When people think of animated cartoons, one name immediately comes to mind
“Walt Disney.” He is the most popular and known animator in the world.
He wasn’t successful at the beginning of his career but he was a taskmaker and
entrepreneur. Walt’s hard work and entrepreneurship made the world’s best
popular cartoon character “Mickey Mouse.” As an animator and an owner
of Disney Corporation, he made a lot of influences in past and present days.
Hereby the importance of his life and influences will be discussed, in a age
order. First of all, Walter Elias Disney was born in Chicago, Illinois, on
December 5th, 1901, the fourth kid of five children of Elias and Flora Disney.
The family often moved from place to place because of Walt’s father Elias. He
tried his hand successively as a farmer, a businessman, an orange grower, a
carpenter and ?? But he expected all members of his family, no matter how
young, to spend most of their waking hours working for him without any
compensation. During Walt’s childhood and adolescence, Elias operated a farm in
Marceline, Missouri. It was there that Walt spent his early years and developed
his interest in drawing. In 1910 the family moved again, this time to Kansas
City. There he enrolled in art classes at the Kansas City Art Institute. In 1917
the family moved again, this time back to Chicago. In Chicago, Walt joined Red
Cross unit and spent nine months as a ambulance driver in France at the end of
World War I. After Walt Disney returned from France in 1919, he decided to make
art his career. He soon joined the staff of the Kansas City Film Advertising
Company, which was producing a simple type of animation. He and a colleague,
Ubbe Iwerks, learned enough about animation to try doing some of their own. They
formed a company called Laugh-O-Gram Films. The company made fun of local
problem and scandals in cartoon form. They sold well enough to give Walt and
Iwerks the courage to go into business for themselves. But the Laugh-O-Grams
didn’t hold Walt’s interest very long. He had a new idea to try, which was
illustrating updated fairy tales in series of cartoons. The cartoons he and
Iwerks produced were not bad, but Walt never got paid for hid films. Walt then
started on a new fresh project, a series of funny story featuring a girl actress
and animated characters. He called it “Alice’s Wonderland.” Money was
so scarce that he couldn’t even pay for the rent. With such meager fund all he
could produce was a pilot film for the Alice series. He thought Kansas City was
not the place that earns much money, so he decided to move to California. In
1923, Walt Disney moved to California, and began Walt Disney Production with his
brother Roy Disney and a colleague, Ubbe Iwerks. After five year of making
silent cartoons, he produced ‘SteamBoat Willie,” the first cartoon to use
synchronized sound1. In 1928 Walt Disney created a cartoon “Mickey
Mouse” by using his own voice. Disney’s success in “Mickey Mouse”
led to the film series called “Silly Symphonies,” which was introduced
in 1929 and first used color in 1932. Soon full color Disney cartoons was
produced, such as “Three Little Pigs” and “The Tortoise and the
Hare.” These two films even won academy awards. 1930s brought fame and
successes to Walt Disney as a creator of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto,
Minnie Mouse, and Goofy. These characters not only appeared in cartoons but also
on merchandise items licensed by Disney Production. In 1937 the Walt Disney
Production Studio produced the world’s first animated feature film “Snow
White and Seven Dwarfs.” Then came “Pinocchio and Fantasia” in
1940, “Dumbo” in 1941, and “Bambie” in 1942. “Song of
the South” in 1946, used cartoon characters with live actors. All of these
films were successful. During World War II the Walt Disney Production Studio
designed military insignias and made training films for the United States armed
forces. After the war Walt Disney continued to make animated films, such as
“Alice in Wonderland” in 1951, “Peter Pan” in 1953, and
“The Jungle Book” in 1967. He also turned to live-action films such as
“Treasure Island” in 1950 and “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”
in 1954. Moving into totally new area, Walt Disney opened Disneyland in Anaheim,
California, in 1955. He had wanted to design an amusement park where families
could have fun together. Disneyland had exciting rides and attractions but was
also spotlessly clean and run by smiling, friendly employees. The park
eventually came to be one of the most popular tourist attractions in the United
States and may be in the world, too. During the next ten years, Disney added new
attractions to Disneyland while continuing to make the films the whole family
could enjoy. “Marry Poppins,” in 1964, is considered by many to be the
pinnacle of his filmmaking career. Disney won a record 32 Academy Awards for his
technical innovations ideas in film. Walt Disney also pioneered the production
of feature films for television. Some of these appeared on his weekly series
“The Mickey Mouse Club (1955-59)” and on ” Walt Disney’s
Wonderful World of Color,” which aired, under several titles for 29
seasons. Shows prepared for New York World’s Fair in 1964 enabled Disney to show
off his Audio-Animatronics figures in such attractions as “It’s a Small
World” and ” Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.” The life like
figure of Abraham Lincoln, which recited passages from his speeches, never
ceased to amaze fairgoers. Walt Disney never rested. Even as he died, on
December 15th, 1966, he was planning for a whole new Walt Disney World vacation
kingdome in Florida, and EPCOT. It is an experimental prototype community of
tomorrow. It is a fun area consists of a showcase, a recreation of foreign
cities, spread like fan around lagoon. On the other side of water, the world of
future is dominated by a 180-foot geodesic sphere, and Spaceship Earth. The
sphere is is surrounded by a number of pavilions housing entertaining displays
of future possibilities in the fields of energy, transportation, agriculture,
mariculture2, and technology. Spaceship Earth is devoted to information and
communications from dinosaur time to the 21st century. In conclusion, Walter
Elias Disney was a great taskmaster full of innovative ideas. In his lifetime he
made so many movies and cartoons that play important role in children’s life.
Also he played important role in the development of animation and film. Even now
most people remembers him, because animation computer designers of Walt Disney
Production are keeps remaking Walt old films and cartoons. Even-though he died,
he still plays important role in our society, today.
