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Introduction

The Walt Disney Company is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate that is headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt Disney and Roy Disney as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio; it also operated under the names Walt Disney Studio and Walt Disney Productions before changing its name to the Walt Disney Company in 1986. In 1928, Disney established itself as a leader in the animation industry with the short film Steamboat Willie. The film used synchronized sound to become the first post-produced sound cartoon, and popularized Mickey Mouse, who became Disney's mascot and corporate icon.

After becoming a major success by the early 1940s, Disney diversified into live-action films, television, and theme parks in the 1950s. However, following Walt Disney's death in 1966, the company's profits, especially in the animation division, began to decline. In 1984, Disney's shareholders voted Michael Eisner as CEO, who led a reversal of the company's decline through a combination of international theme park expansion and the highly successful Disney Renaissance period of animation in the 1990s. In 2005, under new CEO Bob Iger, the company continued to expand into a major entertainment conglomerate with the acquisitions of Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, and 20th Century Studios. In 2020, Bob Chapek became the head of Disney after Iger's retirement. However, Chapek was ousted in 2022 and Iger was reinstated as CEO.

The company is known for its film studio division Walt Disney Studios, which includes Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios, 20th Century Animation, and Searchlight Pictures. Disney's other main business units include divisions in television, broadcasting, streaming media, theme park resorts, consumer products, publishing, and international operations. Through these divisions, Disney owns and operates the ABC television network; cable television networks such as Disney Channel, ESPN, Freeform, FX, and National Geographic; publishing, merchandising, music, and theater divisions; direct-to-consumer streaming services such as Disney+, Star+, ESPN+, Hulu, and Hotstar; and Disney Experiences, which includes several theme parks, resort hotels, and cruise lines around the world. (Full article...)

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Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald's most famous personality trait is his easily provoked and explosive temper. Along with his friend Mickey Mouse, Donald is one of the most popular Disney characters and was included in TV Guide's list of the 50 greatest cartoon characters of all time in 2002. Donald rose to fame with his comedic roles in animated cartoons. He first appeared in The Wise Little Hen (1934), but it was his second appearance in Orphan's Benefit which characterized him as a temperamental comic foil to Mickey Mouse. Throughout the 1930s, '40s and '50s he appeared in over 100 theatrical films, several of which were recognized at the Academy Awards. Donald was first a supporting character alongside Mickey, Goofy and Pluto, but was given his own series of films in 1937, starting with Don Donald. These films introduced Donald's girlfriend Daisy Duck and sometimes featured his three nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie as recurring characters. After the 1956 film Chips Ahoy Donald appeared primarily in educational films before eventually returning to theatrical animation in 1983 with Mickey's Christmas Carol. His most recent theatrical appearance was in 1999's Fantasia 2000. Donald has also appeared in direct-to-video features such as Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas (1999) and The Three Musketeers (2004) as well as television programs such as DuckTales (1987–1990), Quack Pack (1998–2004) and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (2006–present).

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Credit: AmericaSings

Sleeping Beauty Castle as decorated for Disneyland's fiftieth birthday.

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These are images of Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, The Walt Disney Company, and Walt Disney in their respective articles.

