Walt Disney story
Hello friends welcome back to my new post today I will discuss for the Walt Disney story.
My brother Walt is no more, yet his influence
lingers like a living presence over the studio
where he turned out the cartoons, nature
films and feature movies that made him
known and loved around the world.
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| Walt Disney story |
Even now, as I walk around the studio crew, I half expect to encounter that tall, country-boy
figure, head bowed in thought about some
new project.
Walt was so much the driving force behind all we did, from making movies
to building Disneyland, that people
constantly mention his name as if he were
still alive.
Every time we show a new picture,
or open a new feature at Disneyland, someone is bound to say, “I wonder how Walt would like it?"
And when this happens, I personally
realize that it was something he himself had
planned. For my imaginative, industrious
brother left enough projects in progress to
keep the rest of us busy for many, many years.Walt was a complex man.
To the writers,producers and animators who worked with him, he was a genius who had an
extraordinary ability to add an extra stroke of
imagination to any story or idea.
To the millions of people who watched his TV show,
he was a warm, kindly personality, bringing
fun and pleasure into their homes.
To the bankers who financed us, I'm sure he seemed like a wild man, hell-bent for bankruptcy.
To me, he was my amazing kid brother, full of
impractical dreams that he made come true.
The apple orchard and weeping willows
stand green and beautiful at our old farm,
where Walt sketched his first animals.
I recall how Walt and I would snuggle together in bed and hear the haunting whistle of a locomotive passing in the night.
Our Uncle Mike was an engineer, and he'd blow his whistle - one long The rest is a history.
Walt's mouse, Mickey,and two shorts - just for us. Walt never lost celebrated his 40th birthday in 1968, and a his love for trains.
Years later, an old-happy 40th it was. A quarter of a billion
fashioned train was one of the first people saw a Disney movie in 1968, 100 attractions at Disneyland.
4million watched a Disney TV show, nearly a
As far back as I can remember, Walt was
billion read a Disney book or magazine and
drawing.
The first money he ever made was a
almost ten million visited Disneyland. And
nickel for a sketch of a neighbour's horse. He
Mickey, as Walt used to say, started it all.
studied cartooning in Chicago, and then
Mickey was only the first successful
started a little animated-cartoon company in
product of Walt's matchless imagination and
Kansas City that flopped.
I was in Los ability to make his dreams become reality. It
Angeles when Walt, just 21, decided to try his
was an ability he could turn on for any
luck in Hollywood.
I met him at the station.occasion, large or small. Once, when my son He was carrying a cheap suitcase that Roy Edward had the measles, Walt came and contained all of his belongings.
We borrowed told him the story of Pinocchio, which he was $500 from an uncle, and Walt started a making at the time.
When Walt told a story, it cartoon series called Alice in Cartoonland.
It was a virtuoso performance. His eyes riveted was tough going.
Walt did all the animation, his listener, his moustache twitched and I cranked the old-fashioned camera.
The expressively, his eyebrows rose and fell, and Alice cartoons didn't make much of a splash, his hands moved with the grace of a musical so Walt started a new series called Oswald conductor.
Young Roy was so wide-eyed at the Rabbit.
Oswald did better but when Walt Walt's graphic telling of the fairy tale that he
went to our New York distributor for more forgot all about his measles.
Later, when he money he ran into trouble.
saw the finished picture, he was strangely
“What kind of a deal did you make, kid?” I disappointed. “It didn't seem as exciting as
asked.
when Uncle Walt told it,” he said.
"We haven't got a deal," Walt admitted. Like many people who work to create
"The distributor copy-righted Oswald and humour, Walt took it very seriously. He would
he's taking over the series himself."
often sit gloomily through the funniest
Strangely, Walt did not seem downhearted.
cartoon, concentrating on some
“We're going to start a new series," he improve it. Walt valued the opinions of those way to enthused.
“It's about a mouse. And this time working with him, but the final judgement we'll own the mouse."
was always unquestionably his. Once, after
viewing a new cartoon with evident displeasure, Walt called for comments from a The overwhelming success of Walt's "crazy
group of our people. One after another they idea" triggered a dramatic about-face in the
spoke up, all echoing Walt's criticism.
“I can Disney fortunes. Yet success never changed get rubber stamps that say "Yes, Walt," he Walt.
