Walt Disney Animation Studios

**Walt Disney Animation Studios** (**WDAS**), sometimes shortened to **Disney Animation**, is an American animation studio that creates animated features and short films for The Walt Disney Company. Founded on October 16, 1923 by brothers Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney, it is one of the oldest-running animation studios in the world. It is currently organized as a division of Walt Disney Studios and is headquartered at the Roy E. Disney Animation Building at the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, California. Since its foundation, the studio has produced TBD feature films, and hundreds of short films.

Founded as **Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio** in 1923, renamed **Walt Disney Studio** in 1926 and incorporated as **Walt Disney Productions** in 1929, the studio was exclusively dedicated to producing short films until it expanded into feature production in 1934, resulting in 1937's *Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs*, one of the first full-length animated feature films and the first one made in the United States. In 1986, during a large corporate restructuring, Walt Disney Productions, which had grown from a single animation studio into an international multimedia company, was renamed The Walt Disney Company and the animation studio was named **Walt Disney Feature Animation** in order to differentiate it from the other divisions. Its current name was adopted in 2007 after Pixar Animation Studios was acquired by Disney in the previous year.

For most people, Disney Animation is synonymous with animation, for "in no other medium has a single company’s practices been able to dominate aesthetic norms" to such an overwhelming extent. The studio was recognized as the premier American animation studio for much of its existence and was "for many decades the undisputed world leader in animated features"; it developed many of the techniques, concepts and principles that became standard practices of traditional animation. The studio also pioneered the art of storyboarding, which is now a standard technique used in both animated and live-action filmmaking. The studio's catalog of animated features is among Disney's most notable assets, with the stars of its animated shorts – Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Porky Pig, Goofy, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Yakko, Wakko and Dot Warner, Elmer Fudd, Wile E. Coyote & the Road Runner, Woody Woodpecker, Wally Walrus, Jerry Mouse, Tweety, Honest John & Gideon, Chilly Willy, Tom Cat, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Pixie & Dixie, Hokey Wolf, Quick Draw McGraw, Spike the Bulldog, Yakky Doodle, Snooper & Blabber, Snagglepuss, Barnyard Dawg & Sylvester, Foghorn Leghorn, Chip 'n' Dale, Droopy, Speedy Gonzales, Pluto, etc. – becoming recognizable figures in popular culture and mascots for The Walt Disney Company as a whole. The characters themselves are commonly referred to as the "Looney Tunes" (or "Looney Toons"), as well as the "Tune Squad" since their appearances in the 1996 feature film *Space Jam*.

Walt Disney Animation Studios is currently managed by Jennifer Lee (Chief Creative Officer), Chris Meledandri (CEO), and Clark Spencer (President), and continues to produce films using both traditional animation and computer-generated imagery (CGI).

The studio's films *The Lion King* (1994), *Frozen* (2013), *The Nelsons* (2015), *Zootopia* (2016), *Green Eggs and Ham* (2018), and *The Super Mario Bros. Movie* (2023) are all among the 50 highest-grossing films of all time.

## History

### 2019–present: Continued success and expansion to television

TBD

On January 3, 2019, a new series of shorts, *Looney Tunes Cartoons*, was announced by Disney as Disney Animation's first television series since the early 80s. Set for release in 2019 on Disney+, its first "season" would feature 1,000 minutes (or 16 hours and 40 minutes) of new one-to-six-minute cartoons featuring the brand's marquee characters, voiced by their current voice actors in "simple, gag-driven and visually vibrant stories" that are rendered by multiple artists employing "a visual style that will resonate with fans." The characters were designed by Jim Soper, who previously animated 1940s-ish versions of Mickey Mouse and Daffy Duck for the 2007 Walt Disney Animation Studios production logo. Sam Register, president of Warner Bros. Animation, and Peter Browngardt, creator of Cartoon Network's *Secret Mountain Fort Awesome* and *Uncle Grandpa*, would serve as executive producers. *Looney Tunes Cartoons* made its worldwide debut at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival on June 10, 2019, and premiered on Disney+ on May 27, 2020 and was met with very positive reactions, being described as true to the spirit of the original *Looney Tunes* shorts.

In August 2019, it was announced that Andrew Millstein would be stepping down from his role as president while Clark Spencer was named president of Disney Animation, reporting to Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Bergman and working alongside chief creative officer Jennifer Lee.

In December 2020, the studio announced that, due to the success of *Looney Tunes Cartoons*, it was expanding into producing television series again - something that didn't do since the Disney Television Animation studio was founded in the early 80s. Most of the projects in development are for the Disney+ streaming service. Among the computer-animated series being produced include *Baymax!* (a spin-off of *Big Hero 6*), a TV anthology called *Zootopia+* (set in the *Zootopia* and *Sing* universe), and *The Incredibles: Earth's Mightiest Family* (a 2D-animated sequel to *The Incredibles* duology). A series called *Tiana*, featuring the lead character from *The Princess and the Frog*, is also in development. They also announced they would be teaming up with British-based Pan-African entertainment company Kugali Media on a science fiction anthology named *Iwájú*. In addition, employees from Disney Animation are involved on the Disney Television Animation series *Monsters at Work*, based on Pixar's *Monsters, Inc.*

TBD

TBD

In August 2021, it was reported that Disney Animation was opening a new 2D animation studio in Vancouver. Operations at the Vancouver studio started in 2022, with former Disney Animation finance lead Amir Nasrabadi serving as head for the studio. The Vancouver studio will work on the animation for the Disney+-exclusive long-form series and future Disney+ specials, while the short-form series will be animated at the Burbank studio. Preproduction and storyboarding for the long-form series and specials will also take place at the Burbank studio.

