I was a kid born in small town in an environment where
video games, cable TV connection & learning music was considered a danger
to future development(STUDIES & GETTING A WHITE COLLAR JOB).The reasons was
the basic ‘lower class mentally’ which is rampant in ‘small towns’. For us
there were only three options of entertainment:
- Playing in evening within the ‘allotted time’
- Watching television.
- Blackmailing our parents by making a hue and cry: “PAPA DIZZNEYLAND LAGA HAI LE CHALIYE Naaa…”
Yes, this was my first encounter with the word ‘DIZZNEY’
or ‘DISNEY’ before I started watching cartoons on ‘DOORDARSHAN’ in the evening
slot.
Walter Elias
"Walt" Disney (December 5,
1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American film producer, director, screenwriter,
voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and
philanthropist
Artistic from mind & heart, during his school days he
used to draw cartoons related to patriotic topics focusing on World War I for
the school newspaper. Under his ‘patriotic urge’ he dropped out from his school
at the age of sixteen to join the army but he was rejected for being underage.
This ‘rejection’ doubled his ‘urge’ to serve in the war and he along with his
friend decided to join the Red Cross. After joining he was sent to France in November
1918 where he used to drive an ambulance.
In 1919 he returned back to Kansas City, USA to begin
his artistic career.After considering whether to become an
actor or a newspaper artist, he decided on a career as a newspaper artist,
drawing political caricatures or comic strips. This was the time when he faced
an ‘array of rejections’ as nobody wanted to hire him as either an artist or
even as an ambulance driver.
At this point of time his brother came for his rescue.
Through his ‘links’ he got a job at Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio where he created
advertisements for newspapers, magazines, and movie theatres. At Pesmen-Rubin
he met cartoonist Ubbe Iwerks and when their time at the studio expired, they
decided to start their own commercial company together. Ubbe Iwerks who was a
talented artist later became his very good friend.
In January 1920, he and Iwerks formed a company called,
"Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists" but their plans failed and he left
temporarily to earn money at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, and was soon
joined by Iwerks who was not able to run their business alone. While working
for the Kansas City Film Ad Company, where he made commercials based on cutout
animations, he became interested in animation, and decided to become an
animator.
Later on he decided to open his own animation business,
and recruited a fellow co-worker at the Kansas City Film Ad Company. Now he and
his colleagues started screening their cartoons at a local theatre, by the name
‘Laugh-O-Grams’. His cartoons became widely popular in the Kansas City
area and from the money earned he was
able to acquire his own studio. Unfortunately, studio profits were insufficient
to cover the high salaries paid to employees. Unable to successfully manage
money, Disney's studio became loaded with debt
and wound up Bankrupt
Now, he decided to set up a studio in the movie
industry's capital city, Hollywood, California. He along with his brother started
a cartoon studio in Hollywood. Their work Alice Comedies, proved
reasonably successful.
His company produced the new series, ‘Oswald the
Lucky Rabbit’ for Universal Pictures which received the love of audience in bulk.
With this success his studio expanded but the rule of nature is ‘NOTHING IS PERMANENT’,
so was his joy of success. When he went to Universal Pictures office to ask for
a higher fee per shot he was informed that most of his main animators had
left him to join Universal Pictures and he has no rights on the Oswald
trademark as Universal Picture owned them. So, he ended up alone
It was a serious blow directly planted on his face by
his fate and colleagues but it is said ‘THERE IS A GREAT VALUE IN DISASTER’. It
was now when he developed the character of Mickey Mouse based on a mouse he had
adopted as a pet while working in his Laugh-O-Gram studio in Kansas City. Not
only this, he provide ‘soul’ to Mickey Mouse giving it his personality & voice until1947.From that day till
date Mickey Mouse is a ‘superstar’
in the world of animation.
In 1934 he ambitiously decided to produce a full-length
animated version of Snow-White. Experts in the industry treated it as a ‘suicide
attempt’ of his flourishing career and termed it as “Disney’s Folly” .Many well-wishers
tried to convince him to drop his plans but he was undeterred. Entitled
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the feature went into full production
in 1934 and continued until mid-1937, when the studio ran out of money. To
obtain the funding to complete Snow White, Disney had to show a rough
cut of the motion picture to loan officers at the Bank of America, who then
gave the studio the money to finish the picture.
“FORTUNE FAVOURS THE BRAVE”, Disney’s ‘daredevil act’ i.e.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs released in February 1938 received a
standing ovation from its audience and earned over $8 million on its
initial release which would be the equivalent of $122,487,945 in 2010.It was the
first animated feature in America made
in Technicolour.
“NOTHING IS PERMANENT”, so was his success. Pinocchio
and Fantasia followed Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs into the
movie theatres in 1940, but both proved financial disappointments. The
inexpensive Dumbo was then planned as an income generator, but during
production most of the animation staff went on strike, permanently straining
relations between Disney and his artists. During this bad phase Disney instead of
losing patience successfully re-issued Snow White in 1944, establishing
a seven-year re-release tradition for his features.
He did a lot of other stuffs like producing inspirational
films for the soldiers during World War II, educational films on space programs
etc but one of the most brilliant things he did was creation of ‘DISNEYLAND’ 1955.
He learnt a lot from his rejections, failures, criticism,
bankruptcy and everything else that went against his expectations. It is due to
all those well learnt lessons that he progressed exponentially and provided a
sound base to his company on which it is proudly standing now.
After years of chain-smoking, Disney passed away on
December 15, 1966 from lung cancer. Before dying he made ‘stone-hearted’ men
like Adolf Hitler fall in love with Mickey Mouse and even after his death till
date every child who watches cartoons, knows his name and loves his lively
cartoon characters.
Here, through this post I thank him for the fun I had in our ‘Local Disneylands’
inspired by the one he created decades ago.
“THANK YOU ‘DIZZNEYLAND WALE UNCLE!!!”
Few facts at the end:
- During his lifetime Disney received four honorary Academy Awards and won twenty-two Academy Awards from a total of fifty-nine nominations, including a record four in one year and seven Emmy Awards
- Rights of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit were acquired by his corporation now known as The Walt Disney Company in 2006 from NBC Universal i.e. 78 years after it was snatched away from Disney.
- The corporation had annual revenue of approximately US$36 billion in the 2010 financial year.
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