Before there was Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney had an agreement with Alice Studios to create several cartoons. However, it wasn't until 1928 that the mouse known as Mickey made his first appearance in "Steamboat Willie," a nearly eight-minute cartoon that also featured Minnie Mouse. It was the first cartoon with synchronized sound. Disney had big dreams for animation, and in 1934 he embarked on what was referred to in Hollywood as "Disney's Folly": a movie-length animated feature that would become Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Released in December 1937 through RKO Radio Pictures, Snow White went on to win Disney an honorary Academy Award in 1938 and was nominated for best musical score. Walt Disney Studios officially opened for business in late 1939.
Still from 1937 trailer of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, showing Walt Disney with the dwarfs.
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Building on the success of Snow White, Disney went on to make Pinocchio and Fantasia, both released in 1940. Dumbo, the tale of a flying elephant, was released in 1941. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the subsequent draft of many Disney animators, the studio began producing commissioned propaganda films for the U.S. and Canadian governments. While animated shorts and live-action films combined with animated sequences were still being produced, Bambi (1942) would be Disney’s last animated feature film until 1950.
After World War II ended, Disney was able to refocus its attention on family entertainment. Over the course of three years, Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Peter Pan (1953) were released. In September 1953, the studio ended its relationship with RKO and began distributing its own films through Buena Vista Distribution. While Disney executives plotted to build a theme park in southern California, as well as develop television programs for ABC Television, the studio continued producing animated shorts and compilations and worked on Sleeping Beauty. Released in January 1959, Sleeping Beauty was Disney’s most expensive animated feature to date, costing the studio a reported $6 million.
Original 1951 theatrical trailer for Alice in Wonderland.
With television shows and a new theme park its top two priorities, and disappointing box office returns for Sleeping Beauty ($5 million), the studio did not release another full-length animated feature until The 101 Dalmatians in 1961. The canine-centric film would be the tenth-highest grossing film of 1961, earning more than $6 million. On Christmas Day, 1963, The Sword in the Stone was released and went on to be the sixth-highest grossing film of that year. The last animated feature to be produced under Walt Disney’s watch, The Jungle Book, was released in October 1967, only 10 months after Walt’s death.
The deaths of Walt Disney and his brother and co-founder Roy O. Disney in 1966 and 1971, respectively, did not mean the end of Disney animated features. The first three films to be released in the new decade did well at the box office, with The Rescuers coming in as the third-highest grossing film of 1977. The Rescuers also signified a changing of the guard among Disney animators, as California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) graduates joined the studio. One of the new animators, Don Bluth, left Disney in 1979—taking several other Disney animators with him—to start Don Bluth Productions. The loss of these talented artists, coupled with the failure of The Black Cauldron in 1985 and new CEO Michael Eisner’s desire to outsource animated features, put Disney’s animation studio in serious jeopardy. Roy E. Disney, nephew of Walt, advocated for the animation division and became its chairman. In 1988, the animation division became profitable once again with Oliver and Company, a star-studded, musically influenced retelling of Oliver Twist, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, a ground-breaking live-action/animated feature produced in partnership with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment.
The upswing for Disney animation continued with the 1989 release of The Little Mermaid, a throwback to classic Disney films with its original songs and fairy tale roots. It was the last Disney feature made using the traditional hand-painted cel method of animation. A box office success, the film earned an Academy Award for its musical score. Over the next five years, Disney made three additional films using a musical format: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King (1994).
Advances in computer technology lead Disney to develop the Computer Animation Production System (CAPS) in collaboration with Pixar Animation Studios. This proprietary collection of software, scanning camera systems, servers, networked computer workstations, and custom desks computerized the ink and paint and post-production processes of traditionally animated feature films. Disney’s first completely digital animated feature was The Rescuers Down Under (1990).
By the end of the 20th century, Disney had fully embraced digital technology in its animated features, and had begun what would prove to be a very lucrative partnership with Pixar (see Chapter 3).
The new millenium started off tenuously for Disney, with layoffs in 2001 and dwindling returns from the company’s parks and resorts divisions. Business quickly picked up with the release of Lilo & Stitch (2002), an original science-fiction tale set in Hawaii. While Disney continued to release animated features, it was the films produced in partnership with Pixar, such as Monsters, Inc. (2001) and Finding Nemo (2003), that would prove to be the most successful.
Dipping their toe back in the fairy tale waters, Disney released The Princess and the Frog in 2009, which featured the first African-American female lead in a Disney animated film, and Tangled, a retelling of Rapunzel, in 2010. While The Princess and the Frog was not the box office smash Disney had hoped for, Tangled earned over $600 million worldwide. In 2013, however, Frozen smashed all previous records, becoming the highest grossing animated film to date with earnings of over $1 billion.
Disney's commitment to sharing family-friendly stories would be tested—and would pass with flying [Techni]colors—in its relationship with Pixar Animation Studios.