Hi folks! Welcome to my My Own Personal Nerdy Disney and Animation Scrutinizing Analysis blog. A blog where I'm analyzing several Disney films, Disney or Animation in general! These entries are just meant to be my analyses. Not reviews or statements. Just fun analyses! Though I'll make some personal remarks now and then, the content of these entries are meant to be depicted objectively. They're made for entertainment purpose only and the pictures/clips are copyright Disney or other companies.
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And finally; If you haven't seen the films, beware of spoilers! And the funny lines aren't meant to be nothing than funny. So I hope you won't find them offensive. If so, I apologize
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| We behaved yesterday, so therefore we were allowed to sit on his shoulders :) |
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| We`re swift at hiding within him :) |
For everyone who`s ever known Disney knows the phrases that "it
all started with a mouse". Or "that it all started with a Princess".
While those statements are technically true, the truth is that
everything started with their founder himself. In other words, Walt
Disney. Regardless of what a person he was or what you personally thought
of him, it`s incredible to think what a legacy he`s left the world. As
hackneyed this sounds, Walt was more than just a person. Or a leader. He
was a visionary, an innovator, a person that was a driving force in
more ways than one. Introducing several developments of a cartoon.  |
| No, I didn`t drew him :) I was instructed as a stand-in :) |
Considering that he managed to mark himself in a world that was
different and a world where technology was slowly making it`s mark, it
would be questionable of how Walt alone would`ve made his same mark today. But Walt was mostly credited for all his content. And was the first celebrity in animation. Considering that his
movies and animation have managed to shape a whole generation who wasn`t
even born during his lifetime. And as hackneyed as it sounds, without
Walt, there wouldn`t have been such a great empire that he left the World. And since that it`s been 120 years since his Birth in December of 2021, there`s no other way than to honor him with this entry with
the man who started it all (pardon this intended pun).Walt`s Origins
Walter Elias Disney was born in December 5th, 1901. He was the fourth son of Elias Disney and Flora. In 1906, the family moved to a farm in Marceline, Missouri. Walt
spent most of his childhood working, with a father who was kind of
brutal. Walt was a fun-loving kid who loved practical jokes and didn`t
have much time to fun and play. Marceline was one of the few places where Walt was allowed to be a child and be happy. Yet the family couldn`t really afford the farm, so they moved. 
Disney developed an early interest in drawing. In 1911, the Disneys moved to Kansas City, Missouri. 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. Walt 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. He attended Saturday courses at the Kansas City Art Institute and also took a correspondence course in cartooning. 
In 1917, Elias bought stock in a Chicago jelly producer, the O-ZellCompany, and moved back to the city with his family. Disney enrolled at McKinley High School and became the cartoonist of the school newspaper, drawing patriotic pictures about World War I. He also took night courses at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. 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. 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. He returned to Kansas City in October 1919 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.
Walt`s Works
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| I`m so proud over steering :) I wasn`t allowed, since I`m a mouse :) |
Walt has been well known for his work. But the first things he did haven`t been as remembered as his later work. With Iwerks and Fred Harman from Film Ad Co, Walt produced the Laugh-O-Grams shorts, which were modernized fairy tales. He did Alice in Wonderland, which combined live action and animation. Afterwards he did Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (urged by the boss of Universal Pictures), to compete with Felix the Cat. And Oswald was a huge success. But due to a conflict with the distribution of Oswald, Walt worked on one certain famous mouse secretly (which created the first cartoon short with sound, Steamboat Willie). Walt also provided the voice to Mickey (and labeled him as his alter ego). But Walt didn`t wanted his studio to be known for just one character. So Carl Stalling suggested that they should do shorts based on musical compositions. Which became The Silly Symphonies (which began with Skeleton Dance). The Award Winning Flowers and Trees introduced color to a cartoon (and had to be repainted in order to adjust to them). Characters like Goofy, Donald Duck and Chip and Dale were created afterwards.
