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Disney Interactive headquarters in Glendale, California

The Walt Disney Company (commonly known as Disney (/ˈdɪzni/) or Walt Disney and abbreviated as The Walt Disney Co.) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt and Roy O. 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. Early in its existence, the company established itself as a leader in the animation industry, with the creation of the widely popular character Mickey Mouse, who first appeared in Steamboat Willie, which used synchronized sound, to become the first post-produced sound cartoon. The character would go on to become the company's mascot.

After becoming a major success by the early 1940s, the company diversified into live-action films, television, and theme parks in the 1950s. Following Walt Disney's death in 1966, the company's profits, especially in the animation division, began to decline. Once Disney's shareholders voted Michael Eisner as the head of the company in 1984, it became overwhelmingly successful during a period called the Disney Renaissance. In 2005, under new CEO Bob Iger, the company started to expand and acquire other corporations. Bob Chapek became the head of Disney in 2020 after Iger's retirement. Chapek was ousted in 2022 and Iger was reinstated as CEO.

Since the 1980s, Disney has created and acquired corporate divisions to market more-mature content than is typically associated with its family-oriented brands. 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 broadcast 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 Parks, Experiences and Products, which includes several theme parks, resort hotels, and cruise lines around the world. (Full article...)

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Test Track is a high-speed slot car thrill ride located in World Discovery at Epcot, a theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida. The ride is a simulated excursion through the rigorous testing procedures that General Motors uses to evaluate its concept cars, culminating in a high-speed drive around the exterior of the attraction. The attraction soft-opened to the public on December 19, 1998, after a long delay due to problems revealed during testing and to changes in design. As a result, the attraction officially opened on March 17, 1999. Test Track replaced the World of Motion ride, which closed three years earlier in 1996.

Originally, guests rode in "test vehicles" in a GM "testing facility" through a series of assessments to illustrate how automobile prototype evaluations were conducted. The highlight of the attraction is a speed trial on a track around the exterior of the building at a top speed of 64.9 miles per hour (104.4 km/h) making it the fastest Disney theme park attraction ever built. Test Track closed for refurbishment on April 15, 2012, and re-opened on December 6, 2012. It is now sponsored by the Chevrolet brand instead of General Motors as a whole. Guests now design their own car in the Chevrolet Design Studio. Then they board a "Sim-Car" and are taken through the "digital" testing ground of the "SimTrack". Throughout the ride, guests see how their designs performed in each test. After the ride, guests can see how their car did overall, film a commercial, race their designs, and have a picture taken with their own virtually designed vehicle with a chosen backdrop in the background.

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Credit: Coolcaesar

An entrance to Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California

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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 1Aerial shot of Disney's Typhoon Lagoon water park (from Walt Disney World)
Image 2Magic Kingdom, the world's most visited theme park (from Walt Disney World)
Image 31968 U.S. postage stamp (from Walt Disney)
Image 4New Orleans Square
(the Haunted Mansion and Fantasmic! viewing area in 2010) (from Disneyland)
Image 5Disney drawing Goofy for a group of girls in Argentina, 1941 (from Walt Disney)
Image 6Disneyland fireworks from Sleeping Beauty Castle (from Disneyland)
Image 7Fantasyland
(Peter Pan's Flight and the Matterhorn Bobsleds) (from Disneyland)
Image 8Disney shows the plans of Disneyland to officials from Orange County in December 1954. (from Walt Disney)
Image 9Paddlefish restaurant at Disney Springs (from Walt Disney World)
Image 10Main Street at Disneyland, as seen from a horseless carriage (from Disneyland)
Image 11Disney in 1935 in Place de la Concorde, Paris (from Walt Disney)
Image 12A Disney Cruise Line bus which takes guest to and from the terminal from Orlando International Airport; as well as around Walt Disney World. (from Disney Cruise Line)
Image 13Walt (center) showing the plans of Disneyland to officials from Orange County in December 1954 (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 14Mickey's Toontown
(2010) (from Disneyland)
Image 15Team Disney building in Burbank, which is the main building at the Walt Disney Studios, houses the offices of Disney's CEO and several other senior corporate officials. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 16Fantasmic! finale on July 4, 2010 (from Disneyland)
Image 17Map of the resort as of May 2015 (from Walt Disney World)
Image 18Theatrical poster for Trolley Troubles (1927) (from Walt Disney)
Image 19An aerial shot of Walt Disney World in 1982 (from Walt Disney World)
Image 20Walt Disney's business envelope featured a self-portrait, c. 1921. (from Walt Disney)
Image 21Disneyland aerial view, 1963, which includes the new Melody Land Theater at the top of the photo (from Disneyland)
Image 22View of Disney Springs (from Walt Disney World)
Image 23Walt Disney (center) showing Orange County officials plans for Disneyland's layout, December 1954 (from Disneyland)
Image 24Adventureland
(themed for a 1950s view of adventure, capitalizing on the post-war Tiki craze) (from Disneyland)
Image 25The Walt Disney World Monorail System provides free transport across the resort.
Image 26Walt Disney introduces each of the seven dwarfs in a scene from the original 1937 Snow White theatrical trailer. (from Walt Disney)
Image 27An aerial view of Disneyland in 2004 (from Disneyland)
Image 28Spaceship Earth at Epcot (from Walt Disney World)
Image 29Roy O. Disney finished the building of Walt Disney World. (from Walt Disney)
Image 30Entrance to Disney's Blizzard Beach waterpark (from Walt Disney World)
Image 31Disney in 1954 (from Walt Disney)
Image 32The original animation building at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California, which they fully moved into in 1940 (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 33Monorail Red travels over the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage in Tomorrowland. (from Disneyland)
Image 34The Chinese Theatre at Disney's Hollywood Studios (from Walt Disney World)
Image 35Tomorrowland
(Space Mountain in 2010) (from Disneyland)
Image 36Disney Security Vehicle, picture taken July 2, 2009 in front of Epcot (from Walt Disney World)
Image 37Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge
(Star Wars: Millennium Falcon – Smugglers Run in 2019) (from Disneyland)
Image 38The 2018 version of The Walt Disney World logo. (from Walt Disney World)
Image 39Cinderella Castle at Magic Kingdom (from Walt Disney World)
Image 40Main Street, U.S.A.
(2010) (from Disneyland)
Image 41Tree of Life at Disney's Animal Kingdom (from Walt Disney World)
Image 42Walt 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 43The "Happiest Homecoming on Earth" celebrated the 50th anniversary of the theme park. Sleeping Beauty Castle was altered for the occasion. (from Disneyland)
Image 44Frontierland
(Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in 2008) (from Disneyland)
Image 45Disneyland Railroad Engine 2 (from Disneyland)
Image 46Critter Country
(Splash Mountain in 2010) (from Disneyland)
Image 47Alice and characters from her movie host "Disneyland Musical Chairs" at Coca-Cola Refreshment Corner, accompanied by a ragtime pianist. (from Disneyland)
Image 48Wedding Pavilion at the Seven Seas Lagoon (from Walt Disney World)
Image 49Disney family at Schiphol Airport (1951) (from Walt Disney)
Image 50One of four arches welcoming guests to the resort (from Walt Disney World)
Image 51Hollywood Studios' park icon, the Chinese Theatre (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 52The original logo of Walt Disney World from 1971 to the mid 1990s; this logo is still used as an alternate logo, mainly for retro-themed merchandise. (from Walt Disney World)
Image 53Grave of Walt Disney at Forest Lawn, Glendale (from Walt Disney)
Image 54Disney's childhood home
Image 55Roy O. Disney inspecting design plans on-site in Florida (from Walt Disney World)

