J On The Spectrum - Disney's 100th Anniversary - Disney's Folly

Disney's 100th anniversary is this year, and to celebrate, I'm going to tell the story of this legendary animation company over a yearlong period.

Walt Disney now had a growing influence among Hollywood big guns, and by 1934, he had more characters to play with in his "cinematic universe", such as Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto, Clara Cluck, that one cow character, The Three Little Pigs, and Black Pete. However, he needed to diversify beyond shorts, and he was gonna use a centuries old story to achieve that.

One night in 1934, Walt sent some of his employees to lunch, brought them back to the soundstage, and told them all the story of Snow White, acting out every part, every moment. What Walt Disney was proposing had never been done before. A full length feature animated film in true color, frame by frame, using all the techniques in animation they have perfected at that point, utilizing new ones as well, such as rotoscoping and the multiplane camera. Every short film they made has led up to this.

Disney spent $1.5 million on the film, which was a lot of money for the small animation studio, but less than half of the budget of two 1930s classics, The Wizard of Oz and Gone With The Wind, both costing around $4 million or so.

The film premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre to the public on December 21, 1937, and on that first screening, at the end, dazzled the audience. Disney's Folly, as the press called it, triumphed. Cecil B. DeMille wired Walt saying, "I wish I could make pictures like Snow White." One review compared it on the level of The Birth of a Nation by D.W. Griffith and the birth of Mickey Mouse, which Disney himself created.

With the profits from Snow White, according to Walt's words, he was able to build an animation studio on 51 acres in Burbank, CA, the very studio I took an amazing tour of last year. Geopolitical turmoil, mostly, would make success on his next animated films unlikely, but that did not stop Walt Disney.

Next week, Walt Disney enters the 1940s with his second animated feature and crafts the company's official theme song.