Image 1A portrait of Disney with cartoon representations of different nationalities on a 6-cent U.S. postage stamp, 1968 (from Walt Disney)
Image 2Disney bought The Muppets from the Jim Henson Company in 2004. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 3The Walt Disney World Monorail System provides free transport across the resort
Image 4Disneyland fireworks from Sleeping Beauty Castle (from Disneyland)
Image 5The "Happiest Homecoming on Earth" celebrated the 50th anniversary of the theme park. Sleeping Beauty Castle was altered for the occasion. (from Disneyland)
Image 6The original logo of Walt Disney World from 1971 to the mid-1990s (from Walt Disney World)
Image 7New Orleans Square
(the Haunted Mansion in the background and Fantasmic! viewing area in the foreground in 2010) (from Disneyland)
Image 8View of Disney Springs (from Walt Disney World)
Image 9Monorail Red travels over the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage in Tomorrowland in 2008. (from Disneyland)
Image 10Mickey's Toontown
(pictured in 2010) (from Disneyland)
Image 11One of Disney's first animated characters Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, which Disney lost the rights to until 2006. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 12Disney drawing Goofy for a group of girls in Argentina, 1941 (from Walt Disney)
Image 13Bob Iger became CEO of Disney in 2005, expanding the company's properties (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 14Frontierland
(Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in 2008) (from Disneyland)
Image 15Disney's video streaming subscription service Disney+ was launched in 2019, which has a total of over 135 million subscriptions as of June 2022. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 16Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge
(Star Wars: Millennium Falcon – Smugglers Run in 2019) (from Disneyland)
Image 17The 2018 version of The Walt Disney World logo (from Walt Disney World)
Image 18A Disney Cruise Line bus which takes guest to and from Terminal 8 from Orlando International Airport; as well as around Walt Disney World. (from Disney Cruise Line)
Image 19Disney's childhood home (from Walt Disney)
Image 20Walt Disney's business envelope featured a self-portrait, c. 1921 (from Walt Disney)
Image 21Disney family at Schiphol Airport (1951) (from Walt Disney)
Image 22Excerpt of Steamboat Willie (1928), the first Mickey Mouse sound cartoon. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 23Walt, Florida Governor W. Haydon Burns, and Roy announcing the plans for Disney World in November 1965 (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 24Walt (right) dressed as a gaucho next to Donald Duck in Argentina while on the company's South American goodwill trip in 1941. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 25Disneyland Railroad Engine 2 at the New Orleans Square station. (from Disneyland)
Image 26Critter Country
(Splash Mountain; 1989–2023) (from Disneyland)
Image 27Disneyland aerial view, 1963, which includes the new Melody Land Theater at the top of the photo (from Disneyland)
Image 28Walt Disney introduces each of the seven dwarfs in a scene from the original 1937 Snow White theatrical trailer (from Walt Disney)
Image 29Disney security vehicle, picture taken July 2, 2009 in front of Epcot (from Walt Disney World)
Image 30The 1996 version of The Walt Disney World logo (from Walt Disney World)
Image 31Michael Eisner replaced Ron Miller as CEO. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 32An aerial shot of Walt Disney World in 1982 (from Walt Disney World)
Image 33Wedding Pavilion at the Seven Seas Lagoon (from Walt Disney World)
Image 34The original animation building at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California, which they fully moved into in 1940 (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 35One of four arches welcoming guests to the resort (from Walt Disney World)
Image 36Hollywood Studios' park icon, the Chinese Theatre (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 37Disney shows the plans of Disneyland to officials from Orange County in December 1954 (from Walt Disney)
Image 38Main Street at Disneyland, as seen from a horseless carriage (from Disneyland)
Image 39Disney in 1954 (from Walt Disney)
Image 40Main Street, U.S.A.
(2010) (from Disneyland)
Image 41Alice and characters from her movie host "Disneyland Musical Chairs" at Coca-Cola Refreshment Corner, accompanied by a ragtime pianist in 2005. (from Disneyland)
Image 42Disney Magic at Port of Venice (from Disney Cruise Line)
Image 43Grave of Walt Disney at Forest Lawn, Glendale (from Walt Disney)
Image 44Walt Disney (left) with his brother Roy O. Disney (right) and then Governor of Florida W. Haydon Burns (center) on November 15, 1965, publicly announcing the creation of Disney World (from Walt Disney World)
Image 45Fantasmic! finale on July 4, 2010 (from Disneyland)
Image 46Adventureland entrance
(2006) (from Disneyland)
Image 47Fantasyland
(Peter Pan's Flight in the foreground and the Matterhorn Bobsleds in the background) (from Disneyland)
Image 48Overlay of Walt Disney's original 1966 plans for Disney World and the proposed EPCOT city (orange) and contemporary situation (blue) (from Walt Disney World)
Image 49Roy O. Disney inspecting design plans on-site in Florida (from Walt Disney World)
Image 50Disney's promotional logo for its centennial. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 51Map of the resort as of May 2015 (from Walt Disney World)
Image 52Roy E. Disney, Roy O. Disney's son, was head of the animation department until 2003. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 53Team Disney – The Michael D. Eisner Building, the main building at the Walt Disney Studios, which houses the offices of Disney's CEO and several other senior corporate officials. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 54Walt Disney (center) showing Orange County officials plans for Disneyland's layout, December 1954 (from Disneyland)
Image 55The Sherman Brothers in 2002. They composed many Disney songs in the 1960s. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 56Jeffrey Katzenberg was chairman of Walt Disney Studios from 1984 to 1995. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 57Walt (center) showing the plans of Disneyland to officials from Orange County in December 1954 (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 58Tomorrowland
(Space Mountain in 2010) (from Disneyland)
Image 59An aerial view of Disneyland in 2004 (from Disneyland)

Selected biography

Steve Jobs (b. 1955, d. 2011) was an American business magnate and inventor. He is co-founder, chairman, and former chief executive officer of Apple Inc. Jobs also previously served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, following the acquisition of Pixar by Disney. He was credited in the 1995 film Toy Story as an executive producer. In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula, and others, designed, developed, and marketed one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC's mouse-driven graphical user interface, which led to the creation of the Macintosh. After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher-education and business markets. Apple's subsequent 1996 buyout of NeXT brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he served as its CEO from 1997 until 2011. In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd which was spun off as Pixar Animation Studios. He remained CEO and majority shareholder at 50.1% until its acquisition by The Walt Disney company in 2006. In 2011, Apple announced that Steve Jobs had died at the age of 56.

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Did you know (auto-generated)

... that Scarlett Johansson filed a lawsuit against The Walt Disney Company alleging that the release strategy for Black Widow breached her contract?
... that Encanto's Mirabel is the first Disney heroine to wear glasses?
... that Disney once created a political advertisement for Dwight D. Eisenhower (featured)?
... that John Oliver dared Disney to sue him over his version of Mickey Mouse?
... that in response to Disney's stance on Florida's House Bill 1557, also known as the "Don't Say Gay" bill, Pixar employees stated that Disney removes LGBT references from the studio's films?
... that a revival of the comedy series Lizzie McGuire was ordered in 2019, but canceled mid-production after Disney deemed it not family-friendly enough?

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Come on, Pidge. the place is ours.

— Tramp, Lady and the Tramp

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... that Huey, Dewey, and Louie were originally named after two political figures and an animator of the time. Huey was named after Huey Long (1893–1935) of Louisiana. Dewey was named after Admiral George Dewey (1837–1917) of the Spanish–American War. Louie was named after animator Louie Schmitt (1908–1993).
...that Alan Wagner, the first president of the Disney Channel, was also an opera critic and radio personality?

...that Newsies is based on the true story of the Newsboys Strike of 1899 in New York City.
...that The Reedy Creek Improvement District in Florida is the immediate governing jurisdiction for the land on the Walt Disney World Resort.
...that when Walt Disney was looking for a new character following Oswald, he rejected a female cow and male horse who later turn up as Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar?

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