Walt Disney Cartoon Movies

[Ferdinando Addison]

90years ago in 1932, the United States was in the midst of the Great Depression. As millions of Americans struggled to find work, a new home, or simply a bite to eat, the movies became an important respite. Live-action hits of the year included the Busby Berkeley-choreographed musical The Kid from Spain starring Eddie Cantor and the high-swinging adventure Tarzan the Ape Man starring Johnny Weissmuller. Nearly five years earlier, the introduction of sound had altered the technical and creative paradigm of the movies.

The cartoon presented the story of a romance between two anthropomorphized trees set against the drama of their woodland home coming under attack by a grotesque, decaying stump. The pastoral scene begins with the rising sun as awakening trees stretch and yawn and groups of daisies conduct morning exercises. The handsome gentleman tree swoons the elegant lady tree by crafting a harp out of vines as she sways to the music, all within the established tone and style of the earlier Silly Symphonies.

Conflict ensues when the jealous stump attempts to carry off the arboreal maiden. He attempts to fight his rival suitor, and when that fails, unleashes an army of spritely-embodied flames. Flowers ring the alarm bells as the flora and fauna struggle to escape the inferno. Resolution comes when a friendly flock of birds pierce open the clouds to shower rain onto the forest as the stump is consumed by his own creation. The short concludes with the male tree presenting his love with a ring fashioned from a smiling little caterpillar.

Late in 2021, it was announced that Flowers and Trees would be among the new inductees into the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress, joining less than one thousand preserved titles, including a number of Disney animated features. Released subsequently to Flowers and Trees, they are all, of course, in color.

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When The Walt Disney Company was Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, animation technology was in its early years. Many of the techniques and tools needed to make cartoons possible had yet to be developed, with animators struggling to find ways of bringing their visions to life.

Rather than wait for this new technology to become available, Walt Disney, in his innovative style, ventured to build these capabilities in-house. The result was a great leap forward in filmmaking, ushering in new inventions that made full-length animated features possible.

During the 1930s, Walt Disney Cartoon Studio developed technicolor, a film process that allowed movies to be produced in vibrant, lifelike colors. This visual enhancement of animated films allowed artists to create worlds that radiated energy and jumped off the screen in a way audiences had never seen before.

One of the biggest challenges in early animation was managing realistic motion and mannerisms for cartoon characters. Disney animators developed rotoscoping to achieve more fluid movement in their animated sequences. This technique involved tracing images over live-action footage to match movements frame by frame for a lifelike effect.

Before animation could reach its full potential, Walt Disney Studios had to cut down on production costs. Hand-drawn animation cels may have been feasible for cartoon shorts, but full-length films required something a bit more inventive.

The technological advances displayed in early Pixar films greatly influenced the movie industry as a whole, with rival studios adopting similar digital animation technology as an integral component of their storytelling approach.

Imagineers have also developed an advanced form of robotics called Stuntronics, a groundbreaking technology that brings characters to life in an unforgettable way. While most Animatronics stay in one fixed position, Stuntronics have the unique ability to perform high-action acrobatic stunts like airborne flips and mid-air poses.

Branching off the capabilities offered through digital technology, virtual and augmented reality offer a promising new arena for even more immersive experiences. Imagineers are already studying how this tech can be brought to its full potential when combined with Disney storytelling.

And I'm Ray Freeman with the VOA Special English program, PEOPLE IN AMERICA. Every week we tell about a person who was important in the history of the United States. Today, we tell about Walt Disney and the movie company he created.

That was the song "When You Wish Upon a Star." It is from Walt Disney's animated movie "Pinocchio." For many people, it is the song most often linked with Walt Disney and his work. The song is about dreams -- and making dreams come true. That is what the Walt Disney Company tries to do. It produces movies that capture the imagination of children and adults all over the world.

Millions of people have seen Disney films and television programs. They have made friends with all the Disney heroes: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Snow White, Pinocchio, Peter Pan. Millions more have visited the company's major entertainment parks. There is Disneyland in California. Disney World in Florida. Tokyo Disneyland in Japan. Euro Disney in France.

