The Walt Disney Company

The Walt Disney Company, commonly nicknamed Disney, is one of the largest entertainment and media companies in the world. Disney is known for Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Mary Poppins, Frozen, Aladdin, Lilo and Stitch, Toy Story and Cars. The studio is famous for cartoons, movies, television programs and shorts. It was started in 1923 by Walt Disney and his brother, Roy Oliver Disney, as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio. It had the name of Laugh-O-Gram Studio from 1921 to 1923, Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio from 1923 to 1926, Walt Disney Studio from 1926 to 1929, and Walt Disney Productions from 1929 to 1985.
Some of Disney best-known franchises include Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Aladdin, Mary Poppins, Frozen, Lilo and Stitch, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi, Pirates of the Caribbean, Toy Story, Cars and other Disney and Pixar characters.
Mickey Mouse has been the mascot of Disney since 1928.
The current chairman and CEO is Bob Iger since 2022.
Divisions
The company's main units are Studio Entertainment, Parks and Resorts, Media Networks and Consumer Products.
Studio Entertainment
This unit, also called the Walt Disney Studios, is headed by Chairman Dick Cook. It consists of:
The Walt Disney Studios - movie studios Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios, and Hollywood Pictures.
The Disney Music Group - Walt Disney Records, Mammoth Records, Lyric Street Records and Hollywood Records.
Distribution companies: Buena Vista International and Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment.
One of the Studios' largest assets lies in Walt Disney Animation Studios, which has made a successful string of animated movies for almost seven decades. Because of failures with most of their recent additions, it has changed its focus from traditional hand-drawn to CGI movies. Pixar, also owned by Disney, is one of the first studios to create CGI movies. Since 2009, Disney has bought three movie studios: Marvel Comics, Lucasfilm and 20th Century Studios.
On March 20, 2019, The Walt Disney Company bought 21st Century Fox for $52.4 billion USD.
Parks and Resorts
Worldwide, Disney has eleven theme parks (as of ):
Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California
Disneyland Park in California
Disney's California Adventure in California
Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida
Magic Kingdom in Florida
Epcot in Florida
Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida
Disney's Animal Kingdom in Florida
Disneyland Paris in France
Walt Disney Studios in France
Tokyo Disneyland in Japan
Tokyo DisneySea in Japan
Hong Kong Disneyland Resort
Shanghai Disneyland Park in China
Disney once owned the sports teams, the Angels (baseball) and the Mighty Ducks (ice hockey), both based in Anaheim, California. These teams were later sold to other people.
Disney Enterprises Inc.
Disney Enterprises Inc. is a subsidiary of the company; the name is found in many of its franchises.
Media Networks
The ABC television network, which Disney bought in 1995, serves as the centre of this unit. Cable television channels within it include Disney Channel, Disney XD, Freeform, ESPN and SOAPnet.It also partly owns Lifetime, A&E and E!.
Buena Vista Television, responsible for the syndication of many Disney series, produces some of its own as well: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Live with Regis and Kelly, and Ebert & Roeper.
Consumer Products
Merchandising and licensing within the company are overseen in this division. Disney Publishing Worldwide, part of this unit, has Disney Press, Disney Editions and Hyperion Books as its brands.
It once owned the Disney Store shopping chain until 2004, when it sold all the stores to The Children's Place.
History
1923: The Disney Company is founded
1925: First appearance of Pegleg Pete cartoons, Alice Solves the Puzzle
1928: First Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy
1928: First appearance of Minnie Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy
1928: First official Mickey Mouse episode, Steamboat Willie
1929: Start of the Silly Symphonies: The Skeleton Dance
1929: First Silly Symphony episode, The Skeleton Dance
1930: First appearance of Pluto cartoon, The Chain Gang
1932: First appearance of Goofy cartoon, Mickey's Revue (Columbia Pictures Studios)
1932: First full-colour cartoon, Flowers and Trees
1933: First appearance of Fifi the Peke cartoons, Puppy Love
1933: First Donald Duck Theme Music #1, The Steeplechase
1933: First Pluto's Devil cartoons, Mickey's Pal Pluto
1933: First Pluto's Angel cartoons, Mickey's Pal Pluto
1934: First Walt Disney segment, The Hot Choco-Late Soldiers
1934: First Donald Duck cartoon, The Wise Little Hen
1937: First Daisy Duck cartoons, Don Donald
1937: First Donald Duck episode, Don Donald
1937: First Pluto, Jr. cartoons. Pluto's Quin-Puplets
1937: First full-length animated movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
1938: First Huey, Dewey and Louie cartoons, Donald's Nephews
1939: First Goofy episode, Goofy and Wilbur
1939: First Mickey Mouse Theme #1, The Standard Parade
1940: First Disney movie failed at the box office, Pinocchio
1940: First Pluto episode, Bone Trouble
1940: First Donald Duck Theme #2, Window Cleaners
1940: First Goofy Theme #1, Goofy's Glider
1940: First Pluto #1, Private Parate
1940: Studio moves to Burbank, California
1940: Fantasia's debut
1941: Dumbo's debut
1942: Bambi's debut
1942: First P.J. cartoons, Bellboy Donald
1943: First Scrooge McDuck cartoons, The Spirit of '43
1943: First Chip 'n' Dale cartoons, Private Pluto
1944: First Pluto Theme #2, Springtime for Pluto
1945: First Dutch cartoons, Canine Casanova
1946: Song of the Souths debut
1947: First Pluto Theme #3, Pluto's Housewarming
1947: First Donald Duck Theme #3, Donald's Dilemma
1947: First Mickey Mouse #2, Mickey's Delayed Date
1950: Cinderella's debut
1950: First Goofy Theme #2, Motor Mania
1954: Walt Disney anthology series starts
1955: Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California
1955: First widescreen cartoon, Lady and the Tramp
1964: Mary Poppins becomes the first Disney movie to be nominated for Best Picture
1966: Walt Disney dies; his brother Roy takes over the studio
1967: Last animated movie from producer Walt Disney, The Jungle Book
1971: Walt Disney World opens in Orlando, Florida
1979: Don Bluth and friends leave the studio
1979: The Black Hole, Disney's first PG movie, is a failure with critics.
