Disney Toy Story Pack

[Edward]

Inthe 1950s, Disney expanded into the theme park industry, and in July 1955 he opened Disneyland in Anaheim, California. To fund the project he diversified into television programs, such as Walt Disney's Disneyland and The Mickey Mouse Club. He was also involved in planning the 1959 Moscow Fair, the 1960 Winter Olympics, and the 1964 New York World's Fair. In 1965, he began development of another theme park, Disney World, the heart of which was to be a new type of city, the "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow" (EPCOT). Disney was a heavy smoker throughout his life and died of lung cancer in 1966 before either the park or the EPCOT project were completed.

Disney was a shy, self-deprecating and insecure man in private but adopted a warm and outgoing public persona. He had high standards and high expectations of those with whom he worked. Although there have been accusations that he was racist or antisemitic, they have been contradicted by many who knew him. Historiography of Disney has taken a variety of perspectives, ranging from views of him as a purveyor of homely patriotic values to being a representative of American cultural imperialism. Widely considered to be one of the most influential cultural figures of the 20th century, Disney remains an important presence in the history of animation and in the cultural history of the United States, where he is acknowledged as a national cultural icon. His film work continues to be shown and adapted, the Disney theme parks have grown in size and number around the world and his company has grown to become one of the world's largest mass media and entertainment conglomerates.

In 1911, the Disneys moved to Kansas City, Missouri.[14] There, Disney attended the Benton Grammar School, where he met fellow-student Walter Pfeiffer, who came from a family of theatre fans and introduced him to the world of vaudeville and motion pictures. Before long, Disney was spending more time at the Pfeiffers' house than at home.[15] Elias had purchased a newspaper delivery route for The Kansas City Star and Kansas City Times. Disney and his brother Roy woke up at 4:30 every morning to deliver the Times before school and repeated the round for the evening Star after school. The schedule was exhausting, and Disney often received poor grades after falling asleep in class, but he continued his paper route for more than six years.[16] He attended Saturday courses at the Kansas City Art Institute and also took a correspondence course in cartooning.[5][17]

In 1917, Elias bought stock in a Chicago jelly producer, the O-Zell Company, and moved back to the city with his family.[18] Disney enrolled at McKinley High School and became the cartoonist of the school newspaper, drawing patriotic pictures about World War I;[19][20] he also took night courses at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts.[21] In mid-1918, he attempted to join the United States Army to fight the Germans, but he was rejected as too young. After forging the date of birth on his birth certificate, he joined the Red Cross in September 1918 as an ambulance driver. He was shipped to France but arrived in November, after the armistice.[22] He drew cartoons on the side of his ambulance for decoration and had some of his work published in the army newspaper Stars and Stripes.[23] He returned to Kansas City in October 1919,[24] where he worked as an apprentice artist at the Pesmen-Rubin Commercial Art Studio, where he drew commercial illustrations for advertising, theater programs and catalogs, and befriended fellow artist Ub Iwerks.[25]

In January 1920, as Pesmen-Rubin's revenue declined after Christmas, Disney, aged 18, and Iwerks were laid off. They started their own business, the short-lived Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists.[26] Failing to attract many customers, Disney and Iwerks agreed that Disney should leave temporarily to earn money at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, run by A. V. Cauger; the following month Iwerks, who was not able to run their business alone, also joined.[27] The company produced commercials using the cutout animation technique.[28] Disney became interested in animation, although he preferred drawn cartoons such as Mutt and Jeff and Max Fleischer's Out of the Inkwell. With the assistance of a borrowed book on animation and a camera, he began experimenting at home.[29][d] He came to the conclusion that cel animation was more promising than the cutout method.[e] Unable to persuade Cauger to try cel animation at the company, Disney opened a new business with a co-worker from the Film Ad Co, Fred Harman.[31] Their main client was the local Newman Theater, and the short cartoons they produced were sold as "Newman's Laugh-O-Grams".[32] Disney studied Paul Terry's Aesop's Fables as a model, and the first six "Laugh-O-Grams" were modernized fairy tales.[33]

