Walt Disney

ANB

After such a large attraction to Disneyland in Anaheim, California, Disney decided to begin building Disney World, located in Orlando, Florida. This theme park opened in 1971.

Entrepreneur

After the opening of Disneyland in 1955, it quickly became a popular vacation spot for people all around the world. It was nicknamed "The Happiest Place on Earth" by all of its amazed visitors.

biography.com

With Walt as the voice of Mickey in Steamboat Willie, Disney's cartoon became "an instant sensation".

Entrepreneur

"'Walt Disney Presents', a television show produced by Disney Studios that was hosted by Disney himself, became not just a profit center for the company, but also a promotional engine for all its works."

Entrepreneur

"Advertising was less than fulfilling, though, so he converted his garage into a studio and, with borrowed equipment, began producing his own shorts, called Laugh-O-Grams."

NLPU

"Animation can explain whatever the mind of man can conceive." -Walt Disney

biography.com

"Disney began experimenting with a camera, doing hand-drawn animation, and decided to open his own animation business."

Entrepreneur

"Disney continued to embrace the latest techniques, adopting the new medium of Technicolor just as readily as he had sound."

ANB

"Disney was hailed by critics as creating an American art form exhibiting "that same delicate balance between fantasy and fact, poetry and comic reality, which is the nature of all folklore."

ANB

"Disney was quick to embrace innovations, producing the first cartoon using the three-color Technicolor" as well as becoming one of the first users of 3D technology in the animation field.

ABC-CLIO

"Disney's cartoon "Flowers and Trees" was the first cartoon in color and the first to win an an Academy Award in the new "Cartoon Short Subject" category."

Entrepreneur

"Disney's cartoons offered escape at a time when Americans needed it most."

ABC-CLIO

"Disneyland" was the Disney Studio's first cartoon to appear on television. One of the reasons why it was so successful was because it included all aspects of the Disney Studio, such as cartoons and live-action.

ANB

"Evaluations of Disney hailed him as a patriot, folk artist, and popularizer of culture."

Entrepreneur

"Few individuals have had a greater impact on both the entertainment industry and the popular culture of the 20th century than Walter Elias Disney."

Entrepreneur

"His numerous films celebrating the triumph of Mickey Mouse and the simple charms of small-town life captured the imaginations and fueled the dreams of six generations."

Entrepreneur

"In the early 1950s, he mortgaged his life insurance, stock holdings, house and furniture to purchase an orange grove near Anaheim, California and finance the construction of a 185-acre amusement park."

new york times

"It's a legacy of Mr. Disney, who, even in the darkest days of the Depression, created an alternative world of pleasure via characters like Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto and Donald Duck."

biography.com

"On December 21, 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated film, premiered in Los Angeles. It produced an unimaginable $1.499 million, in spite of the Depression, and won a total of eight Oscars."

biography.com

"One of the most popular cartoons, Flowers and Trees, was the first to be produced in color and to win an Oscar."

ABC-CLIO

"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was a gamble for the Disney Studio. It required more than 750 artists, and was predicted to completely bankrupt the studio. However, when it was released, "Disney received a Special Academy Award for 'a significant screen innovation,' and the film, universally acknowledged as a movie milestone, earned $8 million on its initial release, four times its cost."

Britannica

"Stage adaptations of the animated features 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'The Lion King', both visually resplendent and long-running successes, premiered in 1994 and 1997, respectively."

ABC-CLIO

"The Disney Studio achieved a level of success that continued unabated for five decades, producing a stream of animated classics, live-action films, and documentaries, garnering numerous awards."

ABC-CLIO

"The Disney company was and is one of the most successful merchandising businesses of the century."

ABC-CLIO

"The view of America—and life in general—projected through the varied products of the Disney Studio was remarkably consistent." Characters such as Davy Crockett sparked a popular interest in Disney's cartoons due to their display of American patriotism.

