All children with television sets have spent at least half their childhood in a Disney trance, not to mention

adults too admire the works of Walt and the later works of his animation studios. Walt Disney brought us Alice in wonderland, snow white, Winnie the pooh, Toy Story, Pirates of the carribean, 101 dalmations, Chronicles of Narnia, Lion King, The muppets, pocahontas, little mermaid, Mary Poppins, Peter Pan, Bambi...the list can go on forever. In 1919 Walt decided on a career as a newspaper artist but when things didn't work out his brother Roy began a short-lived company with him. Later he joined Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio where he met Ubbe Iwerks with whom he would later start a commercial company 'Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists'. Iwerks and Disney remained life long friends. Financial circumstances drove him to later work for Kansas City Film Ad Company, where he made commercials based on cutout animation. But Disney considered cel animation to be much more promising than cutout animation. Walt eventually decided to open his own animation business and screened his first cartoons with Fred harman, which they titled Laugh-OGrams. Owing to financial issues again, he left kansas whereupon he decided to set up a studio in the movie industry's capital city, Hollywood, California with his brother Roy. Here he started making the famous 'Alice Comedies' After losing rights to the character Oswald the rabbit, to Universal studios he had to come up with something new and that's when Mickey Mouse was born (based on his pet rat). Walt played the voice of Mickey up until 1947 though many of his films were silent. Ub Iwerks who was also responsible for majority of cartoons released by Disney in 1928 and 1929, designed Mickey's body out of circles in order to make the character simple to animate. From 1929-1935 he created a series of black and white Mickey Mouse films including Barnyard Battle, when the cats away, cactus kid and so on. The release of Snow White was not only during the peak of Disney's success, but also a period that would later be known as the Golden Age of Animation for the studio. Disney employed Chouinard Art Institute professor Don Graham to start a training operation for the studio staff. Disney then used the 'Silly Symphonies' as a platform for experiments in realistic human animation, distinctive character animation, special effects, and the use of specialized processes and apparatus such as the multiplane camera a new technique first used by Disney in the 1937 Silly Symphonies. Disney managed to keep Mickey back on top as well as increase his popularity by colorizing and partially redesigning the character.

The first animated short to feature Mickey, Plane Crazy was a silent film. Pat Powers provided Disney with both distribution and Cinephone, a soundsynchronization process. Steamboat Willie proved to be an instant success along with Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho. Soon all Mickey cartoons were released with soundtracks. Mickey Mouse's popularity skyrocketed in the early 1930s. Mickey's official first color film came out in 1935 with 'The Band Concert'. The Technicolor film process was used in the film production. Disney has won 32 Academy Awards for his movies and for his contributions to scientific and technical film making. Today, Walt Disney is one of the most famous and pretigious animators of our time. His companies extend from animation studios to Disney Land Resorts and theme parks. "I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing that it was all started by a mouse." Walt Disney.