A Brief History Of Disney

Although it is now one of the largest corporations in the world, the Walt Disney Company started as a small animation studio
in the garage of Walt and Roy Disney’s grandfather. This tiny venture was founded on October 16, 1923 – and in 2006, Walt
Disney’s company had grown to revenues of $34.3 billion.

The first project the Disney brothers worked on was a series entitled Alice’s Wonderland, and in 1925, Walt Disney convinced
his brother to rename the studio to Walt Disney Studios.  After several smaller successes and failures, the first Mickey
Mouse cartoons Plane Crazy and Steamboat Willie were released to audiences in 1928. As it was the first cartoon with
sound to achieve popularity, Walt Disney was able to expand his ventures a year later into three additional companies:
Walt Disney Enterprises, Disney Film Recording Company, and Liled Realty and Investment Company.

Over the next several years, what would become some of Disney’s most beloved characters were introduced: Pluto in 1930,
Goofy in 1932, and Donald Duck in 1934. It was in 1937 that the studio’s first feature-length animation film was released,
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and it made history books by being the first animated feature film ever produced. The next
year, Walt Disney merged all of his companies under one title, Walt Disney Productions, and in 1940 the production house
released both Pinocchio and Fantasia.

As the studio began to grow, the United States’ foray into World War II caused a slowdown in film production as Disney was
instead contracted to create morale-boosting government propaganda. The next 10 years were relatively slow for Disney,
and films created were solely low budget or took years to produce – Bambi was in production for 6 years before its theatrical
release. In 1950, the company was revived with the release of Cinderella, and 1952 saw Walt Disney begin to plan the Walt
Disney Productions theme park.