1981: Disney's last movie that has any of the Nine Old Men as the animators: The Fox and the Hound
1983: Disney Channel is launched
1984: Touchstone Pictures starts with Splash
1984: Michael Eisner became the CEO of Disney
1985: Disney's first animated movie that was rated PG: The Black Cauldron
1987: Disney animated television series DuckTales
1988: Who framed Roger Rabbit's debut
1988: DisneyToons Studios opens
1989: The Little Mermaid brings new life in the animation division as well as the genre; studio gets its first Oscar in eighteen years for this movie
1990: Hollywood Pictures starts with Arachnophobia
1991: Beauty and the Beast becomes the first animated movie to be nominated for Best Picture
1992: Disney releases Aladdin
1993: The Nightmare Before Christmas's debut
1993: Disney buys the Miramax movie studio.
1994: Studio president Frank Wells was killed in a helicopter crash
1994: The Lion King is released. It becomes the highest grossing hand drawn animated movie of all time.
1994: Jeffrey Katzenberg resigns from Disney.
1995: Disney acquires American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and ESPN
1995: First Pixar movie, Toy Story
2001: Disney Channel television series Lizzie McGuire
2001: First Pixar movie that was nominated for Best Animated Feature, Monsters Inc.
2003: First Pixar movie that won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature, Finding Nemo
2003: Pirates of the Caribbean becomes studio's first family movie with a rating of PG-13
2004: Home on the Range is Disney's last traditionally animated movie to use CAPS
2004: First Pixar movie that is rated PG, The Incredibles
2005: Disneyland celebrates fiftieth birthday
2005: Michael Eisner resigns from Disney. He was replaced by Bob Iger.
2005:The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe's debut
2005: First self-made CGI movie, Chicken Little
2009: Up becomes the first Pixar animated feature to be nominated for Best Picture
2009: Disney buys comic book publisher Marvel Comics for 4 billion US dollars - including Hulk, Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four and the Avengers.
2010: Disney sells one of its movie studios, Miramax Films, to Filmyard Holdings.
2012: Disney buys movie studio Lucasfilm for 4 billion US dollars - including Star Wars and Indiana Jones - the removed ending of Lucasfilm at the studios from 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures.
2013: Disney releases Frozen, which becomes the studio's first non-Pixar movie to win an Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
2017: Disney agrees to buy most of Fox's assets for 52 billion US dollars.
2018: DisneyToon Studios was closed down
2018: John Lasseter left Disney
2018: Touchstone Pictures was closed down
2019: Disney completes its purchase of 21st Century Fox and its assets.
2019: Ed Catmull retires
2019: Disney creates their own streaming service, Disney+ (including Pixar, Marvel Comics and Star Wars) in November 2019.
2020: Disney renames 20th Century Fox to "20th Century Studios", to avoid confusion with Fox Corporation.
2020: Bob Iger resigns as the CEO of Disney. He was replaced by Bob Chapek as CEO.
2021: Disney closes its radio station, Radio Disney.
2021: Disney+ creates the Star hub outside of the US, which has movies and television programs for adults.
2021: The Walt Disney Company Latin America rebrands all the channels with the Fox name in Latin America, to Star.
2022: The Walt Disney Company Latin America closes Star Premium in January 31st, 2022.
2022: Bob Chapek got fired, and Bob Iger returned as a CEO of Disney.
Disney+
On November 12, 2019, Disney launched their own streaming service, Disney+. The platform features almost all of their cartoons, short movies, movies and TV shows along with those made by properties bought by Disney, such as Disney, The Muppets, Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Marvel. It also features original content, such as several Marvel and Star Wars programs. R rated movies and shows appear on Hulu and the international Star hub, and movies, cartoons, and TV shows that feature smoking, swear words, violence, and stereotypical depictions of African Americans, Native Americans, Asians, and other minorities come with a warning.
Related pages
Walt Disney Pictures
List of Disney animated movies
List of Disney characters
References
Other websites
The Official Site
Corporate Site
Companies based in Los Angeles