In 1966, Walt Disney lay dying at St. Joseph's Hospital in Burbank, California which was next door to the Walt Disney Studios. His attending nurse was also his personal nurse at the studio.
"Hazel," said Mr. Disney. "I hope I am remembered for more important things than inventing a mouse."
Let's take a look…
From 1921 to 1923, Walt Disney headed the Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, Missouri. The studio went bankrupt in the summer of 1923.
Though he was living and working in Kansas City, Walt took up an offer from his brother Roy to join him in Hollywood. Walt sold his movie camera which gave him enough for a one-way train ticket to California.
Disney also brought with him his last one-reeler named “Alice in Wonderland” which combined live action with animation, kick-starting the Alice Comedies.
On October 16, 1923, Disney released the first of the Alice Comedies and that series of live-action animated shorts became the foundation of the “Disney Company,” which was first known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio.
The Disney Company's first Alice Comedy named Alice's Day at Sea was released in 1924. This was before—at Roy's suggestion—they renamed the Disney Company to Walt Disney Studio in 1926. The Alice series ended in 1927, giving way for the very first cartoon, “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.”
Next, Mortimer Mouse—created by Disney and Ub Iwerks (yep, that was the fellow's name)—failed to find a distributor. However, with prompting from Lillie Belle, they decided to cast Mortimer in the first sound animated film Steamboat Willie. Mortimer soon became Mickey and, as they say, "the rest is history."
In the span between 1927 and 1937, legendary cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse, Pluto, Goofy, and Donald Duck all joined the Disney gang in the Mickey Mouse series.
Walt Disney made history in 1937 when Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs became the first feature-length animated film to be released. With an estimated budget of $1.5 million, Snow White gripped global audiences and became the highest grossing film until Gone with the Wind topped it in 1939.
The success of the film enabled Disney to build a new campus for Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, which opened for business on Christmas Eve, 1939. By this time, his staff had swelled to more than a thousand artists, animators, writers, and technicians. The Walt Disney Studio had officially grown up.
In 1939, Walt Disney Studios just completed production of Pinocchio and were working on Fantasia and Bambi when World War II broke out. While Pinocchio and Fantasia were both released, neither performed particularly well.
After the U.S. entered the war, ninety-four percent of Disney’s studio facilities were taken over by the military for work on training films for the armed services, health films for the general public, and short propaganda pieces like Der Fuhrer’s Face.
The cheaply-produced Dumbo made some money for the studio, but Bambi—finally released in 1942—bombed on its initial release. For the next several years, the studio focused on shorts and compilation films.
It was not until the late 1940s that Disney recovered enough to start concentrating on feature films again. Cinderella was released in 1950, followed by Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, and Sleeping Beauty.
During the Fabulous 1950s, the studio branched out into nature documentaries, live-action features such as Treasure Island and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and television. They now handled their own distribution through their new subsidiary, Buena Vista Distribution.
By the end of the decade, the Disney Empire was a major success, and Walt Disney Productions had become the world’s leading purveyor and innovator of “family entertainment.”
Ever heard of DISNEYLAND?
Fair to say, Walt's legacy was indeed better than just inventing a cartoon mouse.
As always,
Brian
P.S. – In 1928, Universal Studios took control of the aforementioned Disney character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.
Fast-forward to 2025 and Universal was part of the NBC television world (as NBCUniversal), whereas The Walt Disney Company owned the ABC television network.
That year, it was also announced that NBC had acquired the rights to the NFL's Sunday Night Football. ABC's Monday Night Football—which for most of its history was the NFL's premier offering—was going to move to Disney's cable station, ESPN, and would now play second-fiddle to the Sunday night game.
The great Al Michaels, arguably the best sports play-by-play man of all-time, was the longtime voice of MNF. His partner, John Madden, eventually signed with NBC to do Sunday nights, but Michaels was still under contract with ABC.
Around the same time, Disney's Buena Vista was working on a video game concept that featured Oswald. Problem was, they didn't have the rights to use the rabbit. NBCUniversal still owned Oswald, but hadn't done anything with him in nearly a half a century.
So, on February 9, 2006, The Walt Disney Company traded the services of Al Michaels for the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. (NBCUniversal also sold ESPN the cable rights to some future Ryder Cups and granted ESPN increased usage of Olympics highlights.)
In 2010, Disney released the Epic Mickey video game for most platforms. It featured Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.
Michaels went on to call Sunday night games for NBC through the 2021 season. He then moved on to Amazon for the 2022 season to call Thursday Night Football. Though most of the games over the last three seasons have been snoozers, it is absolutely delightful to watch Al Michaels work his craft each week.
Michaels has one game left this season, and that's during "Super Wild Card Weekend" in a couple weeks. We don't know the matchup yet, but it is bound to be a good game, with peak Al Michaels in the booth.
Bookmark it:
You can even watch the game and/or listen to the dulcet tones of Al Michaels on your "phone," if you care to do that.
