Walt Disney was a fascinating guy. Born in nineteen-one in Chicago, he grew up on a farm in Marceline, Missouri-raised on McGuffey’s readers. He lied about his age to join the Red Cross ambulance corps for WW1, winding up in France.
Having drawn cartoons in high school, he sent some to local newspapers from France. His first motion pictures were silent cartoon shorts featuring Oswald the rabbit. He was cheated out of the rights to Oswald by some of the distributors with whom he was in working agreements.
Turning to Mickey Mouse put him on the map. Walt was Mickey’s voice.
He had already developed two guiding philosophies of his creative endeavors.
1. Anybody can come up with gags, Walt would always develop personality into his characters so that plain folk could identify. It was Mickey’s personality that was different than Felix the Cat and other early cartoons. The others would mostly just be the jokes.
2. Walt never spared expense to make things right. This would plague his financial arrangements for the next quarter of a century. He stayed so debt ridden, that his older brother Roy’s full time job was talking to banks, investors and creditors.
The Mickey and parallel Silly Symphony cartoons were award winning and drew good money and made him famous but the expenses always had him starting the next project broke and in debt.
Although it must be added that from the beginning all employees shared bonuses on the success of their work based on the gross. Walt did very little praising but, boy, did he reward good work.
The only thing that kept Disney going financially from 1931 until Snow White [the first full length animated feature] in 1937 was royalties and licensing.
After getting cheated a couple times on that endeavor as well, he hooked up with a wise advertising man. Herman Kamen brought sanity and profitability not only to Walt but to the companies with whom he made Disney deals. Lionel Trains and Ingersoll watches would not have survived the depression without their Mickey Mouse merchandise.
But Walt and Roy still operated on a line of credit because Walt would not compromise quality for quantity or expense shaving. Nor would he, when every expert was telling him something wouldn’t work, give up an idea that he was convinced the public would embrace.
Walt’s history is one of believing that the public would support down home stuff, even corn, if it was done right and was wholesomely appealing. For example, the Three Little Pigs cartoon opened at Radio City Music Hall and the high society really didn’t warm to it.
However, when it started playing neighborhood theaters it took off. The other thing about the pigs is that the door was opened to a new money maker--hit songs-- Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf. After not making a fair share from that song’s popularity, record production soon became an in-house thing for Disney enterprises.
You think of Disney with cartoons but music was a big, big part.
The marvelous success of the first full length animated motion picture, Snow White, had a lot to do with 4 wonderful songs, two of which were Hit Parade winners [Whistle While You Work and Heigh Ho].
I do Nostalgia shows coast to coast "Smiling Memories and Melodies of...[a particular year]. Regardless of the styles of popular songs at the time, Disney numbers make the top ten.
From "Whose Afraid" in 1934 to Zip-a-dee-doodah" in 1946 to "Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo" in 1950 to Supercalifragilisticexpialdosious in 1964 for my shows and on past my shows...How about Beauty and The Beast in the 90s?
After the triumph, everything was just about solvent if not abundant when the next setback came.
Encouraged by the Snow White success especially because of international reception, Walt poured money into Fantasia and Pinocchio. By the time they came out, the war was on, the European markets were dried up and the two films were critically acclaimed but lost millions. His 850 thousand profit on Dumbo [which all the experts said would never make it] at least kept studio morale up.
Walt’s patriotism also got in the way [of profits]. He was persuaded by the work of Alexander de Seversky who advocated that the allies really get with it on the subject of air power.
He poured all kinds of money into a film to make that point.
One project was design and manufacture of inexpensive cloth insignias with cartoon figures for the soldiers’-all to the detriment of profitability. He answered critics this way:
“Our soldiers grew up on Mickey Mouse, I owe it to them."
The film on air power? Well, at the Quebec conference Churchill and General Arnold were convinced that the date should not be set for the invasion of Europe until they had undisputed command of the air over the English channel. To convince Roosevelt and General Marshall, Churchill took FDR into a private film studio to see the Disney film. The next day, FDR showed it to the Joint Chiefs!!!
