Portal:Disney

Portal:Disney

Portal:Disney


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Introduction

The Walt Disney Studios corporate headquarters in Burbank, California, 2016

The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (/ˈdɪzni/ DIZ-nee), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate that is headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt Disney and Roy Disney as Disney Brothers Studio; it also operated under the names Walt Disney Studio and Walt Disney Productions before changing its name to the Walt Disney Company 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 Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, and 20th Century Studios. 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 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+, Star+, ESPN+, Hulu, and Hotstar; and Disney Experiences, which includes several theme parks, resort hotels, and cruise lines around the world. (Full article...)

Selected article

Toy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated family film, the first Disney/Pixar film to be made, as well as the first feature film in history to be made entirely with CGI. Directed by John Lasseter and featuring the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, the film was co-produced by Ralph Guggenheim and Bonnie Arnold and was distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. It was written by Lasseter, Joss Whedon, Andrew Stanton, Joel Cohen, and Alec Sokolow, and featured music by Randy Newman. Toy Story follows a group of toys who come to life whenever humans are not present, focusing on Woody, a pull-string cowboy doll (Hanks), and Buzz Lightyear, an astronaut action figure (Allen). The top-grossing film on its opening weekend, Toy Story went on to earn over $191 million in the United States and Canada during its initial theatrical release and took in more than $361 million worldwide. Although the film was a huge box office success, the film is currently Pixar's lowest grossing film while this film's second sequel Toy Story 3 is their highest grossing film earning over $1 billion worldwide. View-Master released a 3 reel set in 3D in 1995 prior to release of 3D films. The film was so successful it prompted a sequel released in 1999, Toy Story 2. Eleven years later, on June 18, 2010, an additional film, Toy Story 3, was also released. Both sequels were instant hits and garnered critical acclaim similar to the first. The film was selected into the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" in 2005, its first year of eligibility.

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Credit: J-E Nyström

Carl Barks visiting Finland in June, 1994.

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

Selected biography

Ubbe Ert Iwwerks (March 24, 1901 – July 7, 1971), known as Ub Iwerks (/ˈʌb ˈwɜːrks/), was an American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, and special effects technician. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Iwerks grew up with a contentious relationship with his father, who abandoned him as a child. Iwerks met fellow artist Walt Disney while working at a Kansas City art studio in 1919. After briefly working as illustrators for a local newspaper company, Disney and Iwerks ventured into animation together. Iwerks joined Disney as chief animator on the Laugh-O-Gram shorts series beginning in 1922, but a studio bankruptcy would cause Disney to relocate to Los Angeles in 1923. In the new studio, Iwerks continued to work with Disney on the Alice Comedies as well as the creation of the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit character. Following the first Oswald short, both Universal Pictures and the Winkler Pictures production company insisted that the Oswald character be redesigned. At the insistence of Disney, Iwerks designed a number of new characters for the studio, including designs that would be used for Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar.

One of Iwerks' most long-lasting contributions to animation was a refined version of a sketch drawn by Disney that would later go on to become Mickey Mouse. Iwerks went on to do much of the animation for the early Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies cartoons, including Steamboat Willie, The Skeleton Dance and The Haunted House, before a fallout with Disney led to Iwerks' resignation from the studio in January 1930. Iwerks' final Mickey Mouse cartoon would be 1930's The Cactus Kid. Following his separation with Disney, Iwerks, operating under Iwerks Studio, would go on to create the characters Flip the Frog and Willie Whopper along with the ComiColor Cartoons series as part of a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but the new studio failed to rival its competitors. Iwerks would go on to direct two Looney Tunes cartoon shorts for Leon Schlesinger Productions and several Color Rhapsody cartoons for Screen Gems before joining Disney again in 1940, after which he worked with special visual effects on productions such as 1946's Song of the South.

Did you know (auto-generated)

Selected quote

Why, oh why couldn't that woman have a fetish for rutabagas, or something?

More Did you know...

Did you know?
  • ...that the creator of Disney Series Doug and 101 Dalmatians, Jim Jinkins, has created an independent company, Cartoon Pizza.
  • ...that The Reedy Creek Improvement District in Florida is the immediate governing jurisdiction for the land on the Walt Disney World Resort.
  • ...that when Walt Disney was looking for a new character following Oswald, he rejected a female cow and male horse who later turn up as Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar?

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ArtsAmusement ParksAnimationEntertainmentFilmTelevisionVisual arts
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Disney
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DisneylandPixarWalt Disney World
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