Disney Research

The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney is one of the world’s largest broadcasting and cable companies. Disney was founded on the 16^th October 1923, by Walt Disney and his brother Roy O. Disney, at the time is was founded as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio and it established itself as a leader in the American animation industry however later diversified into live-action film production, television, and theme parks. The company operated under many names beginning as The Walt Disney Studio and then Walt Disney Productions. The company is best known for the products of its film studio, the Walt Disney Studios, which today is one of the largest and best-known studios in American cinema. The headquarters for the company is located in Burbank, California.

The company was founded in 1923 when animator Walt Disney created a short film which he named Alice’s Wonderland, which showed a young girl interacting with animated characters. Soon after this Margarat J. Winkler of M.J.Winkler Productions contacted Disney with plans to distribute a whole series of Alice Comedies using Disney as a production partner. Walt and Roy Disney formed Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio that same year. After these Disney continued to make more animated films and in 1928 Disney came up with the idea of a mouse character named Mortimer however they later changed the name to Mickey Mouse due to Disney’s wide disliking the sound of Mortimer Mouse.

Mickey Mouse then went on to be a very major symbol for the Disney Company as a whole with the outline of his head being the kids Disney channel logo. Disney then produced their first sound film Steamboat Willie, a cartoon starring Mickey Mouse, the film was an immediate hit the success was said to be due to both Mickeys appeal as a character and also the fact that this was the first cartoon to feature synchronised sound.

On December 16^th, the Walt Disney Studios partnership was reorganised as a corporation with the name of Walt Disney Productions, Limited with a merchandising division, Walt Disney Enterprises, and two subsidiaries, Disney Film Recording Company, Limited and Liled Reality and Investment Company for real estate holdings. On December 30^th, King features signed its first newspaper, New York Mirror, to publish the Mickey Mouse comic strip. In December 1950, Walt Disney Productions and the Coca-Cola Company teamed up for Disney’s first venture into television, and in October 1954, the ABC network launched Disney’s first regular television series, Disneyland, which would go on to become one of the longest-running primetime series in history.

In 1954, Walt Disney used his Disneyland series to unveil what would later become Disneyland, the idea was based on a desire to create a place where children and adults could both have fun together. The park opened to the general public on July 18^th 1955. The park gradually grew in popularity and in 1959 they added Americas first monorail system. Eventually in November 1965 Disney world was announced, with plans for theme parks, hotels and even model cities.

Disney then continued to make a wide range of films such as The Little Mermaid, Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Alladin and many more, the company became very popular and to this day is still making films and is one of the largest companies in the world with stores selling merchandise such as toys any clothing, film releases, several theme parks and resorts, media networks and Disney interactive which includes social media, virtual worlds and even computer games operations.

One example of a recent Disney film could be Monsters University, although some would say this is a Pixar film, Disney have previously brought Pixar meaning that all films from this franchise are also part of Disney. Monsters University was a film released in 2013.