Walt`s first movie was  |
| The letters on my name were simplified for reasons of simplicity :) |
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| They had to make space for me to fly :) |
During
World War II, Walt managed to make the package features. Which were compilation features, but were considered as a
part of his Official List of Animated Features. However, Walt returned
to full-lenght animation with another fairy tale feature in Cinderella. Which proved to be another huge hit. The 1950`s was certainly a successful time for Walt. With the exception of Alice in Wonderland, most of the features released during the decade were successes (despite how Sleeping Beauty was somewhat perceived as an underperformance).  |
| I`m not holdning a gun, I`m holding a stick that`s supposed to be one :) |
It`s
well known that Walt`s interest in full-length animation was decreased
during the last decade of his lifetime. His time was mostly devoted to
Disneyland (which opened in July 1955 in Anaheim, California) and his television shows. The first one being Walt Disney's Disneyland, an
anthology of animation, live-action features and
other material from the studio's. The show was successful in ratings and profits. And had the five-part miniseries Davy Crockett which was an overnight sensation". The theme song, The Ballad of Davy Crockett, became
popular, and ten million records were sold. Which made forming his own record production
Disneyland Records. His other TV Show was The Mickey Mouse Club. Which featured a regular, but ever-changing cast of mostly teen performers. In 1965, he began working on Disney World in Florida, influenced by the cleanliness and layout of the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark.  |
| The puppies couldn`t make it, so the spots came instead :) |
While Walt and his studio was a diversified company who released various live action features who have become memorable, his studio has been known for animation, first and foremost. During the 1960`s, there were three features released: One Houndred and One Dalmatians, The Sword in the Stone, Mary Poppins (while not being completely animated, has still been regarded to belong to this list) and The Jungle Book. The latter being a movie that he didn`t even lived enough to see. But being the very last movie Walt ever worked on. During the 60`s, he also made the Winnie the Pooh shorts, which later became a movie, as he had envisioned them to be. Walt`s Reputation & Dedication
Regardless of whether you love Disney as a company, it`s irrelevant if you loved Walt as a person. Because let`s face it: It`s
possible to love the content of an artist and not the person him/herself. And the unfortunate truth is that Walt was
mostly known for being a ruthless boss (the line "Man is in the forest" was used when he came). In reality, while most people have more layers than being just good or bad (cause let`s face it, that`s how humans are), Walt was mostly stuck with a bad
reputation. He rarely praised the work of his staff and using "that`ll work" as his best compliment. Instead, Disney gave high-performing staff financial bonuses, or recommended certain individuals to others, expecting that his praise would be passed on. 
However, people who knew Walt superficially had many good things to
say about him. That he was the Grandfather every kid would want.
Children who worked with Walt had nothing but good things to say about
him: That he was accessible to work with and was comfortable with them (despite how reports says that he was the opposite). And that he was very jovial and wanted to be referred to by his first name. And that he cared for his workers and made them make mistakes. But it`s
also been said that Walt was an incredibly shy man who took upon a facade,
despite that there was a part of him who loved attention. He never thought of himself of a major star. Still he acknowlegded that he personally did the things that his public persona didn`t (like smoking and drinking). 
