ENTERTAINMENT BIZ
MAY 30, 2021
Happy History Of Walt Disney Company
Happy History Of Walt Disney Company : Entertainment industry wouldn’t be like today without Disney. The characters created by Walt Disney are still the most popular figures in cartoon world along with their film productions.
The Walt Disney Company or Disney as commonly known, is a global media and entertainment behemoth headquartered in Burbank, California. The company took its current name on February 6, 1986 from its predecessor the Walt Disney Productions after following a restructuring.
The company history started from Walt Disney, a talented artist who drew cartoons for various publications. He once worked for the Kansas City Film Ad Company in Missouri in 1920. With his animator friend, Ub Iwerks he founded the Laugh-O-gram Film studio in Kansas City in 1922. They began producing cartoons based on fairy tales. In 1923 Disney produced the short film Alice in Wonderland.
Shortly after completing the film the company filed for bankruptcy and Disney left Kansas City to Los Angeles, California as a cinematographer. He finally sold Alice in Wonderland and became a hit, orders from distributors for more Alice films coming which made Disney founded a company along with his brother Roy. On October 16,1923, Walt and Roy found the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in Hollywood, California.
Along the way, Virginia Davis who played Alice and Ub Iwerks joined the company in Hollywood to produce more Alice films. Disney also produced fully animated film series on a character named Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in 1927.
In February 1928, Disney lost contract for Oswald series. To recover the loss Disney created a character about a mouse whose name was Mortimer. But Disney’s wife, Lilian, did not find Mortimer Mouse to be attractive and appealing. So Disney renamed the character to Mickey Mouse.
The world was introduced to Mickey Mouse in 1928 when Steamboat Willie was released. It was the first sound film for Disney. As the first cartoon that synchronized sound, Steamboat Willie gained big popularity and immediate success. The film led Disney to dominate the animated market for many years. Mickey Mouse character is now the most recognizable cartoon in history.
The company restructured to a corporation by renaming to Walt Disney Productions in 1929 and began producing cartoons featuring Mickey Mouse and his friends : Donald Duck, Goofy and Pluto.
In 1934, Disney began the production of Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, which was the first feature length animated film premiering in December 1937. The film was a smash hit and became the highest grossing film at the time. The profits from the film was used to finance the construction of a new studio complex stretching about 51 acres in Burbank, California where the current headquarters of Walt Disney’s Studios is located now.
Today the Walt Disney Company has evolved into a holding company for media and entertainment business, one of the largest media companies in the world. Opening of Disneyland theme parks across the world beginning in 1955 and dozens of companies acquired in the 1990’s and 2000’s. The first Disneyland was officially opened on July 18, 1955 by Walt Disney himself.
Disney now owns and operates various media and film production companies with 223.000 employees in 2019. The companies are ABC broadcast television network, ESPN, cable TV network such as Disney Channel, Pixar, Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm. In the year 2020 their net income was US$ 2.864 billion.
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