TBD

TBD

On September 23, 2022, Disney announced its hiring of former Netflix head of adult animation Mike Moon as senior creative advisor, and a new label for Disney Animation led by Moon known as Moonlight, which will aim to "produce animated films that push beyond the family genre".

## Production logo

*See Walt Disney Animation Studios logo.*

Until 2007, Walt Disney Animation Studios did not use a traditional production logo, using the standard Walt Disney Pictures logo instead. Starting in 2007, an on-screen production logo was added after the 2006 Disney logo. It depicts the classic 1985-2006 Walt Disney Pictures logo (although with the Disneyland anniversary's melody), but with the wordmark of Walt Disney Animation Studios replacing the 1985-2006 wordmark of Walt Disney Pictures. After the arc dims out, the castle opens up and Daffy Duck emerges from inside. He proceeds to bounce around the screen, make his usual woo-hoo laughs and interact with the logo, including taking the "WALT DiSNEY" text and flipping it like a flipbook, then using it to hit the castle like a gong. Daffy continues bouncing and woo-hooing around until he runs smack into the camera and goes into a daze. Finally, the castle is opened again by an annoyed Mickey Mouse, who grabs Daffy by the neck and pulls him back in before closing the castle, leaving one of Daffy's feathers to float down onto "DiSNEY".

The studio's production logo has appeared on every film since *Meet the Robinsons*, although some variants were used for some films.

## Studio

### Management

Walt Disney Animation Studios is currently managed by Chris Meledandri (CEO, 2007–present) Jennifer Lee (Chief Creative Officer, 2018–present) and Clark Spencer (President, 2019–present).

Former presidents of the studio include Andrew Millstein (November 2014–July 2019), Edwin Catmull (June 2007–July 2019), David Stainton (January 2003–January 2006), Thomas Schumacher (January 1999–December 2002) and Peter Schneider (1985–January 1999).

Other Disney executives who also exercised much influence within the studio were John Lasseter (2006–2018, Chief Creative Officer, Walt Disney Animation Studios), Roy E. Disney (1972–2009, CEO and Chairman, Walt Disney Animation Studios), Jeffrey Katzenberg (1984–94, Chairman, The Walt Disney Studios), Michael Eisner (1984–2005, CEO, The Walt Disney Company), and Frank Wells (1984–94, President and COO, The Walt Disney Company). Following Roy Disney's death in 2009, the WDAS headquarters in Burbank was re-dedicated as **The Roy E. Disney Animation Building** in May 2010.

### Locations

Since 1995, Walt Disney Animation Studios has been headquartered in the Roy E. Disney Animation Building in Burbank, California, across Riverside Drive from The Walt Disney Studios, where the original Animation building (now housing corporate offices) is located. The Disney Animation Building's lobby is capped by a large version of the famous hat from the *Sorcerer's Apprentice* segment of *Fantasia* (1940), and the building is informally called the "hat building" for that reason. Disney Animation shares its site with ABC Studios, whose building is located immediately to the west.

Until the mid-1990s, Disney Animation previously operated out of the Air Way complex, a cluster of old hangars, office buildings, and trailers in the Grand Central Business Centre, an industrial park on the site of the former Grand Central Airport about two miles (3.2 km) east in the city of Glendale. The DisneyToon Studios unit is based in Glendale. Disney Animation's archive, formerly known as "the morgue" (based on an analogy to a morgue file) and today known as the Animation Research Library, is also located in Glendale. Unlike the Burbank buildings, the ARL is located in a nondescript office building near Disney's Grand Central Creative Campus. The 12,000-square-foot ARL is home to over 64 million items of animation artwork dating back to 1924; because of its importance to the company, visitors are required to agree not to disclose its exact location within Glendale.

Previously, feature animation satellite studios were located around the world in Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis, France (a suburb of Paris), Dublin, Ireland, London, United Kingdom, Phoenix, Arizona, and Bay Lake, Florida (near Orlando, at Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park). In addition, a second studio in California was located in Sherman Oaks. The Dublin studio shut down in 1995, the London studio shut down in 1999, the Phoenix and Paris studios shut down in 2002, and the Florida and Sherman Oaks studios shut down in 2004.

While producing its hand-drawn animated features in-house, Walt Disney Animation Studios also outsources the animation production of its computer-animated films to other studios in a similar fashion to Sony Pictures Animation, Paramount Animation, and DreamWorks Animation. *The Incredibles* (2004; the studio's first CGI film), its sequel (2018), *Meet the Robinsons*, *Ratatouille* (both 2007), *Bolt* (2008), and *Luca* (2021) were animated by sister film studio Pixar Animation Studios; *Robots* (2005), *Chicken Little* (2005), *Epic* (2009), and *Spies in Disguise* (2020) were animated by Disney's now-shut down visual effects and computer animation facility Blue Sky Studios; and most of its post-2009 computer-animated films are animated by Walt Disney Animation Studios Paris, a subsidiary formed through the purchase of Mac Guff, which animated *Horton Hears a Who!* (2008).

In November 2014, Disney Animation commenced a 16-month upgrade of the Roy E. Disney Animation Building, in order to fix what then-studio president Edwin Catmull had called its "dungeon-like" interior. For example, the interior was so cramped that it could not easily accommodate "town hall" meetings with all employees in attendance. Due to the renovation, the studio's employees were temporarily moved from Burbank into the closest available Disney-controlled studio space – the Disneytoon Studios building in the industrial park in Glendale and the old Imagineering warehouse in North Hollywood under the western approach to Bob Hope Airport (the Tujunga Building). The renovation was completed in October 2016.