It’s official. As of October 16, the Walt Disney Studios is 100 years old. It truly is an amazing story that two brothers from the Midwest could come to Los Angeles and, after years of struggling, create the most dominant studio in the entertainment business. But it’s not just that Walt Disney started a movie studio; he was able to take his characters off the big screen and make a new world in his theme parks, first Disneyland in California and then Disney World in Central Florida.
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But there are very few aspects of the entertainment industry that Disney Company doesn’t touch in the Twenty-First Century. The man behind it all has been dead for 57 years, yet Walt Disney’s name and legacy loom larger today than when he was alive. Having only been alive for 43 years of his company’s history, it’s easy to ask, is this what Walt envisioned when he and his brother, Roy Disney, started Disney Brothers Cartoon Studios in 1923?
There is no obvious way to answer that question, but we can look at the past to get an idea of the future. What were Walt Disney’s plans when he opened that studio 100 years ago, and has the company that he created lived up to the ideals of the man whose name is on literally everything it does? So, let’s take a look at the deep and sometimes complex history of the Walt Disney Company and the man behind the studio.
The Early Years
Walt Disney was only 21 years old when he made the journey from Kansas City to Los Angeles. Walt had worked on cartoons in Kansas City, including one called Alice’s Wonderland. He decided that he would use that as his introduction to distributors and filmmakers in L.A. He would ultimately create a series of shorts based on his original Alice story called the Alice Comedies.
According to D23, Walt would sell those shorts to a distributor in New York, M. J. Winkler. With this deal in place, Walt was able to convince Roy Disney to come out to the West Coast to work with him. This partnership started the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio on October 16, 1923, in the backroom of a real estate office. It wasn’t a glamorous start, but it would be the beginning of an entertainment juggernaut.
The brothers would be equal partners in the studio; however, they changed the name to the Walt Disney Studio at Roy’s urging. And then came Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. The studio had a hit on their hands. In 1927, Walt and his studio created 26 Oswald cartoons. But when it came time to get funding for another year, Walt found out that the distributor went behind his back and hired away all of his animators.
This would be a painful lesson for the young animator. He did not own the rights to his creation; the distributor did. It was a mistake that Walt Disney would never make again.
A year later, Walt Disney Studios introduced the world to Mickey Mouse. Steamboat Willie was one of the first animated films synced to music. Audiences went wild for the new cartoon. Walt would be the first voice for Mickey Mouse, and the pair would be forever linked.
Walt and Roy continued to put out cartoon shorts, including Silly Symphonies starring Mickey Mouse. But Walt wanted more. He always did. In 1934, he told his animators that they would create a full-length feature animated film. No one thought it could be done. But three years later, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) hit theaters. It became the highest-grossing film of all time but would be surpassed two years later by Gone With the Wind (1939).
Just after Mickey Mouse became a household name, Walt built his family a home on Woking Way in the Los Angeles Hills near Griffin Park. The Legend has it that Walt would take his daughters to the park and lamented that there weren’t enough activities in the area for families. And the idea for Disneyland in Southern California was born. However, it would take nearly two decades before it would become a reality.
The remaining pre-war years were very lucrative for Walt Disney Productions. He would release some of his most iconic films, including Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), and Dumbo (1941). And then came the war.
The War Years and Walt’s Death
The war would prove to be lean years for Walt Disney Productions. The studio spent most of the war on propaganda films for the United States government. While they fulfilled Walt’s sense of patriotic duty, they only broke even on producing those shorts for the government.
The Walt Disney Studios would have their first post-war hit with a film that they had started before the war but had to put on the back burner. Song of the South (1946) would combine live actors and animation to create one of Disney’s most controversial films. The film would inspire Splash Mountain at Disney theme parks around the globe, but most would be shut down to be rethemed into Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
Walt Disney Animation Studios floundered through the remainder of the 1940s, but the 50s would bring Walt and the company’s most productive decade. It started with Cinderella (1950) and would continue with numerous hits, including Alice in Wonderland (1951), Peter Pan (1953), Lady and the Tramp (1955), and Sleeping Beauty (1959).
But the 1950s would be the decade Walt Disney Productions entered television. It started small with two Walt Disney Christmas Specials, and in 1954, Walt began his Disneyland specials. The show would have several names, including Walt Disney Presents, and run for 29 years. The 50s would also see the premiere of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
The Walt Disney Company’s most significant achievement of the decade would come with the opening of Disneyland in 1955. But despite the overwhelming success of the Disney park, he was not satisfied. Hotels, restaurants, and souvenir shops popped up around the park. Walt wanted a place where he could create his world, where everything that happened outside of the park was irrelevant. That meant separating the guest from the rest of the world. He wanted to create his own Walt Disney World.
