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How World War II Helped Save Walt Disney Studios
The symbiotic relationship between the U.S. government and Walt Disney
Walt Disney started a business in 1923 with his brother Roy known as the “Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio.” By the late 1930s, the renamed “Walt Disney Studios” had become America’s premier animation studio. The firm won the Academy Award for best animated short film each year from 1933 through 1939. Walt Disney won a Special Award from the Academy for the creation of Mickey Mouse in 1933. Disney’s first animated feature film, Snow White, won an honorary Oscar in 1938; in an unprecedented presentation, Shirley Temple honored Walt Disney with a regular size Oscar and seven miniature statuettes, one for each of the Seven Dwarfs.
Snow White was a huge hit, but it cost close to $1.5 million to make the picture and it was over budget by half a million dollars. That didn’t slow Walt Disney down, though. Disney’s business strategy was to plow his company’s profits back into producing more films. Unfortunately, subsequent projects were not as successful as Snow White.
As the 1940s began, Walt Disney Studios was facing potential bankruptcy. The firm was forced to lay off animators and a labor strike ensued. The Screen Cartoonist’s Guild, a union formed in 1938, got involved and attempted to get the…