By 1926, Winkler's role in the distribution of the Alice series had been handed over to her husband, the film producer Charles Mintz, although the relationship between him and Disney was sometimes strained.[45] The series ran until July 1927,[46] by which time Disney had begun to tire of it and wanted to move away from the mixed format to all animation.[45][47] After Mintz requested new material to distribute through Universal Pictures, Disney and Iwerks created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character Disney wanted to be "peppy, alert, saucy and venturesome, keeping him also neat and trim".[47][48]

In February 1928, Disney hoped to negotiate a larger fee for producing the Oswald series, but found Mintz wanting to reduce the payments. Mintz had also persuaded many of the artists involved to work directly for him, including Harman, Ising, Carman Maxwell and Friz Freleng. Disney also found out that Universal owned the intellectual property rights to Oswald. Mintz threatened to start his own studio and produce the series himself if Disney refused to accept the reductions. Disney declined Mintz's ultimatum and lost most of his animation staff, except Iwerks, who chose to remain with him.[49][50][f]

To replace Oswald, Disney and Iwerks developed Mickey Mouse, possibly inspired by a pet mouse that Disney had adopted while working in his Laugh-O-Gram studio, although the origins of the character are unclear.[52][g] Disney's original choice of name was Mortimer Mouse, but his wife Lillian thought it too pompous, and suggested Mickey instead.[53][h] Iwerks revised Disney's provisional sketches to make the character easier to animate. Disney, who had begun to distance himself from the animation process,[55] provided Mickey's voice until 1947. In the words of one Disney employee, "Ub designed Mickey's physical appearance, but Walt gave him his soul."[56]

Mickey Mouse first appeared in May 1928 as a single test screening of the short Plane Crazy, but it, and the second feature, The Gallopin' Gaucho, failed to find a distributor.[57] Following the 1927 sensation The Jazz Singer, Disney used synchronized sound on the third short, Steamboat Willie, to create the first post-produced sound cartoon. After the animation was complete, Disney signed a contract with the former executive of Universal Pictures, Pat Powers, to use the "Powers Cinephone" recording system;[58] Cinephone became the new distributor for Disney's early sound cartoons, which soon became popular.[59]

With the loss of Powers as distributor, Disney studios signed a contract with Columbia Pictures to distribute the Mickey Mouse cartoons, which became increasingly popular, including internationally.[63][64][i] Disney and his crew also introduced new cartoon stars like Pluto in 1930, Goofy in 1932 and Donald Duck in 1934.[65] Always keen to embrace new technology and encouraged by his new contract with United Artists, Disney filmed Flowers and Trees (1932) in full-color three-strip Technicolor;[66] he was also able to negotiate a deal giving him the sole right to use the three-strip process until August 31, 1935.[67] All subsequent Silly Symphony cartoons were in color.[68] Flowers and Trees was popular with audiences[69] and won the inaugural Academy Award for best Short Subject (Cartoon) at the 1932 ceremony. Disney had been nominated for another film in that category, Mickey's Orphans, and received an Honorary Award "for the creation of Mickey Mouse".[70][71]

In 1933, Disney produced The Three Little Pigs, a film described by the media historian Adrian Danks as "the most successful short animation of all time".[72] The film won Disney another Academy Award in the Short Subject (Cartoon) category. The film's success led to a further increase in the studio's staff, which numbered nearly 200 by the end of the year.[73] Disney realized the importance of telling emotionally gripping stories that would interest the audience,[74] and he invested in a "story department" separate from the animators, with storyboard artists who would detail the plots of Disney's films.[75]

In early 1950, Disney produced Cinderella, his studio's first animated feature in eight years. It was popular with critics and theater audiences. Costing $2.2 million to produce, it earned nearly $8 million in its first year.[100][o] Disney was less involved than he had been with previous pictures because of his involvement in his first entirely live-action feature, Treasure Island (1950), which was shot in Britain, as was The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952).[101] Other all-live-action features followed, many of which had patriotic themes.[58][p] He continued to produce full-length animated features too, including Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Peter Pan (1953). From the early to mid-1950s, Disney began to devote less attention to the animation department, entrusting most of its operations to his key animators, the Nine Old Men,[q] although he was always present at story meetings. Instead, he started concentrating on other ventures.[102] Around the same time, Disney established his own film distribution division Buena Vista, replacing his most recent distributor RKO Pictures.[103]

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