Walt’s Florida Project, which would eventually become the Walt Disney World Resort, began in the early 1960s. The Walt Disney Company, using shell companies, purchased 47 square miles of property in Central Florida. He jumped into the creation of his world.
He had plans to create another Disney park, an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT), where people would live and work in harmony with Disney World.
Sadly, before Walt could see the completion of Walt Disney World, he died in 1966. Roy Disney would oversee the completion of the Magic Kingdom and its opening on October 1, 1971. Roy would die just a few months after Walt Disney World opened in 1971.
The two went from the Disney Brothers Animation Studio to the Walt Disney Studios and Walt Disney Company. They had theme parks on both coasts, dozens of movies, hundreds of television shows, and one of the most iconic characters in American history. But the company they built was about to see dark days ahead and a historic rebirth.
Dark Days and Rebirth
With the death of its creator, the Walt Disney Company floundered for more than a decade. Walt left specific notes for The Jungle Book (1967) and Aristocats (1970), but after that, Walt Disney Animation Studios were on their own. The studio was able to produce some solid movies, but none were able to capture the magic of the original Disney films. The low point for the studios came in 1985 with the release of The Black Cauldron. At the time, it was one of the most expensive animated films ever made, making a little over $20 million at the box office. It was one of Disney’s biggest flops ever, that is, until some of its more recent films.
But during this time, the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, FL, got a second Disney park with the opening of EPCOT. Walt’s dream of the future finally came true. But by the mid-1980s, even Disney’s theme parks were waning, and most people thought the Disney brand was a thing of the past.
Enter new Disney CEO Michael Eisner. He started at Disney in 1984 and set about transforming the company. After the failure of The Black Cauldron, Walt Disney Pictures had a hit with Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988). And then came the juggernaut from Walt Disney Animation Studios: The Little Mermaid (1989). The film brought Disney Studios back to life and ushered in the era of the Disney princess, and with that came the merchandise.
Hit after hit followed for Walt Disney Studio Animation. Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1995), and Pocahontas (1995) completed Disney’s renaissance.
Walt Disney World Resort expanded to include Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and dozens of hotels and restaurants. Walt Disney World Resorts also expanded around the globe, including new Disney parks in Tokyo, Paris, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. Eisner had completed the rebirth of the legendary American company. In 2005, Eisner stepped down as C.E.O. Bob Iger took over the Walt Disney Company.
By the time Bob Iger took over as C.E.O. of the Walt Disney Company, it had already expanded into television with the purchase of ESPN and A.B.C.; the company had expanded its Disney theme parks around the globe and had even entered the cruise business. But Iger supercharged Disney’s growth. Shortly after he took over, Disney purchased Pixar. The first film released under the banner of Walt Disney Studios would be Cars (2006).
Disney purchased Marvel three years later, and three years later, Disney purchased LucasFilms and its Star Wars catalog. Of the 53 movies to ever gross more than $1 billion at the box office, Walt Disney Studios produced or owns 30 of them, including eight of the top 10 grossing movies of all time.
After purchasing 20th Century Fox, entering into streaming with Disney Plus, and eventually buying a majority stake in Hulu, Iger stepped down as C.E.O. just before the COVID pandemic. His successor, Bob Chapek, then tried to ruin the company.
Bob Iger has since returned to resurrect his beloved company, but he admits that Disney’s problems are “greater than anticipated.” As the company celebrates its 100th Anniversary, it has seen declining attendance at its Walt Disney World Resort, slumping box office returns, the collapse of over-the-air cable television, a decline in streaming revenue, and a legal battle with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
The Future
Despite all these problems, Walt Disney is still one of the most iconic figures in American History. The studio that bears his name has produced some of the most iconic films ever, and nearly every American remembers going to one of Disney’s theme parks. The history of Disney has been fraught with wild upswings, followed by lows, but there has always been a return to greatness.
There will always be new Disney Imagineers and creative minds to help make the latest attraction, and fans will line up for Walt Disney World tickets. There will also be a new innovative team that will make the next Disney classic film, and we will all be there to watch.
Walt said, “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things because we’re curious, and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” So, while it’s impossible to imagine what he would think of his beloved company as it celebrates its 100th Anniversary, we know that Disney will continue to entertain us all. We will continue to head to Disney World to honor his legacy.
And what is for sure is that every time you walk down Main Street, U.S.A., at Disney World in Orlando or Disneyland in Anaheim, you can feel his presence there. For better or worse, the company Walt Disney built is a part of our childhood, and we pass that legacy down to our children and eventually their children after that. And if he did nothing else on this planet, at least he did that for all of us.
Happy Anniversary to the Walt Disney Company, and here’s to the next 100 years.
