Portal:Disney

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Introduction

The Walt Disney Company 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 Cartoon 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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]} 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...)

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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: Bdesham

Epcot Center at night

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

Selected biography

Steve Jobs (b. 1955, d. 2011) was an American business magnate and inventor. He is co-founder, chairman, and former chief executive officer of Apple Inc. Jobs also previously served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, following the acquisition of Pixar by Disney. He was credited in the 1995 film Toy Story as an executive producer. In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula, and others, designed, developed, and marketed one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC's mouse-driven graphical user interface, which led to the creation of the Macintosh. After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher-education and business markets. Apple's subsequent 1996 buyout of NeXT brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he served as its CEO from 1997 until 2011. In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd which was spun off as Pixar Animation Studios. He remained CEO and majority shareholder at 50.1% until its acquisition by The Walt Disney company in 2006. In 2011, Apple announced that Steve Jobs had died at the age of 56.

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Did you know (auto-generated)

... 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 some TikTokers make videos about whether to smash or pass Disney characters?
... that the ferry General Joe Potter at Walt Disney World is named in honor of Major General William Everett Potter?
... that Scarlett Johansson filed a lawsuit against The Walt Disney Company alleging that the release strategy for Black Widow breached her contract?
... that before the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza Manhattan opened, its workers were sent to Walt Disney World for training?
... that, for the Space 220 Restaurant, Disney reached out to NASA engineers to understand what a space elevator might look like?

Selected quote

Now, while I'm in the Navy, boys, you mind your Uncle Scrooge.

— Donald Duck, "Treasure of the Golden Suns, Part I: Don't Give Up The Ship", DuckTales

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More Did you know...

...that producers hope to use Good Luck Charlie "to debunk the myth that Disney never has the mom in the picture"?

...that Michael Eisner credited research economist Harrison Price with being "as much responsible for the success of the Walt Disney Co. as anybody except Walt Disney himself"?

...that The Nightmare Before Christmas was originally released by Touchstone Pictures, a label owned by the Walt Disney Company, because it was considered inappropriate to use the Walt Disney Pictures banner due to the darker content displayed in this film.
...that the structure of the Epcot's Mexico pavilion was designed by architect and structural engineer Arturo Dulzaides in 1984.
... that in 1989, a black-and-white drawing from Walt Disney's "Orphan's Benefit" (USA 1934), depicting Donald Duck being punched by an orphan, raised $280,000 at Christie's London, England.

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