Selected biography

Ubbe Ert Iwwerks (March 24, 1901 – July 7, 1971), known as Ub Iwerks (/ˈʌb ˈaɪwɜːrks/), was an American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, and special effects technician. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Iwerks grew up with a contentious relationship with his father, who abandoned him as a child. Iwerks met fellow artist Walt Disney while working at a Kansas City art studio in 1919. After briefly working as illustrators for a local newspaper company, Disney and Iwerks ventured into animation together. Iwerks joined Disney as chief animator on the Laugh-O-Gram shorts series beginning in 1922, but a studio bankruptcy would cause Disney to relocate to Los Angeles in 1923. In the new studio, Iwerks continued to work with Disney on the Alice Comedies as well as the creation of the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit character. Following the first Oswald short, both Universal Pictures and the Winkler Pictures production company insisted that the Oswald character be redesigned. At the insistence of Disney, Iwerks designed a number of new characters for the studio, including designs that would be used for Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar.

One of Iwerks' most long-lasting contributions to animation was a refined version of a sketch drawn by Disney that would later go on to become Mickey Mouse. Iwerks went on to do much of the animation for the early Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies cartoons, including Steamboat Willie, The Skeleton Dance and The Haunted House, before a fallout with Disney led to Iwerks' resignation from the studio in January 1930. Iwerks' final Mickey Mouse cartoon would be 1930's The Cactus Kid. Following his separation with Disney, Iwerks, operating under Iwerks Studio, would go on to create the characters Flip the Frog and Willie Whopper along with the ComiColor Cartoons series as part of a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but the new studio failed to rival its competitors. Iwerks would go on to direct two Looney Tunes cartoon shorts for Leon Schlesinger Productions and several Color Rhapsody cartoons for Screen Gems before joining Disney again in 1940, after which he worked with special visual effects on productions such as 1946's Song of the South.

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Did you know (auto-generated)

... that, for the Space 220 Restaurant, Disney reached out to NASA engineers to understand what a space elevator might look like?
... that the ferry General Joe Potter at Walt Disney World is named in honor of Major General William Everett Potter?
... that although Pixie Davies has been performing in films since 2012, her breakout role came in Disney's Mary Poppins Returns in 2018?
... that some TikTokers make videos about whether to smash or pass Disney characters?
... that the Los Angeles Times criticized Disney for contracting their interactive storybooks to independent studios, deeming their series "a mere imitation" of Broderbund's Living Books format?
... that Encanto's Mirabel is the first Disney heroine to wear glasses?

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Once upon a time, in a cabin in the snow, two cousins who didn't trust each other were trying to steal the bag of money sitting on the floor in front of me. So neither one of them went to sleep because neither one of them could be trusted. The end!

— Mickey Mouse

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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 the Phineas and Ferb season two premiere was the most watched cable telecast on Friday, March 13, 2009?

...that Newsies is based on the true story of the Newsboys Strike of 1899 in New York City.
...that press releases for the Phineas and Ferb episode "Lawn Gnome Beach Party of Terror" detailed a cut subplot where the character Lawrence Fletcher searches for a rare bottle cap?

... that in 1989, a black-and-white drawing from Walt Disney's "Orphan's Benefit" (USA 1934), depicting Donald Duck being punched by an orphan, raised $280,000 at Christie's London, England.

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