Walt+Disney

__ media type="youtube" key="BdOzNao7H18" height="344" width="425" Walt Disney __ By Dylan Walt Disney was a great influence on America. He showed the world life in cartooning. He brought real life into cartoons and brought sound into cartooning. He also created some of our favorite cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Walt wanted to be an artist ever since he was a child. His father wanted him to work in a jelly factory but Walt had other plans. He decided to move back to Kansas to become an artist. There he met a man named Ub Irkwins and together they opened up a cartooning studio. His first cartoon was a cartoon a short cartoon that described the poor condition of Kansas’s streets. Another of his early cartoons was Alice’s Wonderland. In this cartoon a real live girl enters an animated world. But his best cartoon before Mickey Mouse was called Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. In this cartoon a rabbit did many crazy things. Walt also made a short live action show called laugh-o-grama. Walt did not have a mentor. Walt just thought of ideas by himself. Some times the ideas just came out of his head.

Walt got his ideas from nature, wildlife, family, and his community. He also got some of his ideas from 1 minute commercials. But there was no particular idea for his greatest creation. Mickey Mouse jumped out of his mind on a train ride after Oswald the Lucky Rabbit franchise crashed. That night he saw a mouse and named it Mortimer. This was also Mickey’s first name. Sound had been added to live action movies but not to cartoons. Walt decided to make a cartoon and have the sound match what the characters where doing. Walt was also the voice of Mickey Mouse. Donald Duck’s first appearance was in 1934 in a Silly Symphony called The Wise Little Hen. When Walt’s studio was taken over by the army, the army needed training movies. This was Donald’s time to shine. Donald’s first full length movie was called The Three Caballeros 1941. It was a combination of real life and cartoons. Walt knew that his fans would watch Mickey Mouse cartoons for hours, so in 1933 he started to work on a full length animated movie. In 1937 his work paid off. Snow White was a great hit. Then in 1940 Pinocchio and Fantasia came out. But nether of them measured up to Snow White.

Walt had a dream. He dreamed of a clean, organized amusement park were the grown-ups and the kids could have fun together. His dream finally came true in 1955. The Magic Kingdom cost 17 million dollars but the money paid of quickly. After its’ second quarter the Magic Kingdom had entertained 200 million people. Some of these people were presidents and royalty. Walt loved Disney Land but he wanted it to have more. He bought land in Florida for EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow). Walt did not get to see the opening of EPCOT. On the day before he died he planed out everything for the layout of EPCOT on the ceiling of the hospital by pointing out where each attraction would be placed. EPCOT opened in 1982. Other Disney World Parks also opened in Japan and France.

Walt Disney was a great influence on America. We really wish he was still here today.

Works Cited Fanning, Jim. __Walt Disney__. New York: Chelsea House, 1994. Stewart, Whitney. __Who Was Walt Disney__. Penguin Group, 2009. "Walt Disney: Long Biography." __Walt Disney - Just Disney.com - Your Source For Disney__. 20 May 2009 .