Walter Elias Disney was born in Chicago, Illinois in nineteen-oh-one. His family moved to the state of Missouri. He grew up on a farm there. At the age of sixteen, Disney began to study art in Chicago. Four years later, he joined the Kansas City Film Ad Company. He helped make cartoon advertisements to be shown in movie theaters. Advertisements help sell products.

In nineteen twenty-three, Walt Disney moved to Hollywood, California to join his brother Roy. He wanted to be a movie producer or director. But he failed to find a job. So he decided to make animated movies. In them, drawings are made to move in a lifelike way. We call them cartoons. Disney the artist wanted to bring his pictures to life.

A cartoon is a series of pictures on film. Each picture is a little different from the one before. Each shows a tiny change in movement. When we see the movie, the pictures seem to be alive. The cartoon people and animals move. They speak with voices recorded by real actors.

Disney opened his first movie company in the back of an office. For several years, he struggled to earn enough money to pay his expenses. He believed that cartoon movies could be as popular as movies made with actors. To do this, he decided he needed a cartoon hero. Help for his idea came from an unexpected place.

Disney worked with Ub Iwerks, another young artist. They often saw mice running in and out of the old building where they worked. So they drew a cartoon mouse. It was not exactly like a real mouse. For one thing, it stood on two legs like a human.

It had big eyes and ears. And it wore white gloves on its hands. The artists called him "Mickey." Earlier filmmakers had found that animals were easier to use in cartoons than people. Mickey Mouse was drawn with a series of circles. He was perfect for animation.

Mickey Mouse appeared in hundreds of cartoons during the years that followed. He became known all over the world. In Japan, he was called "Miki Kuchi." In Italy, he was "Topolino." In Latin America, he was "Raton Miquelito." Mickey soon was joined by several other cartoon creatures. One was the female mouse called "Minnie." Another was the duck named "Donald," with his sailor clothes and funny voice. And there was the dog called Pluto.

It was about a lovely young girl, her cruel stepmother, and the handsome prince who saves her. It was "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." "Snow White" was completed in nineteen thirty-seven after three years of work. It was the first full-length animated movie to be produced by a studio. It became one of Hollywood's most successful movies.

Movie experts say Walt Disney was responsible for the development of the art of animation. Disney's artists tried to put life into every drawing. That meant they had to feel all the emotions of the cartoon creatures. Happiness. Sadness. Anger. Fear. The artists looked in a mirror and expressed each emotion. A smile. Tears. A red face. Wide eyes. Then they drew that look on the face of each cartoon creature.

Disney's artists drew two-and-one-half million pictures to make "Pinocchio." The artists drew flat pictures. Yet they created a look of space and solid objects. "Pinocchio" was an imaginary world. Yet it looked very real. Disney made other extremely popular animated movies in the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties. They include "Fantasia," "Dumbo," "Bambi," "Cinderella," "Alice in Wonderland," "Peter Pan," "Lady and the Tramp," and "Sleeping Beauty." These movies are still popular today.

In addition to cartoons, Walt Disney produced many movies and television programs with real actors. He also produced movies about wild animals in their natural surroundings. Real or imaginary, all his programs had similar ideas. In most of them, innocence, loyalty and family love were threatened by evil forces. Sad things sometimes happened. But there were always funny incidents and creatures. In the end, good always won over evil. Disney won thirty-two Academy Awards for his movies and for scientific and technical inventions in filmmaking.

In nineteen fifty-five, Walt Disney opened an entertainment park not far from Hollywood, California. He called it "Disneyland." He wanted it to be the happiest place on Earth. Disneyland recreated imaginary places from Disney movies. It also recreated real places -- as Disney imagined them. For example, one area looked like a nineteenth century town in the American West. Another looked like the world of the future.

Disneyland also had exciting rides. Children could fly on an elephant. Or spin in a teacup. Or climb a mountain. Or float on a jungle river. And -- best of all -- children got to meet Mickey Mouse himself. Actors dressed as Mickey and all the Disney cartoon creatures walked around the park shaking hands.

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