The Walt Disney Company

I

Introduction

The Walt Disney Company, entertainment and media corporation based in Burbank, California. A leading name in family entertainment for much of the 20th century, Disney created the popular animated character Mickey Mouse and has produced dozens of popular animated and live motion pictures.

Since the mid-1980s Disney has diversified its holdings by branching into broadcasting, sports, the Internet, publishing, and the retail business. The company purchased Capital Cities/ABC, Inc., in 1996. In 2006 it announced plans to acquire Pixar Animation Studios.

Disney’s holdings also include the film companies Walt Disney Pictures, Miramax Films, Touchstone Pictures, and Hollywood Pictures; Buena Vista Entertainment; the Disneyland theme parks; ABC Television Network; ABC Radio Network; ESPN and ESPN2 sports broadcasting networks; and a number of newspapers and other print publications. Disney sold its professional hockey team the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim (now the Anaheim Ducks) in 2005.

II

Founding

In the early 1920s artist and cartoonist Walt Disney started an illustration company in Kansas City, Missouri, with fellow artist Ub Iwerks. The company soon went bankrupt. In 1923 Disney joined his brother Roy in Hollywood, California, and together they established The Disney Brothers Studio. The studio produced a series of animated short subjects called Alice in Cartoonland (1924-1927). In 1928 Walt Disney came up with the idea for Mickey Mouse, a good-natured, lovable mouse who often finds himself in difficult situations. Iwerks helped design the character, and Walt Disney Productions produced Plane Crazy (1928), a black-and-white silent film featuring the mouse. See also Animation.

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III

Growth

Walt Disney achieved great commercial success when he added sound and dialogue (voiced by Disney himself) to the Mickey Mouse film Steamboat Willie (1928). The company was also a pioneer in color animation, winning an Academy Award for the short cartoon Flowers and Trees (1932). Disney introduced other popular characters in subsequent family-oriented films of the 1930s and 1940s, including Minnie Mouse, Mickey’s girlfriend; Goofy, an amiable dog; and the excitable Donald Duck.

In 1937 Disney released the first feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, to rave reviews. The company followed up with other animated hits, including Pinocchio (1940), a story about a wooden puppet that is transformed into a real boy; Fantasia (1940), an ambitious film that combined groundbreaking animation with classical music; Dumbo (1941); and Bambi (1942).

In 1954 the Disney company launched a weekly television series called Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color. The popular show ran under various other names until 1990, becoming the longest running prime-time series in television network history. In 1955 the company opened the Disneyland theme park in California and debuted The Mickey Mouse Club television series on ABC.

Disney also continued to produce popular motion pictures in the 1950s and 1960s such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), The Shaggy Dog (1959), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), The Absent-Minded Professor (1961), The Jungle Book (1967), and The Love Bug (1969).

IV

New Leadership

Walt Disney died in 1966 and Roy Disney died in 1971. Without the Disney brothers’ creative and marketing guidance, the company faltered. Disney opened popular Disney theme parks in Florida (1971) and Japan (1983), but the company’s films during this period were less successful. In 1984 Disney began to regain its stature in the entertainment industry when it hired Michael Eisner, president of Paramount Pictures, as chief executive officer.

Eisner, who was responsible for several motion picture successes while at Paramount, quickly and aggressively made a number of important moves. One week after joining Disney, Eisner recruited film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg from Paramount and the company began to make films for mature audiences. Disney films such as Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989), and Pretty Woman (1990) were all extremely successful at the box office.

Eisner and Katzenberg also revived Disney’s reputation for quality, full-length animated films. They teamed to produce a string of successes in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991; the first animated film to be nominated for the Academy Award for best picture), and Aladdin (1992). During this period Disney began releasing its classic films on video, a move that produced millions of dollars in revenue. In addition, by rekindling consumer interest in its classic characters, the company dramatically increased the sale of Disney merchandise.