On December 7th, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service performed a surprise military
strike on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
The day after the attack, Walt Disney received an early morning call from his studio manager.
“Walt, the army is moving in on us, They came up and said they wanted to move in.
I said I’d have to call you and they said, ‘Call him, but we’re moving in anyway.'”
With that, five hundred U.S Army troops marched into the Disney Studio.
When the great depression ended in 1939, millions of American workers began demanding job security
after enduring years of unemployment.
This push for a stake in the new prosperity led to a radicalisation that influenced the
creation of unions and labor relations.
By 1940, Hollywood’s Screen Cartoonists Guild had unionized the town’s major animation
departments except for Disney’s, which at the time was a vast majority of the industry’s
artists.
People had a right to be angry as Disney Studio was barely consistent when it came to salaries
and perks.
The most valued animators were given access to a so-call ‘Penthouse Club’ which included
a steam room and a gym whilst lesser artists couldn’t afford to eat at the cafeteria.
To make problems worse, the Disney company reluctantly went public in 1940, selling stock
to make up for losses they had made over the past several years.
Suddenly with almost $7 million dollars of shares (or $130million today) selling out
in less than a day, those lesser workers knew exactly how much Walt Disney was making: at
least five times more that of even his top executives.
When it came to unions, Disney was not for it.
In February of 1941 Walt held a meeting which he thought would resolve the issues and lay
any concerns to bed.
Quote “My first recommendation to the lot of you is this.
Put your own house in order…
If you’re not progressing as you should, instead of grumbling and growling, do something
about it.”
And do something about it, they did.
The condescending speech turned more Disney employees to the unions than ever before.
On May 29th, 1941, valued senior animator Art Babbitt was fired for joining the union,
and after finding out, nearly half of Disney’s art department walked out with him.
The studio’s stock had dropped dramatically and it’s films were losing money but Walt
refused to negotiate.
In fact, when Babbitt shouted from the picket line, “Shame on you, Walt Disney!” as
Walt drove to work, Disney got out of his car and charged at him.
Walt was not taking this well, and started to become paranoid regarding the situation.
Through an ad in the trade paper Variety, he called the strike’s “Communistic”
but was powerless over the situation.
Animators were highly skilled workers that could not easily be replaced.
Walt decided to escape from the turmoil arising in Los Angeles and fled to South America.
“It gives me a chance to get away from this god-awful nightmare,” he wrote.
“I have a case of the D.D.s—disillusionment and discouragement.”
During this time down south his father Elias passed away.
Walt did not return for the funeral, but when he finally emerged in Los Angeles, he discovered
that Roy had resolved the strike, giving the workers almost everything that they had asked
for, bringing much of the studio back to a sense of normalcy… that was until later
that year in December of 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, plunging the United States
into World War II.
The very next day U.S Army troops requisitioned half of Walt Disney’s Burbank Studio.
Almost all available space that wasn’t being utilised by Disney was now being used as military
facilities including the parking lot which at one stage housed more than 50,000 live
rounds of ammunition.
Their reasoning for such a requisition was to protect the Lockheed plant nearby which
had now become one of the most strategic military facilities in the United States.
Beyond just needing military protection, the Lockheed facility would end up calling upon
Disney and other nearby studios to provide artists for what was dubbed Operation: Camouflage.
Considering the importance of the plant, Col. John F. Ohmer was tasked with concealing it
from the air, and in the wake of Pearl Harbour was given the authority to use whatever means
necessary to protect it.
With a camouflage engineering battalion under his command and a crew of artists, set designers
and painters from the nearby movie studios set out on implementing Ohmer’s grand illusion
to make the plant look like a regular Californian suburb.
Airfields and parking lots were painted green and lined with plants to make them look like
fields of alfalfa.
The main factory was covered with a canopy of chicken wire, netting and painted canvas
to blend in with the surrounding grass and fake trees were erected with spray-painted
chicken feathers for leaves with such fine detail that some were painted green to represent
new growth and some brown to represent decaying patches.
A series of underground walkways were constructed to allow free movement across the facility
and whilst Disney employees continued their work, encouraged by new bomb shelters and
huge anti-aircraft gun, they were also expected to play along in the grand illusion during
their breaks, often walking back to their burlap bungalows to take down the laundry
they had placed on clotheslines earlier in the day.
Even fake buildings with nothing for an interior were constructed to complete the illusion.
Once completed, Ohmer decided to test his team’s work by taking a War Department general
on a reconnaissance flight at 5,000 feet.
He asked his guest to identify the plant, but all the general said he could see was
suburb after California suburb.
