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Introduction

The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (/ˈdɪzni/ DIZ-nee), 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 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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Selected article

Aladdin is a 1992 American animated family film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Aladdin was the 31st animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, and was part of the Disney film era known as the Disney Renaissance. The film was directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, and is based on the Arab folktale of Aladdin and the magic lamp from One Thousand and One Nights. The voice cast features Scott Weinger, Jonathan Freeman, Robin Williams, Linda Larkin, Frank Welker, Gilbert Gottfried and Douglas Seale.

Lyricist Howard Ashman first pitched the idea, and the screenplay went through three drafts before Disney president Jeffrey Katzenberg greenlighted the production. The animators based their designs on the work of caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, and computers were used for both colouring and creating some animated elements. The musical score was written by Alan Menken and features six songs with lyrics written by both Ashman and Tim Rice, who took over after the former's death.

Aladdin was released on November 25, 1992, to positive reviews, despite some criticism from Arabs who considered the film racist, and was the most successful film of 1992, earning over $217 million in revenue in the United States, and over $504 million worldwide. The film also won many awards, most of them for its soundtrack. Aladdin's success led to many material inspired by the film such as two direct-to-video sequels, The Return of Jafar and Aladdin and the King of Thieves, an animated television series, toys, video games, spin-offs, and merchandise.

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Credit: Bdesham

Epcot Center at night

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

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 some TikTokers make videos about whether to smash or pass Disney characters?
... that Scarlett Johansson filed a lawsuit against The Walt Disney Company alleging that the release strategy for Black Widow breached her contract?
... 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 vaccine coverage at schools around the Disneyland Resort was too low for herd immunity when measles broke out in 2014?
... 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?
... that, for the Space 220 Restaurant, Disney reached out to NASA engineers to understand what a space elevator might look like?

Selected quote

Gee Mr Spirit! There's a lot more to mathematics than two times two.

— Donald Duck, Donald in Mathmagic Land, 1955

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More Did you know...

...that the Phineas and Ferb episode "Are You My Mummy?" originally aired as part of "Phineas and Ferb-urary," a special event which showed episodes of the series every night in February 2008 on Disney Channel?

...that Alan Wagner, the first president of the Disney Channel, was also an opera critic and radio personality?

...that as a result of her performance in Mary Poppins, Julie Andrews won the 1964 Academy Award for Best Actress and the 1965 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.
...that The Reedy Creek Improvement District in Florida is the immediate governing jurisdiction for the land on the Walt Disney World Resort.
... that Disney CEO Michael Eisner was struck with inspiration for the show, Adventures of the Gummi Bears when his son requested gummi bear candies one day.

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