Warner Bros. is not the only movie studio celebrating a centennial. This year Walt Disney Studios came into existence on this day one hundred years ago. Far removed from the global media conglomerate that it has now become, Disney began as a scrappy, yet innovative animation company started by two midwestern brothers, Walt, who was the creative driver and Roy who handled the production side of the studio.
Arriving in Los Angeles from Kansas City, MO in 1923, the brothers got their start producing a series of silent shorts that merged live-action and animation about a young girl named Alice and Julius, her cartoon cat. Another creation by Disney was "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" with the animated shorts were done for Universal Studios. But after a contract dispute over money and not owning the rights to Oswald, Disney began secretly working on a new character with a mouse named "Mickey".
The first Mickey Mouse short appeared in 1928 was silent and with sound on the horizon, the next film, "Steamboat Willie" was released later that year and became the first with synchronized sound. It became a major success and Disney began work on a second cartoon series, "Silly Symphonies" the following year. All of the initial animated films were in black & white and after the studio made a deal with Technicolor and their three-strip color film process in 1932, Disney made the first color "Silly Symphonies" short, "Flowers and Trees".
Walt Disney began considering a feature length animated film in 1934, deciding to base the story on the Brothers Grimm's German fairy tale. This expensive project, at over a million dollars and taking three years to complete, was extremely risky and if it failed could bankrupt the company. But "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" became a critical and commercial success, earning more than eight million globally during its initial release.
Disney would continue to achieve great success with other popular animated features ("Cinderella", "Bambi", "Dumbo", "Peter Pan", "Alice in Wonderland") and live action films ("Treasure Island", "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", "Mary Poppins", "The Shaggy Dog", "The Parent Trap"). The company expanded to build a brand amusement park in Anaheim, Ca named "Disneyland" in 1950 and moved into television, offering such shows as "Walt Disney's Disneyland" and "The Mickey Mouse Club". Disney was in the process of developing a second theme park in Orlando, Fl and near completion of production on their nineteenth animated feature, "The Jungle Book", when Walt Disney, a heavy smoker, passed away from lung cancer in 1966.
The studio continued on, opening "Disney World" in 1971 and finding some success in live-action films and television yet struggled for a number of years in the animation division. But it was in the late 1980's with the release of "The Little Mermaid" that helped return Disney back into a reliable studio that created critically acclaimed and globally popular animated movies.
Disney’s 1937 animation classic, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" will be coming to Disney+ in a new 4K restoration that will premiere on Oct. 16th to celebrate the company’s 100th anniversary.
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