ANB

"To ensure the success of his films, Disney became an early user of George Gallup's audience research from the pre- to postproduction stages of his films' development." (shows his business intelligence)

biography.com

"Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color was a popular Sunday night show, which Disney used to begin promoting his new theme park"

NLPU

"Walt Disney's ability to connect his innovative creativity with successful business strategy and popular appeal certainly qualifies him as a genius in the field of entertainment."

ABC-CLIO

"Walter Elias Disney achieved preeminence in movies and television and revolutionized the leisure industry with his theme park, Disneyland."

ANB

"With a stable financial base, Disney sought expensive refinements to animation technique, introducing the "pencil test" (in which the animator's original pencil drawings are photographed sequentially on motion picture film and projected in order to test the action) to check work in progress."

ANB

"Years after his death, Walt Disney retains a centrality in American culture granted to few twentieth-century figures."

Entrepreneur

After one of Disney's character creations was stolen due to his failure to copyright it, he learned his mistake. "In subsequent years, he would gain a reputation for keeping close tabs on his creations and insisting on complete control." This further developed his business skills, learning from his past mistakes.

ANB

As another source of income and business investment, Disney build his own theme park (Disneyland), which was opened in 1955.

biography.com

By creating the character of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Disney used his imaginative animation skills to create a successful business deal that earned him $1500 per cartoon.

Entrepreneur

Disney turned an empty garage with limited amount of supplies into a working studio in which he began his animation career.

Entrepreneur

Disney was not only the creator of the the first full-length cartoon, but also the first cartoon with sound.

Entrepreneur

Disney was so dedicated to his talent and his own business that he sold his apartment and lived on cold beans in order to fund his animation projects.

Britannica

Disney's animated features and movies were so successful that companies began to copy some of the techniques used by Disney and his animators.

Entrepreneur

Disney's creativity and use of innovations in the entertainment field "made him one of the most popular and influential figures in postwar American culture."

THESIS CHANGE

Due to his creativity in animation and prosperous entrepreneurship, Walt Disney can be considered the most successful man to have ever lived.

Entrepreneur

Due to his open mind regarding new technologies and innovations in the entertainment business, Disney was able to draw a large audience that was amazed by his use of new tools in the field.

biography.com

Due to the groundbreaking mix of live action and animation, the production of Mary Poppins was a huge commercial success for Disney.

NLPU

Early in his career, Walt Disney became a main contributor and innovator to the field of animation and entertainment.

ANB

Not only did Walt draw and create entertaining cartoons, but he was able to recognize early on that "television can be a most powerful selling aid for us (the Disney Company), as well as a source of revenue."

ABC-CLIO

One reason why Walt Disney was so successful in the entertainment industry was because he was able to integrate hope in his cartoons during times of extreme hardship. For example, during the Great Depression of the 1930's in America, Disney created a popular character named Mickey Mouse "whose optimism appealed enormously to depression-era audiences".

biography.com

Walt Disney was one of the first animation artists to use television as a way to attract attention to his work. This proved extremely successful with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in children audiences.

new york times

Walt Disney's "imagineering" has been extremely crucial in influencing many modern entrepreneurs, such as Steve Jobs and the creation of his Apple products

ABC-CLIO

Walt Disney's experience with the corruption that is involved in some areas of the film industry are what enabled him to become an individual artist and entrepreneur.

ANB

Through his extensive work and creativity in the field of cartoon entertainment, Walt Disney "remains the central figure in the history of animation."

ABC-CLIO

Walt Disney also recognized the effect that music had on audiences. He used this knowledge to incorporate music into his cartoons, which became widely popular.

ABC-CLIO

Walt Disney had the creativity and talent needed in order to become successful in not only cartoon animations such as Snow White, but also live-action films such as Mary Poppins.

ANB

Walt Disney used his various enterprises to promote and advertise each other. For example, the Walt Disney Company, the Disneyland show on television, and the theme park would all promote each other.