Portal:Disney

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Introduction

The Walt Disney Company (commonly referred to as simply Disney) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt Disney and Roy Oliver Disney as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio; it also operated under the names Walt Disney Studio and Walt Disney Productions before changing it to its current name in 1986. In 1928, Disney established itself as a leader in the animation industry with the short film Steamboat Willie. The film used synchronized sound to become the first post-produced sound cartoon, and popularized Mickey Mouse, who became Disney's mascot and corporate icon.

After becoming a major success by the early 1940s, Disney diversified into live-action films, television, and theme parks in the 1950s. However, following Walt Disney's death in 1966, the company's profits, especially in the animation division, began to decline. In 1984, Disney's shareholders voted Michael Eisner as CEO, who led a reversal of the company's decline through a combination of international theme park expansion and the highly successful Disney Renaissance period of animation in the 1990s. In 2005, under new CEO Bob Iger, the company continued to expand into a major entertainment conglomerate with the acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel Entertainment, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox. In 2020, Bob Chapek became the head of Disney after Iger's retirement. However, Chapek was ousted in 2022 and Iger was reinstated as CEO.

The company is known for its film studio division, the Walt Disney Studios, which includes Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios, 20th Century Animation, and Searchlight Pictures. Disney's other main business units include divisions in television, broadcasting, streaming media, theme park resorts, consumer products, publishing, and international operations. Through these divisions, Disney owns and operates the ABC television network; cable television networks such as Disney Channel, ESPN, Freeform, FX, and National Geographic; publishing, merchandising, music, and theater divisions; direct-to-consumer streaming services such as Disney+, ESPN+, Hulu, and Hotstar; and Disney Experiences, which includes several theme parks, resort hotels, and cruise lines around the world. (Full article...)

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Selected article

Look Mickey is a 1961 oil on canvas painting by Roy Lichtenstein. Based on an illustration showing Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck during a fishing mishap, it is widely regarded as the bridge between his abstract expressionism and pop art works. It is notable for its ironic humor and aesthetic value as well as being the first example of the artist's employment of Ben-Day dots, speech balloons and comic imagery as a source for a painting. Building on his late 1950s drawings of comic strips characters, Look Mickey marks Lichtenstein's first full employment of painterly techniques to reproduce almost faithful representations of pop culture and so satirize and comment upon the then developing process of mass production of visual imagery. In this, Lichtenstein pioneered a motif that became influential not only in 1960s Pop art but continuing to the work of artists today. The work dates from Lichtenstein's first solo exhibition, and is regarded by art critics as revolutionary both as a progression of pop art and as a work of modern art in general. It was later shown hanging prominently in Lichtenstein's studio in his 1973 painting, Artist's Studio—Look Mickey.

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Credit: Janke

Randy Cartwright at the Disney Studio in 1991.

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These are images of Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, The Walt Disney Company, and Walt Disney in their respective articles.

