Walt Disney, Part II
Brian Trumbore
President/Editor, StocksandNews.com

We pick up our story with 'Steamboat Willie,' the first sound cartoon. Initially, it was a silent short based on the comedy of Buster Keaton. But Walt Disney was sitting in the theatre watching Al Jolson singing in 'The Jazz Singer,' the first real feature length 'talkie,' and he had an idea.

Film executives were divided over sound then, if you can believe it, and as Walt wrote brother Roy, "None of them are positive how it is all going to turn out, but I have come to this definite conclusion: Sound effects and talking pictures are more than a mere novelty. They are here to stay and in time will develop into a wonderful thing."

Harold Evans writes of critic Richard Schickel who, in Evans's words argued that "Walt's distinction was to see sound as not just an addition to the movies but also a force that would fundamentally transform them. 'He was the first moviemaker to resolve the aesthetically disruptive fight between sight and sound through the simple method of fusion, making them absolutely 'co-expressible,' with neither one dominant nor carrying more than a fair share of the film's weight.'"

But in the case of 'Steamboat Willie,' when Walt and Ub Iwerks showed it before the animators' wives and girlfriends for a dry run, the viewers were far from impressed. Walt's wife Lillian said "it sounded terrible." And according to Mildred Iwerks in her book 'The Hand Behind the Mouse,' she was gossiping with the other wives afterwards in the hall when Walt ran out and exclaimed, "You're here talking about babies and we're in there making history."

Back in New York, though, where Walt was trying to get movers and shakers in the film and recording business interested, there were no takers. Walt needed a sound expert and finally he found Pat Powers, the founder of Cinephone. Powers put together an orchestra, which proceeded to botch the first recording (they couldn't keep up with the action), and Walt had to sell his car to get a second session.

Then Disney had to find a distributor. Only one, Harry Reichenbach of the Colony Theater in New York, allowed Walt to do a public screening.

On November 18, 1928, the public told Walt Disney that he was on the right track. They loved 'Steamboat Willie' and Mickey Mouse was on his way to stardom.

So why did everyone love Mickey? Michael Eisner told Harold Evans that the revelation for him came in listening to an audiotape of an unedited 'Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy Show.'

"Normally Walt did Mickey's voice in a studio and did it over and over until he got it right. But this particular show was live and it became startlingly obvious that Walt and Mickey were one and the same. He kept falling back into Walt when he was trying to be Mickey and back to Mickey when he was Walt, just as I later discovered that Kermit the Frog was part of Jim Henson and Charlie Brown was Charles Schultz. These great characters are not created by committee, nor are they fiction. They are real and alive and the alter egos of their creators."

Evans writes Mickey was a sunnier character than Walt. I would add that in the case of Charlie Brown, he definitely reflected the disposition of Schultz.

Walt also believed in the family values he promoted at Disney.

"All right, I'm corny," he said, "but I think there's just about a hundred and forty million people in this country that are just as corny as I am."

Oh, he enjoyed cussing and a stiff drink now and then, but he was really just a regular guy who hated to see people get screwed, as he had been in his search for a career.

He also had this dark side, shaped by his early years no doubt. He brooded a lot and was described as somber. It was said you could put your arm around brother Roy, but not Walt.

Harold Evans notes, though, that the way to his heart was to talk about trains. He built a half-mile railway in the yard of his home "and delighted in putting on this engineer's cap to take visitors for a ride."

Meanwhile, Pat Powers was going around Walt's back to steal Ub Iwerks. Iwerks's loyalty to Walt was tested in the making of 'The Skeleton Dance' and Iwerks bolted for Powers's studio.

But get this. When Iwerks left Disney he cashed out his 20 percent interest for $2,920. By the time Iwerks went bankrupt after six years and returned to Walt, the original stake would have been worth over $1 million. If Iwerks's heirs had inherited his original 20 percent, it would be worth around $5 billion today.

During the Depression, however, Walt Disney Company was struggling. Roy Disney ran the financial end and he had to meet a payroll of 187, including gag men, animators, inkers and musicians. In 1931, Walt Disney had snapped under the pressure and under doctor's orders was told to take his wife on a long cruise to Panama to get away from it all.

Then in 1934, Walt came up with the idea for 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,' the first full-length feature. But Disney told Roy he needed an initial $500,000. Yikes.

Disney had a friend, though, Joe Rosenberg, a loan officer at the Giannini family's Bank of America [a story for another day] and Rosenberg gave Disney a $1 million line of credit for the project.

Walt ended up being way over budget, with the final cost around $1.5 million, but on Dec. 21, 1937, 'Snow White' opened to rave reviews and drew sellout crowds at New York's Radio City Music Hall. In its first year the picture grossed $8.5 million, at a time when the cost of a children's ticket was just ten cents. So, rounding off, since some theatres these days are beginning to charge as much as $10, that would be $850 million in today's dollars.

Walt Disney was feted all over and earned a special Academy Award in 1939, while Roy Disney was so comfortable about the future of the studio he built a new one on 50 acres adjacent to Griffith Park in Burbank. Walt in turn kept coming up with great ideas. Roy E. Disney recalls hearing about the story of a wooden puppet who wanted to be a real boy.

Roy E. was nine at the time, home sick in bed, when Uncle Walt stopped by on a Saturday evening to say hello.

