Where's the world without Walt?

Walt Disney was many things. A cartoonist, animator, voice actor, film producer, Father, Husband, child, and friend. Walt was many things but failure

sure wasn't one of them. You know of "Disney World" and of course "Disney Channel" but do you know the real Disney and the story behind all of the

magic and animations? 

    On December 5th of 1901 a Disney was born. Not the television network of course but the Walt behind the magic of it all. Elias and Flora Call Disney had no idea what their newborn son would accomplish in his life. For as an adult their new son would grow and create cartoons and stories that would turn the dark gray world into a beautiful sunny place. As Walt grew older his interest in cartooning would become stronger and stronger. Starting at the young age of Seven years old, Walt was selling cartoons that he had painted and drawn, to his fellow neighbors. Then at the age of nine Walt packed up his belongings and moved with his family from the country side to Kansas City. Starting in Kansas City Walt took up a paper route that he would maintain in order to help his family come in touch with some more money.  He would wake up around 5:00 every day in order to both complete and keep his newspaper route and to get to school on time. Sometimes you could catch him taking a quick nap in the hallway between doing his route and getting to school.Walt kept up this routine for roughly six years. When Walt had finally reached high school, he took photography and art classes. As if that wasn't a busy enough schedule for anyone to handle Walt also took night school cartooning classes. At the age of 16 Walt dropped out of high school because he wanted to provide for his country and serve in the army. He was turned away due to his youth. Although he had been rejected from the army itself, he ended up driving an ambulance in France. Because the ambulance didn't have to be hidden Walt could do what he liked to decorate it. So of course being Walt he plastered the ambulance inside and out with cartoons, to help distract and comfort the patients as they were being driven to the hospital. After a couple years Walt returned to Kansas City. Once back home he became a newspaper artist. Walt had no intentions to return back to school and complete his education so instead he got right to work with his career. 

     Before Walt made the name Disney famous he had no fame at all. In fact his first job wasn't very good. It only payed $50 a month. The value of a dollar may have been more back in Walt's day but $50 was still very little. Even though he got little money from the job Walt was happy as could be, for he had his dream job and nothing could beat that. Aside from that he knew that this was only the start of his career. Even though Walt loved his job as we all know all good things come to an end. He left the studio after several months. Walt went through many studios while searching for a permanent one. His brother Roy even managed to find him a job at UbbeEertLwwerks's studio. After going through more than his fair share of studios Walt and his brother Roy Disney pooled their money together to buy a studio in California. When hiring his staff he hired his future wife Lillian Bounds in 1925. The happy couple got married later that same year. Walt made great cartoons that he referred to as laugh-o-grams, but the studio's profits couldn't cover the workers salaries. The workers went on strike and the studio went bankrupt. Walt needed a plan. He needed the best plan possible to think of to save his dream studio. So of course, he came up with one. He thought of his little mouse friend from one of his old studios. Walt had fallen in love with the mouse's character and not only named it Mortimer but also befriended the little mouse. Walt renamed the mouse and gave him an even better character.      Even today Mickey Mouse is a big hit with both children and adults of all ages. Mickey became a big hit and was adored far and wide by the public. Walt created cartoons for Mickey starting in the 1920s. The public went crazy, maybe a little to crazy. People offered Walt money for Mickey but Walt had felt that if he let someone take Mickey away from him he wouldn't get to finish the dream he had worked so hard to start. All the success with Mickey was just to good to be true. Mickey became unwanted, undesired in 1928, the year talkies were invented. In case you don't know what a talky was it was like a modern day movie, with both motion pictures and sound. Mickey was no longer a money maker for Walt... or was he? Walt knew that the public loved Mickey but they loved Talkies more. So Walt put the two together and Turned Mickey into a Talky. This was not as easy as it sounds, for the idea of talkies was so new that there was no set recording method so Walt and his crew had to come up with their own.  After Walt had finished making Mickey into a talky he put it into the public. As he had suspected people loved it. Mickey was the chatter among newspaper articles and people of all ages everywhere. Walt was happy with his success but he needed more. At the time Walt was making short cartoons. Not satisfied, Walt worked long and hard to make A full length cartoon. Not only would it be full length, but it would talk too!Walt wanted to give the public more than short cartoons, he wanted to give his audience a full cartoon. He took a big risk by doing this because he wanted the cartoon to talk too. He had to record a record of Mickey’s voice to play at the same time as the movement of the cartoon characters mouths. In 1941 it hit the theaters. It was a huge hit. Walt got more offers for Mickey but still turned them down, for he had come this far and he did not plan on giving up any time soon.

     Walt and his crew decided to create a theme park dedicated to Mickey and his friends. Their plans were cut short suddenly when Walt was diagnosed with lung cancer in November of 1966. Why must it happen to the wonderful Walt? Walt had gotten lung cancer from his lifelong addiction of smoking. Walt may have died in December of 1966 but his dreams didn't. His studio crew completed the theme park plans and had it made. The park opened on July 17 of 1955. Everyone loved Disney Land so much that they created a Disney World. Disney world opened on October 1st 1971. Walt only lived to the age of 65 but in a way he's still alive today. Almost everywhere you look there's something Disney related from children's television shows to everyone's favorite science guy, Bill Nye, it all seems to lead back to Walt.  We could learn a lot from Walt that we wouldn't be able to learn from ourselves, or our family and friends. Walt was an amazing man and it was sad he had to end his life like that. So whenever you see something with the name Disney plastered on it take a moment to think that Walt Disney once said himself, "I  hope that we never loose sight of one thing-it was all started by a mouse." (Walt Disney)  So take a moment of silence to think about the amazing man that was Walt, Walt Disney.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Walt Disney biography imbd.com February10 2016     

Walt Disney copy write to Disney.com February 10 2016     

Walt Disney Biography Biography.com editors February 11 2016   

Wikipedia contributors Wikipedia the free encyclopedia "Walt Disney" February 10 2016   

Harcoort, Brace and company "Walt Disney a man and a mouse" Published in 1942

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