The complicated Walt Disney

Film Stuff podcast

Genius or jerk? In this episode we give a few anecdotes from the work and business practices of seminal Walt Disney that only begin to touch on this complicated question. There's a reason why Walt holds a record for the most Academy Awards, and why Mickey Mouse is one of the most globally recognized figures. We talk about Walt Disney the man's vision and insane attention to detail, and Walt Disney the company's theme parks and copyright practices. • It all started with Snow White, which was not only the first full-length cel animated feature film, it was also the first Disney animated feature film. So yeah, Soo Zee was right. Technically, it's the first of the 15 official "Walt Disney Classics" home videos. • Before Snow White, Lotte Reiniger had already made a full-length animated feature called The Adventures of Prince Achmed. Disney didn't just know about it, he studied it, and even adopted her pioneering multi-plane camera setup. He then of course patented it https://patents.google.com/patent/US2201689A/en Her work is incredible. Watch it if you have some time, and try to remember her first feature came out a full decade before Disney's first did. • Disney's pre-Mickey character's full name was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Universal snatched the rights for Oswald. Mickey Mouse was intended to be a replacement character for Disney. • An old behind-the-scenes look at the cel animation for Snow White https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OebUzEhSLBI • Leigh said Toy Story was the first 3D animation film. To be more specific, Toy Story was the first feature-length film to be entirely computer-animated. • Dustin Curtis originally broke down the amazing speaker work at Disney World in an article titled "How Mr. Q Manufactured Emotion," but the article has since been removed from his site. You can read a snippet here https://boingboing.net/2009/11/08/how-the-ambient-soun.html Ramit Sethi shares even more details from Disney World https://growthlab.com/behind-scenes-disney-world-w-ramit-sethi • Speaking of Disney World, Max Krieger has a great take on why the 1994 version of Tomorrowland is the greatest https://twitter.com/maxkriegervg/status/951497989381656576 • Here's a quick little primer on Disney's copyright law practices from Adam Ruins Everything https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiEXgpp37No • It's not just me that's not sure this is a great practice for cultural development! There are tons of angry people who are clearly rankled by Disney's copyright policies https://twitter.com/eevee/status/1064327801908555776?s=20 • The Lion King bears some unmistakable resemblances to Kimba the White Lion. Here's a side-by-side comparison of the two https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHps2iC8W3o • The copyright infringement case about murals in schools was actually for Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy and not Snow White. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/daycare-center-murals/ • In case you're curious, here's an article about Zara stealing indie pin designers' work https://jezebel.com/zara-appears-to-have-stolen-over-40-pin-and-patch-desig-1784271292