The Founding Blog

October 2021 is a milestone month for the Disney Company. October 1st marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Walt Disney World (as well as the birthday of Disney Legend Dame Julie Andrews!). And yesterday, October 16th, 2021, marks 98 years since Walt and Roy Disney founded Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio (founded on October 16th, 1923). Of course, that small start-up ultimately free into the Walt Disney Company. Let’s look at their story…

Walt Disney created Laugh-O-Grams Incorporated in Kansas City, MO in 1921. The “Laugh-O-Gram,” shorts were cartoons that told versions of classic fairy tales and children stories. The studio was unfortunately forced to declare bankruptcy in 1923, but Walt decided to bring the last “Laugh-O-Gram,” to Hollywood, California. The short, called Alice’s Wonderland stared child actress Virginia Davis in the title role. “Alice’s Wonderland” was a groundbreaking cartoon as it was the first to put real-life actors in animated backgrounds, the special effect technique that would set the stage for Mary Poppins (1964) 31 years later. Walt decided to try Hollywood to see if he could gain anyone’s attention for distribution, and well as start over with a brand new art studio. Fortunately, he was able to do just that.

Margaret J. Winkler, who owned a distribution company in New York, saw “Alice’s Wonderland” and immediately saw its potential. She arranged a distribution deal with Walt and Roy Disney, and together the brothers formed the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in their uncle, Robert Disney’s garage. They began producing the Alice Comedies series and by 1926, the studio name was changed to Walt Disney Studio. The following year the studio ended production on the “Alice,” series and began production on a new series of cartoons about a character called “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit,” a series that would be released under the Universal Studios label.

At this point, Winkler’s husband, Charles Mintz, had taken over the distribution company. In 1928, Disney had hoped to renew the Oswald contract with a larger payment than before, but to his shock, he discovered that Mintz had chosen to produce the “Oswald” series himself and was on the verge of starting his own studio by hiring away many of Disney’s staff. Sadly, there was nothing Walt could do, but he refused to give up, and knew that he needed to come up with a new character. Having befriended a mouse at the “Laugh-O-Gram,” studio, Walt came up with an idea for unrelentingly optimistic mouse named Mortimer. His wife, Lilly, thought the name Mickey would be nicer, and they produced the first ever Mickey Mouse short, Plane Crazy in 1928. It wasn’t long before Mickey Mouse outshined Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

Walt later changed the name of studio to Walt Disney Productions in 1929. Although that was the name of the studio, it never truthfully stopped being about both Disney brothers. While Walt would always be the one to come up with the creative ideas, Roy would always be there to oversee the financing as they continued producing Mickey Mouse cartoons, the “Silly Symphony” series (1929-1939), and ultimately feature-length animated movies: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Pinocchio (1940). When Walt passed away in December of 1966, Roy took over as CEO of the company and worked as hard as he could to keep his brother’s vision alive through the movie studio as well as the opening of Walt Disney World. Coincidentally, Roy passed away in the same month as his brother, though five years later in December of 1971. 

Today, the Walt Disney Company is one of the most respected (and largest) corporations in the universe, though it would have gone out of business a long time ago had not been for Walt’s creative vision and Roy’s tenacious effort to hold onto that vision.