"He obviously decided to see how 'Pinocchio' played with me, and for the next 40 minutes he acted out the whole story. It was completely mesmerizing. When I finally went to see the finished movie, I was actually disappointed. It was nowhere near as good as it was in Walt's telling.'

Walt was even more manic about 'Fantasia,' the classical music project where he employed conductor Leopold Stokowski. Both 'Fantasia' and 'Pinocchio' were completed in 1940 for in excess of $2 million, and especially in the case of 'Fantasia' the initial box office was tepid. [By the way, the audio oscillator Disney used for 'Fantasia' was the first product made by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in their Palo Alto garage.]

Under pressure from the bankers, Roy convinced Walt that the best way to raise funds would be to make an initial public offering of stock. In April 1940 Disney raised $3.5 million in this manner. But by 1945, the initial disappointment in the release of 'Bambi,' coupled with a strike by the Cartoonists' Guild and then the war, hiked his debt to the Bank of America to several $million.

Disney cut staff by a third, even as Walt planned his next three projects: 'Alice in Wonderland,' 'Peter Pan,' and 'Cinderella.' For the time being he settled on 'Cinderella' and then he began working on live action and nature documentaries, including a 69- minute one featuring poisonous scorpions and snakes titled 'The Living Desert,' which earned ten times its production costs.

Next up, "an amusement park." Walt needed $10 million.

From Harold Evans:

"Disgusted by the experiences of taking his daughters to fairs where the rides were tawdry, the employees hostile, and the grounds dirty, he envisaged something utterly different, but Roy was aghast at the idea of adding to their debt."

Walt ended up using his own money for a feasibility study as he dreamt of a miniature town, "a showplace of nostalgia and romance." There would be a Main Street, a Frontierland, Tomorrowland, Fantasyland and Adventureland; all telling different stories. And it was to be called Disneyland.

But Roy and Walt couldn't find a bank that would lend them what was now clearly going to be more than $10 million, so they began going to the television networks. All three had been badgering Disney for a series, but Walt had insisted on controlling rights.

So the pitch was, whoever would invest in Disneyland got to be the preferred network for the series. David Sarnoff at NBC and William Paley at CBS eventually backed off, but Leonard Goldenson of ABC was supremely interested. ABC needed programming and agreed to invest $500,000 in Disneyland as well as guarantee a loan of $4.5 million. In return ABC picked up a 35 percent stake in the amusement park and all of the profits from the concessions for ten years. For his part Walt agreed to provide a weekly one-hour Sunday night Disney show. The initial budget for the series was $5 million and Disney received one minute of commercial air time.

On October 27, 1954, Walt Disney (who had been convinced to host the program) opened the first show with a preview of Disneyland. The rest is history. Early on, 50 million tuned in for a documentary about the filming of his '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,' one-half of all television households.

Then Walt ran three hour-long features on Davy Crockett, thus rescuing the career of Fess Parker at the same time. One of Disney's studio producers, George Bruns, composed 'The Ballad of Davy Crockett' and it spent 13 weeks at #1.

Disneyland opened in July 1955, coinciding with a special hosted by Ronald Reagan. It was 160 acres, transformed from an orange grove, but the first few days were nearly a disaster. Traffic jammed the Santa Ana Freeway, food ran out, a gas leak shut down Fantasyland, and the day's heat caused women's high heels to sink into the freshly laid asphalt on Main Street. ["The Century"]

Yet in the first seven weeks, one million visitors went through the turnstile. Four million the first year. Walt Disney Productions grew in five years from a gross income of $6 million to $27 million.

Disneyland was a monument to optimism during America's most optimistic times. And when it came to branding, there were none better than Walt Disney. Whether it was the television show, feature films or Disneyland, merchandise was being sold.

Like Davy Crockett's coonskin caps, guns, record, and lunch boxes. Historian William Manchester once told the story of a retailer who had an oversupply of pup tents, so he stenciled "Davy Crockett" on them and sold the stock out in two days. And those coonskin caps? 10 million were sold in a few weeks.

Disney quickly realized a fact of life. As he told a young employee, Marty Sklar, "I'm not Walt Disney anymore. I do a lot of things the public doesn't want to know about. I smoke and drink and lose my temper. But Walt Disney is a thing, an image in the public mind. Disney is something they think of as a kind of entertainment, a family thing, and it's all wrapped up in the name Disney." [Harold Evans]

One project after another followed, including the critically acclaimed 'Mary Poppins,' which earned a tidy $44 million its first year. Picture Walt, backstage at 'Camelot' in New York, trying to convince Julie Andrews that her first film role should be as a flying nanny, accompanied by animated characters.

Alas, Walt Disney died in 1966, a victim of his life-long vice, smoking.

Brother Roy fulfilled his dreams, though, such as the opening of Disney World in Orlando, Fla., Oct. 1, 1971. Roy himself died just three months later. Sadly, the Walt Disney Company almost collapsed over the succeeding years, only to be resurrected in 1984 by Michael Eisner and his inseparable partner, the late Frank Wells.

Sources:

"The Oxford Companion to United States History," edited by Paul S. Boyer
"They Made America," Harold Evans, with Gail Buckland and David Lefer
"The Century," Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster

Brian Trumbore

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