to California. In

1923, Walt Disney moved to California, and began Walt Disney Production with his

brother Roy Disney and a colleague, Ubbe Iwerks. After five year of making

silent cartoons, he produced ‘SteamBoat Willie," the first cartoon to use

synchronized sound1. In 1928 Walt Disney created a cartoon "Mickey

Mouse" by using his own voice. Disney’s success in "Mickey Mouse"

led to the film series called "Silly Symphonies," which was introduced

in 1929 and first used color in 1932. Soon full color Disney cartoons was

produced, such as "Three Little Pigs" and "The Tortoise and the

Hare." These two films even won academy awards. 1930s brought fame and

successes to Walt Disney as a creator of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto,

Minnie Mouse, and Goofy. These characters not only appeared in cartoons but also

on merchandise items licensed by Disney Production. In 1937 the Walt Disney

Production Studio produced the world’s first animated feature film "Snow

White and Seven Dwarfs." Then came "Pinocchio and Fantasia" in

1940, "Dumbo" in 1941, and "Bambie" in 1942. "Song of

the South" in 1946, used cartoon characters with live actors. All of these

films were successful. During World War II the Walt Disney Production Studio

designed military insignias and made training films for the United States armed

forces. After the war Walt Disney continued to make animated films, such as

"Alice in Wonderland" in 1951, "Peter Pan" in 1953, and

"The Jungle Book" in 1967. He also turned to live-action films such as

"Treasure Island" in 1950 and "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"

in 1954. Moving into totally new area, Walt Disney opened Disneyland in Anaheim,

California, in 1955. He had wanted to design an amusement park where families

could have fun together. Disneyland had exciting rides and attractions but was

also spotlessly clean and run by smiling, friendly employees. The park

eventually came to be one of the most popular tourist attractions in the United

States and may be in the world, too. During the next ten years, Disney added new

attractions to Disneyland while continuing to make the films the whole family

could enjoy. "Marry Poppins," in 1964, is considered by many to be the

pinnacle of his filmmaking career. Disney won a record 32 Academy Awards for his

technical innovations ideas in film. Walt Disney also pioneered the production

of feature films for television. Some of these appeared on his weekly series

"The Mickey Mouse Club (1955-59)" and on " Walt Disney’s

Wonderful World of Color," which aired, under several titles for 29

seasons. Shows prepared for New York World’s Fair in 1964 enabled Disney to show

off his Audio-Animatronics figures in such attractions as "It’s a Small

World" and " Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln." The life like

figure of Abraham Lincoln, which recited passages from his speeches, never

ceased to amaze fairgoers. Walt Disney never rested. Even as he died, on

December 15th, 1966, he was planning for a whole new Walt Disney World vacation

kingdome in Florida, and EPCOT. It is an experimental prototype community of

tomorrow. It is a fun area consists of a showcase, a recreation of foreign

cities, spread like fan around lagoon. On the other side of water, the world of

future is dominated by a 180-foot geodesic sphere, and Spaceship Earth. The

sphere is is surrounded by a number of pavilions housing entertaining displays

of future possibilities in the fields of energy, transportation, agriculture,

mariculture2, and technology. Spaceship Earth is devoted to information and

communications from dinosaur time to the 21st century. In conclusion, Walter

Elias Disney was a great taskmaster full of innovative ideas. In his lifetime he

made so many movies and cartoons that play important role in children’s life.

Also he played important role in the development of animation and film. Even now

most people remembers him, because animation computer designers of Walt Disney

Production are keeps remaking Walt old films and cartoons. Even-though he died,

he still plays important role in our society, today.