Image 1Team Disney – The Michael D. Eisner Building, the main building at the Walt Disney Studios, which houses the offices of Disney's CEO and several other senior corporate officials. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 2Fantasmic! finale on July 4, 2010 (from Disneyland)
Image 3Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge
(Star Wars: Millennium Falcon – Smugglers Run in 2019) (from Disneyland)
Image 4Main Street at Disneyland, as seen from a horseless carriage (from Disneyland)
Image 5Jeffrey Katzenberg was chairman of the Walt Disney Studios from 1984 to 1995. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 6Disney in 1954 (from Walt Disney)
Image 7Bob Iger became CEO of Disney in 2005, expanding the company's properties (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 8An aerial shot of Walt Disney World in 1982 (from Walt Disney World)
Image 9Adventureland entrance
(2006) (from Disneyland)
Image 10New Orleans Square
(the Haunted Mansion in the background and Fantasmic! viewing area in the foreground in 2010) (from Disneyland)
Image 11Hollywood Studios' park icon, the Chinese Theatre (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 12Mickey's Toontown
(pictured in 2010) (from Disneyland)
Image 13Walt (center) showing the plans of Disneyland to officials from Orange County in December 1954 (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 14Michael Eisner replaced Ron Miller as CEO. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 15The "Happiest Homecoming on Earth" celebrated the 50th anniversary of the theme park. Sleeping Beauty Castle was altered for the occasion. (from Disneyland)
Image 16The 2018 version of The Walt Disney World logo. (from Walt Disney World)
Image 17Disney's promotional logo for its centennial. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 18Main Street, U.S.A.
(2010) (from Disneyland)
Image 19Disney security vehicle, picture taken July 2, 2009 in front of Epcot (from Walt Disney World)
Image 20Disney Magic at Port of Venice (from Disney Cruise Line)
Image 21Tomorrowland
(Space Mountain in 2010) (from Disneyland)
Image 22Disneyland aerial view, 1963, which includes the new Melody Land Theater at the top of the photo (from Disneyland)
Image 23Walt Disney (center) showing Orange County officials plans for Disneyland's layout, December 1954 (from Disneyland)
Image 24Excerpt of Steamboat Willie (1928), the first Mickey Mouse sound cartoon. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 25One of four arches welcoming guests to the resort (from Walt Disney World)
Image 26Disney family at Schiphol Airport (1951) (from Walt Disney)
Image 27Fantasyland
(Peter Pan's Flight in the foreground and the Matterhorn Bobsleds in the background) (from Disneyland)
Image 28Roy O. Disney inspecting design plans on-site in Florida (from Walt Disney World)
Image 29Walt (right) dressed as a gaucho next to Donald Duck in Argentina while on the company's South American goodwill trip in 1941. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 30Walt, Florida Governor W. Haydon Burns, and Roy announcing the plans for Disney World in November 1965 (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 31A Disney Cruise Line bus which takes guests to and from Terminal 8 from Orlando International Airport; as well as around Walt Disney World. (from Disney Cruise Line)
Image 32Overlay of Walt Disney's original 1966 plans for Disney World and the proposed EPCOT city (orange) and contemporary situation (blue) (from Walt Disney World)
Image 33Roy E. Disney, Roy O. Disney's son, was head of the animation department until 2003. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 34A portrait of Disney with cartoon representations of different nationalities on a 6-cent U.S. postage stamp, 1968 (from Walt Disney)
Image 35Characters from Alice in Wonderland host "Disneyland Musical Chairs" at Coca-Cola Refreshment Corner, accompanied by a ragtime pianist in 2005. (from Disneyland)
Image 36Disneyland fireworks from Sleeping Beauty Castle (from Disneyland)
Image 37Grave of Walt Disney at Forest Lawn, Glendale (from Walt Disney)
Image 38Disney shows the plans of Disneyland to officials from Orange County in December 1954 (from Walt Disney)
Image 39One of Disney's first animated characters Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, which Disney regained the rights to in 2006. The initial run of Oswald shorts by Disney have all entered the public domain as of January 1, 2024. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 40Frontierland
(Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in 2008) (from Disneyland)
Image 41The 1996 version of The Walt Disney World logo (from Walt Disney World)
Image 42Disney's video streaming subscription service Disney+ was launched in 2019, which has a total of over 135 million subscriptions as of June 2022. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 43The original animation building at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California, which they fully moved into in 1940 (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 44Walt Disney introduces each of the seven dwarfs in a scene from the original 1937 Snow White theatrical trailer (from Walt Disney)
Image 45Map of the resort as of May 2015 (from Walt Disney World)
Image 46Disney (left) with his brother Roy O. Disney (right) and then Governor of Florida W. Haydon Burns (center) on November 15, 1965, publicly announcing the creation of Disney World (from Walt Disney)
Image 47Disneyland Railroad Engine 2 at the New Orleans Square station. (from Disneyland)
Image 48An aerial view of Disneyland in 2004 (from Disneyland)
Image 49View of Disney Springs (from Walt Disney World)
Image 50The original logo of Walt Disney World from 1971 to the mid-1990s (from Walt Disney World)
Image 51Disney drawing Goofy for a group of girls in Argentina, 1941 (from Walt Disney)
Image 52Wedding Pavilion at the Seven Seas Lagoon (from Walt Disney World)
Image 53Disney's childhood home (from Walt Disney)
Image 54Walt Disney (left) with his brother Roy O. Disney (right) and then Governor of Florida W. Haydon Burns (center) on November 15, 1965, publicly announcing the creation of Disney World (from Walt Disney World)
Image 55Disney bought The Muppets from the Jim Henson Company in 2004. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 56Monorail Red travels over the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage in Tomorrowland in 2008. (from Disneyland)
Image 57Walt Disney's business envelope featured a self-portrait, c. 1921 (from Walt Disney)
Image 58The Sherman Brothers in 2002. They composed many Disney songs in the 1960s. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 59The Walt Disney World Monorail System provides free transport across the resort.
Image 60Critter Country
(Splash Mountain; 1989–2023) (from Disneyland)

Selected biography

Alan Cyril Wagner (October 1, 1931 — December 18, 2007) was an American television executive, radio personality, writer, and opera historian and critic. He served as the East Coast vice president of programming at CBS from 1976 until 1982, when he became the first president of the Disney Channel. Born in Harlem, New York City, Wagner grew up in the Brighton Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Columbia University. He served in the United States Navy during the mid 1950s, notably appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956 performing a stand-up comedy bit with a group of fellow seamen. A passionate advocate for opera, Wagner became the host of the WNYC radio program Living Opera in 1957 after his contract with the Navy came to an end. The program aired for two-hours every Sunday morning, featuring excerpts from opera recordings and interviews with performers and other personalities from the opera world. Wagner would also often relate humorous and interesting backstage stories that he had experienced or had heard about. He left Living Opera in 1968 after hosting the program for eleven years.

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Did you know (auto-generated)

... that some TikTokers make videos about whether to smash or pass Disney characters?
... that Scarlett Johansson filed a lawsuit against The Walt Disney Company alleging that the release strategy for Black Widow breached her contract?
... that in response to Disney's stance on Florida's House Bill 1557, also known as the "Don't Say Gay" bill, Pixar employees stated that Disney removes LGBT references from the studio's films?
... that John Oliver dared Disney to sue him over his version of Mickey Mouse?
... that Disney once created a political advertisement for Dwight D. Eisenhower (featured)?
... that the ferry General Joe Potter at Walt Disney World is named in honor of Major General William Everett Potter?

Selected quote

Gee Mr Spirit! There's a lot more to mathematics than two times two.

— Donald Duck, Donald in Mathmagic Land, 1955

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More Did you know...

...that for scenes in the Phineas and Ferb episode "Jerk De Soleil" where the character Candace had a deep voice, co-creator Dan Povenmire had to step in for the normal voice actress?

...that Disney Channel veteran Selena Gomez (pictured) sings the theme song for the new Disney series, Shake It Up?

...that Walt Disney's grandson Walter Elias Disney Miller produced a film about his grandfather called Walt - The Man Behind the Myth?
...that press releases for the Phineas and Ferb episode "Lawn Gnome Beach Party of Terror" detailed a cut subplot where the character Lawrence Fletcher searches for a rare bottle cap?

... that the most valuable cartoon movie poster was a poster for the Walt Disney short, Alice's Day at the Sea (USA 1924), was sold in London England at $36534.00 in 1994.

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