Walt Disney Corporation
The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) was founded in 1923 by Walt Disney and is one of the largest entertainment corporations in the world.
TWDC had revenues of 22 billion USD in 2002.
Its movie studios include Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Buena Vista, Hollywood Pictures, Dimension Films, and Miramax. It owns the rights to animated and live action films and operates many theme parks including, Disneyland, Walt Disney World, and franchises Eurodisney, and Tokyo Disney.
The company operates the Disney Vacation Club resorts and ESPN Zone restaurants. It owns Hyperion Books, Disney Publishing Worldwide and the Walt Disney Cruise Line.
Disney's music division includes Walt Disney Records, Mammoth Records, Lyric Street Records, and Hollywood Records.
TWDC also owns the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) network and television and radio stations, Radio Disney, the Disney Channel and ESPN's family of cable television networks.
It is also part owner of E! Entertainment Television, Lifetime Television, A&E, and The History Channel.
The company also owns the Anaheim Mighty Ducks hockey team and owned the Anaheim Angels baseball team, which was later sold to businessman Arturo Moreno. It also handles licensing of Disney products and sales through the Disney Store, Disney Toys, Disney Publishing, and Disney Interactive.
Some librarians have objected to TWDC's lobbying of the world's major legislative bodies into passing repeated retroactive copyright term extensions, calling it "manipulative" and "absurd".
As well as the general limitation on the public domain that this implies, critics are quick to point out that Disney has made much of its fortune from stories that have passed out of copyright, such as Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty.
The company has an exclusive right to distribute motion pictures produced by Studio Ghibli led by Miyazaki Hayao.
Timeline
- 1923: Disney Bros. studio founded by Walt and his brother Roy Oliver Disney, produce the Alice in Cartoonland series
- 1927: End of the Alice series; Walt picks up the contract to do Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
- 1928: Walt's loss of the Oswald series; First Mickey Mouse cartoon: Steamboat Willie
- 1929: First Silly Symphony: The Skeleton Dance
- 1930: First appearance of Pluto
- 1932: First three-strip Technicolor short released: Flowers and Trees; First appearance of Goofy
- 1934: First appearance of Donald Duck
- 1937: Studio produces its first feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
- 1940: Studio moves to the Burbank, California buildings where it is located to this day
- 1941: As the USA enters World War II, the studio begins making morale-boosting *propaganda films for the government.
- 1944: Short on cash, a theatrical rerelease of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs generates much-needed revenue and begins a reissue pattern for the animated feature films.
- 1945: The studio hires its first ever live actor for a film, James Baskett, to star as Uncle Remus in Song of the South
- 1949: The studio begins production on its first all-live action feature, Treasure Island; The popular True-Life Adventures series begins
- 1954: The studio founds Buena Vista Distribution Company, Inc. to distribute its feature films; beginning of the Disneyland TV program.
- 1955: Opening of Disneyland in Anaheim, California
- 1965: The regular production of short subjects ceases, as theatres no longer have any demand for them.
- 1966: Walt Disney dies.
- 1971: Walt Disney World opens in Orlando, Florida; Roy O. Disney dies.
- 1977: Roy Edward Disney, son of Roy and nephew of Walt, resigns from the company citing a decline in product quality
- 1979: Don Bluth and a number of his allies stage an exit from the animation division; The studio releases its first PG-rated film, The Black Hole
- 1980: Tom Wilhite becomes head of the film division; Home video division is created
- 1981: Plans for a cable network are announced
- 1982: EPCOT Center opens at Walt Disney World.
- 1983: As the anthology series is canceled, The Disney Channel begins operation; Tom Wilhite resigns his post; Tokyo Disney opens in Japan.
- 1984: Touchstone Pictures is created; After the studio narrowly escapes a buyout attempt by Saul Steinberg, Roy Edward Disney and his business partner, Stanley Gold, remove the current board of directors, replacing them with Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Frank Wells.
- 1985: The studio begins making cartoons for television; The home video release of Pinocchio is a best-seller.
- 1986: The studio's first R-rated release comes, from Touchstone of course.
- 1989: Disney offers a deal to buy Jim Henson's Muppets and have the famed puppeteer work with Disney resources; the Disney-MGM Studios open at Walt Disney World
- 1990: Jim Henson's death sours the deal to buy his holdings.
- 1992: The controversial Eurodisney opens outside Paris, France.
- 1993: Disney acquires independent film distributor Miramax Films
- 1994: Frank Wells is killed in a plane crash; Jeffrey Katzenberg resigns to co-found his own studio.
- 1996: The company acquires the ABC television network
- 1998: Disney's Animal Kingdom opens at Walt Disney World.
- 2001: Disney's California Adventure opens to an unimpressed public.
- 2003: Once again, Roy Edward Disney resigns from the company, citing similar reasons to those that drove him off 26 years earlier. Stanley Gold joins him. SaveDisney.com is established.
- 2004: The studio breaks off renegotiation talks with Pixar; their current contract expired in 2006. Comcast makes a $66 billion unsolicited bid to buy The Walt Disney Company.
Notable feature films
Notable feature films produced by the studio over the years include:
1930s
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
See also
Referenced By
Anaheim Mighty Ducks | Anaheim Stadium | Angel Stadium | Brigitta McBridge | Buena Vista International | Dagobert Duck | Edison International Field | Jubal Pomp | Mighty Ducks of Anaheim | Scrooge McDuck
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