This company is no Mickey Mouse operation.
Welcome to WatchMojo.com,
and today we'll be learning more about The Walt Disney Company.
Walt Disney's animation career began with the short film 'Alice's Wonderland.'
After finding a distributor for this series,
he and his brother Roy launched the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio on October 16th, 1923.
These 'Alice Comedies' dominated the next four years.
However, in 1927, Disney introduced Oswald the Lucky Rabbit as his first original character.
Unfortunately, Disney's distributor quickly claimed the rights to this character,
so to replace him Disney and animator Ub Iwerks created an iconic cartoon personality: Mickey Mouse.
In 1929, the series 'Silly Symphonies' was created to capitalize on Mickey's intense popularity.
That same year, the company's name became Walt Disney Productions, Ltd.
Color cartoons came next after a deal with Technicolor.
The first was the 1932 'Silly Symphonies' short, 'Flowers and Trees,'
and that effort won Disney the inaugural Academy Award for Animated Short.
During the 1930s, Mickey was given friends,
and 'Silly Symphonies' saw even further success.
However, Disney's goal was feature-length animated films.
After three years of production, 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' was released in 1937.
It is now credited as the greatest animated film of all time.
Lips red as the rose. Hair black as ebony. Skin white as snow.
Snow White.
That success allowed the company to build the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California
towards the end of that decade.
Soon after, Walt Disney Productions went public.
Disney continued to expand the possibilities of animation
with films like 'Pinocchio,' 'Fantasia,' 'Dumbo' and 'Bambi.'
We made it, mother. We... Mother.
However, World War II hurt the company,
and to stay afloat they produced propaganda and training videos.
Disney then found some success in live-action and documentary filmmaking.
Animated features made a comeback in 1950 with the release of 'Cinderella.'
This was quickly followed by 'Alice in Wonderland,' 'Peter Pan' and a string of live-action features.
In 1953, Disney created its own distribution branch, Buena Vista.
Disney's first television show launched the following year,
and became the namesake for the company's next project.
On July 18th, 1955, Disneyland theme park opened in Anaheim, California,
and prompted plans for a similar park in Florida.
The remainder of the decade focused on television:
shows like 'The Mickey Mouse Club,' 'Davy Crockett' and 'Zorro' found success.
However, by the 1960s, 'The Wonderful World of Disney' was the company's primary TV project.
During this period, both animated and live-action films were popular:
'Lady and the Tramp,' 'Sleeping Beauty' and 'Mary Poppins' all became classics.
I'm so glad you came. It wouldn't be any fun without you.
On December 15th, 1966, Walt Disney passed away.
He was replaced at the head of the company by Roy Disney.
In honor of Walt, on October 1st, 1971,
Florida's Walt Disney World opened to the public.
However, just a few months later, Roy Disney also died.
Until the early 1980s, the company slumped under new leadership,
though a few films still found success.
Disney then began producing more mature content,
and created a subsidiary brand to release this material.
Touchstone Pictures' first film was 1984's success: 'Splash.'
Would...would you mind staying with me?
I wanna stay with you.
You're the reason I came here.
Around that time, the Disney channel launched and featured both original and existing family-friendly content.
Despite these moves, by 1984, Disney was vulnerable.
A hostile takeover was prevented with the additions of Michael Eisner,
Jeffrey Katzenberg and Frank Wells to the company.
Disney was then rejuvenated.
Through mergers and acquisitions,
the company came to own media sources like Miramax Films, ABC and ESPN.
In 1991, Disney was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Films like 'The Little Mermaid,' 'Beauty and the Beast,'
'Aladdin' and 'The Lion King' succeeded tremendously at the box office,
while several TV shows also thrived.
Disney then partnered with Pixar in 1995 on the ultra-successful computer-animated film,
'Toy Story' and its eventual sequels.
T-O-Y. Toy.
Excuse me, I... I think the word you are searching for is 'Space Ranger.'
Eisner left Disney amid controversy in 2005, and was replaced by Robert Iger.
After buying Pixar in 2006 for $7.4 billion,
a number of the company’s subsidiaries were either closed or sold.
Disney then returned to traditional, hand-drawn animation in 2009,
and continued its revival the next year with its fiftieth animated feature, 'Tangled.'
I am the lost princess.
Aren't I?
With business ventures in film, television, travel and more,
Disney has become one of the largest media companies in the world.
And they've introduced us to countless friendly faces along the way.
And free-style.
Subtitles by the Amara.org community