Both Roy Disney and Ub Iwerks labeled Walt as being perky and enthusiastic. And apparently he was a great father to his two daughters, Diane and Sharon (who was adopted). Yet
Walt was known for being a great storyteller who was truly skilled with telling tales. Yet Walt was also known for being an everlasting
perfectionist, who lived for perfectionism. Which was one of the reasons
why his movies took so long time to make. Still it was also well known that Walt wanted for every laugh to
be a tear. Walt was eager for ethos and pathos. But yes, Walt was also
pretty much an embodiment of the American Dream. For coming from a
humble background and working himself up (which was a reason for why he never forgot about labor). And yeah, Walt`s mantra was to
not make cartoons for children, but for the child within.  |
| It was Genie who duplicated us :) |
Yet for all his success, Walt was often criticized for the smooth facade of sentimentality and stubborn optimism of his work. And rewrite of American history. While there have been claims that he was racist or anti-Semitic, they have been contradicted by many who knew him. As he later campaigned successfully for an Honorary Academy Award for its star, James Baskett, the first African-American actor honored for Song of the South. Otherwise, Disney hired an ink artist, Lillian Bounds, who he married to in July that year (three months after Roy`s marriage). The marriage was generally happy, according to Lillian.Walt`s Demise & The Fate of the Studio Afterwards
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| I want to show the world how great it is to ride my boss :) |
Regardless
of what could be said about Walt, he unfortunately passed away quite
early. At the age 55. Walt was a heavy smoker since World War I. In early November 1966, he was diagnosed with lung cancer and was treated with cobalt therapy. On November 30, he felt unwell and was taken by ambulance from his home to St. Joseph Hospital. On December 15, 1966, he died of circulatory collapse. His remains were cremated two days later and his ashes interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California (the last time he was at the studio was one of the few times where he praised his workers).  |
| I want to show that I`m the star, not my boss :) |
So yeah, no wonder that the studio didn`t know what to do without their boss (which fueled the famous phrase "what would`ve Walt done"). As he died before his work on both parks were completed. While the studio
was struggling after Walt`s death, it`s true that things didn`t go
downhill immediately after Walt`s death. Still the Renaissance in the
1990`s was seen as the true comeback of the Disney Studios, as well as
the Revival (despite how there are various opinions about that era).  |
| We`re the Family Guy version of Disney`s World :) |
Nevertheless, it would
be tempting to wonder what he would`ve think of the studio if he was still alive. But yeah, since we live in a time where hand drawn
animation has been reduced to a bare minimum, there have been some
theories about how Walt would`ve most approved
CGI animation as well. Which is a plausible theory, but still not a
foolproof one. In 2009, the Walt Disney Family Museum, opened in the Presidio of San Francisco, designed by Diane Disney and her son Walter E. D. Miller. Awards
As for awards and recognitions, Walt Disney holds the record for most Academy Awards earned by an individual, having won 22 Oscars from 59 nominations. For Snow White, Disney won a Honorary Academy Award, which was of one full-sized and seven miniature Oscar statuettes (presented by Shirley Temple). He also won the Emmy Award for Best Producer for the Disneyland TV series. In February 1960, Disney was inducted to the Hollywood Walk of Fame with two stars. Disney was also inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1986, the California Hall of Fame in December 2006. A minor planet discovered in 1980 by astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina, was named 4017 Disneya. Epilogue
So yeah, everyone who`s ever loved Disney can pretty much thank Walt
for starting his huge Empire. While that said, this entry is my fourth
entry about a important person within Disney. So in that case, it makes pretty much sense
to start one about the one who started it all. However, the
difference between this entry and it`s predecessors is how this entry
revolves around a person who passed away long ago. 
And regardless of how Walt personally was and
what could be said about him, at least he`s managed to be a driving
lifeforce for an entire World. And give a legacy to a whole generation of
children. And giving them fond memories they could cherish into adulthood and shaped an entire
generation of Disnerds. While it may seem superfluous to thank a person
who`s passed away, there`s nothing left to honor Walt and thank him for
his everlasing influence and legacy that will last forever.  |
| Look, rodent-haters. Not every rodent is toxic ;) |
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References:
PSB American Experience 2015 Walt Disney Documentary
https://web.archive.org/web/20091003001653/http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/1790811%2Cdisney-walt-museum-san-francisco-092709.article
Disney's Art of Animation: From Mickey Mouse to Hercules (Bob Thomas)
Sleeping Beauty Platinum Edition
Once Upon a Dream From Perrault`s Sleeping Beauty to Disney`s Maleficent (Charles Solomon)
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