To get back on a financial footing after the war, Roy convinced Walt to sell preferred and common stock. Walt agreed but his mind was already on his next breakthrough.
Disneyland
All efforts to obtain loans from banks failed for Disneyland. One night Walt lay awake pondering all of that and came up with the plan that he would sell the idea to one of the TV networks.
Walt would put a program on the air and “hawk" the theme park on it.
The network would pay only a break even cost for the program but would invest in Disneyland and loan the theme park project the rest. Roy took sketches to every network.
The last one he approached, ABC, was the only one who would even listen interestedly. They had been trying to get Disney for a long time to compete with the bigger NBC and CBS.
Roy’s presentation was just a few diagrams and this statement of purpose by Walt:
Disneyland will be a place for people to find happiness and knowledge. A place where parents and children share a pleasant time in one another’s company. Here the older generation can recapture the nostalgia of days gone by, and the younger can savor the challenge of the future. Disneyland will be based upon and dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and hard facts that have created America. It will be uniquely equipped to dramatize these and send them forth as a source of courage and inspiration to all the world. Disneyland will be something of a fair, an exhibition, a playground, a community center, a museum of living facts and a showplace of beauty and magic. Disneyland will be filled with the accomplishments, the joys and hopes of the world we live in, It will remind us and show us how to make those wonders part of our own lives.
Opening day was full of trouble, rides breaking down, running out of food, counterfeit tickets, extremely hot weather and even a gas leak causing Fantasyland to be closed off. For years they called it black Sunday, but…
Within seven weeks, a million people had visited. That’s twice what a Stanford University feasibility study had predicted. People spent 30% higher than expected [on souvenirs and refreshments]. Disneyland was on the way to enormous financial success.
Meanwhile, Show # 5 on TV was the 1st installment of the 3 part Davy Crockett series.
When Walt saw the first review copies he thought the switch from one adventure to another was too abrupt. It didn’t flow. He got a new composer at the studio to write a song that would tie together the adventures. When he heard it, he thought it was somewhere between fair and okay for the purpose.
Demand for the song began the week before the first episode was aired because it was played as part of the preview for next week. The song ended up as #1 on Your Hit Parade for 12 weeks and sold ten million copies.
Meanwhile, rifles and coonskin caps sold at a rate…well…let me put it this way. In the advertising business, they call that thing a “fad". No such fad before or since has been as breathtaking. On the caps alone, Walt’s 5% royalty wiped out 5 million dollars in loans.
Walt spent $700,000 producing the three Crockett TV shows and was paid about half that much.
At the time, 1955, the movie industry was near unanimous in avoiding TV because they reasoned that people would not pay to go to a theater to see what they could see on TV for free. Walt ignored the laughter when he put the three episodes together to send as a feature to movie houses. He reaped two and half million theatrical profit. The Disney enterprises never lacked for funds again.
Walt added the Mickey Mouse Club show in 1955. Walt’s thinking was that Mickey needed to become endeared to another generation, so he operated the show in high quality at a loss. But once again the Mouse Ear caps sold at the rate of 165,000 a week.
The finding of the mouseketeers once again illustrated his penchant for reading the public instead of listening to experts. He ignored every talented kid star in Hollywood and told his agents to go to first time dance lesson and music lesson venues and especially school playgrounds.
The agents were to identify the kids who were smiling and the center of attention. “I can teach them the advanced singing and dancing." Said Walt, If they are the center of attention on the playground we already know that they appeal to the public.
SOURCES: There are many biographies. Bob Thomas' Walt Disney": An American Original is the one I used the most.
The three disc or cassette series: "The Music Of Disney" has an over size pictorial liner note book.
The Ultimate Disney Trivia Book is another favorite I use for my shows.
Nostalgia John is the #1 Nationwide Nostalgia entertainer for seniors, performing at Retirement/Nursing/Assisted facilities etc from Boston to Honolulu / San Diego to Nashville to Detroit