Whilst the U.S Army seized half of Walt Disney’s Studio, Walt Disney did not shy away from
seizing the opportunity to support the war effort in his own way.
After the release of their feature cartoon ‘Bambi’, throughout the early 1940’s
Disney churned out military training films, educational shorts and military insignia for
over 1,000 different units in the U.S armed forces.
Characters such as Mickey and Donald were enlisted in the name of patriotism, and by
1943 newspapers were reporting that up to 90 percent of the Disney studio’s work was
for government agencies.
The first of these came in 1941 with a short cartoon called “Four Methods of Flush Riveting”
produced for the Lockheed Airplane Company.
It’s not exciting at all and is exactly what you’d expect from an informational
film, but it got the ball rolling to produce further content for government agencies.
Canada then requested an army training film called “Stop That Tank” which showcased
anti-tank rifles and munitions alongside a beautifully animated and quirky Adolf Hitler
who is defeated, sent to hell, throws a tantrum whilst stripping off his clothes and then
gets bonked by the devil.
It really was a different time but afterwards it helped to train those using the Boys Antitank
Rifles which could stop a German tank in its tracks.
From there it really took off.
The US treasury department ordered “The New Spirit” which featured Donald Duck encouraging
people to pay their taxes.
It’s really not the sort of content that people seek out nowadays but according to
a government-sponsored survey after the film, about 37 percent of the audience said they
felt more ready to pay because of it.
Due to this a storm of DIsney cartoons were made to teach fire-fighting, riveting and
a multitude of diverse technical subjects.
The US Navy alone commissioned 20 such films and other departments followed suit.
Disney’s 550 employees were working harder than ever alongside the military presence
which still remained there at the studio for a time.
Artists were devoted to the mission, going as far as learning to fly before creating
an aviation training film for the US Navy to ensure it was accurate which meant that
they still got to have some fun.
Even with the hard hitting subject matter of war, Disney made sure to keep their films
lighthearted and humorous, and it became a sort of trademark for them.
Walt Disney said if there is one thing that he has learned about soldiers, it’s that
along with all of the grit and courage required to fight, a sense of humor usually follows.
Those from the Northeast have a dry wit, Southerners are more generally amiable, and Westerners
show an extravagant sense of humor.
Disney combined these and made an American humor.
Their most humorous work came from in the form of logos that were designed for the government
and the military.
These were produced free of charge with a team of almost 5 men working full time on
them.
Overall Disney produced almost 500 of these in World War II.
The brand became synonymous with patriotism.
On a personal level Disney was an avid war supporter.
Two iron deer statues on his front lawn in Hollywood were donated for scrap metal.
The deer, which weighed a ton, contained enough scrap for 10,000 incendiary bombs.
He also only charged the government $12 a foot for the films that were ordered, as opposed
to $65 a foot at which his commercial shorts were budgeted.
Disney made almost no profit during this time on government films.
The US Army remained at Walt Disney studios for eight months, where they promptly moved
on following unknown orders.
After the war, Disney was left with little cash.
Anything released during World War II commercially was a flop and the government pictures were
not designed to be profitable.
Walt was quoted as saying “We’re through with caviar.
From now on it’s mashed potatoes and gravy.”
Desperate for a hit, Walt returned to his roots in Marceline, focusing on folksy Americana
instead of European Folk tales and this is what birthed his idea for the controversial
‘Song of the South’.
Based on the Uncle Remus stories by Joel Chandler Harris, the film was set in the south in the
late 1800s.
Walt was concerned that the film might seem racially insensitive and thus consulted black
leaders for input.
They unanimously agreed it was a bad idea, but Walt unanimously decided to go ahead with
it anyway and produced the film.
To make matters worse, the premiere was held in Atlanta, Georgia, which remained segregated.
James Baskett, the man who played Uncle Remus, could not get a hotel room for the event.
Expecting a comeback, Disney was greeted with a flop.
Not only did the film perform poorly at the box office, it was also criticised for being
racist and it would go down in history as a corporate embarrassment.
At this point you could imagine that Disney’s enthusiasm towards the film and television
industry was rather dulled.
The 1940s were a trying time for both the company and the man.
He said he would never make anything as good as Snow White, according to biographer Neal
Gabler.
And perhaps that’s what led him to his new passion.
Sitting on a bench in Griffith Park, Los Angeles with his daughters Diane and Sharon, Disney
watched them ride the Merry-Go-Round when he was struck with inspiration.
An idea of a place where adults and their children could go and have fun together, and
though this dream lay dormant for many years, fostered in the mind of a visionary, it would
eventually go on to become Disneyland.
From the home of all things theme parks, I’m Dom for ReviewTyme, thanks for watching.