Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago Illinois.He was named after his father and one of his father's close friends named Walter Parr, a minister. In 1906, his the Disney family moved to Marceline, Missouri which they sold in 1909 to live in a rented house. The family then once agian moved in 1910 to Kansas City. Young Walter was nine years old. As a child he used to watch clouds go by and watch as they changed shapes. This was when he realized that anything was possible with a little imagination, something that is evident in all his life's work
Disney returned eagerly to the USA and started working with a man who would be very important in the near future, Ub Lwerks. Together, they created the "Lwerks-Disney Commercial Artists" in January 1920. Unfortunatly the company did not last. But the dynamic duo of Disney and lwerks went to work at the "Kansas City Film Add Corporation" later on. They worked together on commercials for movie houses.
But there were greater things in store for Walt. In 1922 he started Laugh-O-Grams Inc. This company revolved around doing cartoon renditions of famous fairytales. This was a unique feature of the future Walt Disney Company, which did many of these renditions(like Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty to name a few. Laugh-O-Grams added a few new members as well. The employees would consist of: Iwerks, Hugh Harman, Rudolph Ising, Carmen Maxwell, and Friz Freleng. They made shorts that were popular locally, but were putting out more money than taking in. One of their films was Alice and Wonderland. This was the only film that could be justly proved to have an impact on Disney. It consisted of Alice and her cat Julius as they traveled through an animated world. The cat Julius looked notably like "Felix the Cat", one of the most popular cartoons of the time. This was on purpose to try to increase popularity with the audiences. It didn't work. During July of 1923, Laugh-O-Grams Inc declared bankruptsy. But Walt was invited by his brother, Roy Disney, out to work in Hollywood. Walt worked as a freelance photographer to save enough money to afford a one-way train ticket to Hollywood. On the train with him was the Alice in Wonderland film from Laugh-O-Grams, entitled "Alice's Wonderland".
Together, Roy and Walt started the "Disney Brothers Studio" located in the garage of their Uncle Robert. They got a publishing deal with Winkler Pictures, run by Margaret Winkler and her fianceé, Charles Mintz. They worked on a series of take-offs of the Alice film called "The Alice Comedies". The films lasted four years in theatres and were made from 1924-1927. They featured a live action Alice played by Virginia Davis until she quit and was replaced by Margie Gay, Dawn Evelyn Paris,and Lois Hardwick. The last films was "Alice in the Big League" realeased on August 22, 1927. They brought up Ub lwerks to work on the films as well. The series saw medium popularity, but more importantly prepared the stage for Mickey Mouse. Black Pete from the "Alice Comedies" were later used in Mickey's films as characters on a regular basis.(He is in Steamboat Willie, one of the most famous Mickey Films as well as many many others.) Towards the end of the series the show was focused more on the cat, Julius, than Alice.
Now, in 1927 Charles Mintz was in control of Winkler Pictures and ordered a new animated series to be made. A contract was signed with Universal Studios they created "Oswald The Lucky Rabbit". Walt and Werks along with the others at the studio produced "Poor Papa" but was rejected. They went on to make "Trolley Troubles". This was Walt's biggest film yet. So he felt that if he went to Mintz in New York he could get a bigger budget for the Oswald films. He was shocked when he arrived in New York to hear that his budget was cut and that he did not have any ownership of the Oswald character. Making him replacable and unvalued by Mintz. Frustrated with this he got quit the Oswald films and, along with a few dedicated staff members, including lwerks, headed home. On the train ride
Mickey Mouse was born in Walt Disney's head on a train ride from New York to Los Angelas. He was 26 and was heading home after losing his character creation Oswald the Rabbit to his financial backers. He left his studio in Hollywood to travel east and try to get larger funds to improve the quality of his Oswald pictures. Now with nothing, Walt tried to think of something to tell his fellow workers back in Hollywood.
While deep in thought, Walt pictured a little mouse in the back of his head. He thought how a mouse was such a sympathetic character, even though many people are afraid of him, including Walt himself.
So throughout that cross country car ride, Mortimer Mouse was born. But Mrs.Disney thought that the name Mortimer was too pompous and suggested the name Mickey. Mickey Mouse was now a planted seed. Ub Lwerks, Walt's main animator started working on Plane Crazy. Unfortunatley, no distributor wanted to take on the film and it faded away. So Walt started work on his second Mickey Mouse film, Gallopin' Gaucho. Yet again it was never released because this was a silent film and Warner Brothers started to produce film with sound. So Mr.Disney dropped that film and started a third film, with sound, called Steamboat Willie. Walt traveled to do the sound for the track in New York. Walt took a risk by putting everything he had into the film but it payed off.
The manager at the Colony Theatre in New York liked the producer and took a chance on it, and it was a gaurgantuan success.People would ask the ticket venders if they were "running a mickey". Some people even would see the movie twice because they loved him so much. In the nineteen-thirties Walt and his gang produced 87 Mickey films. Walt won an oscar in 1932 for the creation of Mickey Mouse and Mickey Mouse clubs started to pop up all over the country. Walt hit a new level with the scene "the sorcerers apprentice" in the 1940 revolutionary film Fantasia.
Through the 1940's and 50's Disney made fewer Mickey cartoons and did more with Mickeys friends like Donald and Pluto and Goofy. This was mainly because Mickey had become the Disney symbol and if Mickey did something unliked by the audience they would complain and hurt the disney image. Walt soon opened Disneyland and with that success he also created the Mickey Mouse club for ABC's afternoon program. This show was the most successful childrens show of all time and had many generations of Mousketeers.
Mickey Mouse has come a long way in his life time. He now lives in Disneyland and Disneyworld and welcomes you all to come and see the magic. Even though he may not be a steamboat operator anymore, we know one thing will never change: we will always hold our banner high!