He remained the simplest of men. He
snapped. Then he wheeled and asked the hated parties, and his idea of a night out was
projectionist what he thought.
The man a burger and chilli at some little restaurant.
sensed that dissent was in order. "I think His only extravagance was a miniature
you're all wrong," he declared.
Walt just railroad that ran around the grounds of his grinned. “You stick to your projector," he home.
suggested."What do you do with all your money?" a Walt involved himself in everything friend once asked him.
Pointing at the studio,During one story conference on the Mickey Walt said, "I fertilize that field with it.
" And Mouse Club TV Show, the story man, pointer it's true that Walt ploughed money back in to in hand, was outlining a sequence called 'How the company almost as fast as it came in.
to Ride a Bicycle.' "Now when you get on your Being solvent for the first time since he
bicycle......," he began.
Walt stopped him.started in business gave Walt a chance to 'Change your bicycle to a bicycle,' he said. develop other ideas.
These included the "Remember, every kid isn't fortunate enough development of Mineral Kind (an alpine-like to have a bicycle of his own.”
valley high in the Sierra Mountains); a
The story of Disneyland, perhaps better California Institute of Art, for which he
than anything else, illustrates Walt's vision donated the land and several million dollars;
and his stubborn determination to realize an and, most ambitious of all, a 100-million-
idea he believed in.
For years, Walt had dollar Disney World and City of Tomorrow in quietly nursed the dream of a new kind of Florida.
amusement park. It would be a potpourri of
Tragically, in the midst of all this activity,
all the ideas conjured up by his fertile
Walt was stricken with this fatal illness.
imagination. But the idea of sinking millions heard him refer to this cruel blow only once.
of dollars into an amusement park, even "Whatever it is I've got," he told me, "don't get
Walt's kind of amusement park seemed so
it.”
preposterous that he wouldn't mention it to
I visited him in the hospital the night
anyone.
He just quietly began planning. before he died. Although desperately ill, he
As usual, though, he infused all of us with
was as full of plans for the future as he had
his own enthusiasm when he finally told us
been all his life.
about the project. Someone asked, "Walt, how
Walt used to say that Disneyland would
should the Disneyland look?" Quick came the
never be finished, and it never will.
I like to reply, “It should look like nothing else on this
think, too, that Walt Disney's influence will
earth.” Predictably, we had trouble raising
never be finished; that through his creations,
money, but Disneyland did open, in July
1955.
Since that first day, millions of people
future generations will continue to celebrate
have flocked to see the unique creation of
what he once described as "that precious,
Walt's imagination.
Like a kid with a new toy ageless something in every human being the biggest, shiniest toy in the world -- Walt which makes us play with children's toys and used to wander through the park, staring as laugh at silly things and sing in the bathtub happily as any tourist.
and dream."
The overwhelming success of Walt's "crazy
idea" triggered a dramatic about-face in the
Disney fortunes.
Yet success never changed Walt. He remained the simplest of men.
He hated parties, and his idea of a night out was a burger and chilli at some little restaurant.
His only extravagance was a miniature
railroad that ran around the grounds of his
home.
"What do you do with all your money?" a
friend once asked him. Pointing at the studio,
Walt said, "I fertilize that field with it."
And it's true that Walt ploughed money back into the company almost as fast as it came in.
Being solvent for the first time since he
started in business gave Walt a chance to
develop other ideas.
These included the development of Mineral Kind (an alpine-like valley high in the Sierra Mountains); a California Institute of Art, for which he donated the land and several million dollars; and, most ambitious of all, a 100-million-dollar Disney World and City of Tomorrow in Florida.
Tragically, in the midst of all this activity,
Walt was stricken with this fatal illness. I
heard him refer to this cruel blow only once.
“Whatever it is I've got," he told me, "don't get
it.”
I visited him in the hospital the night
before he died. Although desperately ill, he
was as full of plans for the future as he had
been all his life.
Walt used to say that Disneyland would
never be finished, and it never will. I like to
think, too, that Walt Disney's influence will
never be finished; that through his creations,
future generations will continue to celebrate
what he once described as "that precious,
ageless something in every human being
which makes us play with children's toys and
laugh at silly things and sing in the bathtub
and dream."
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