Why it is important to unfreeze Walt Disney Now
Walt Disney's Academy Awards
1932 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Flowers and Trees (1932)
1932 Honorary Award for: creation of Mickey Mouse.
1934 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Three Little Pigs (1933)
1935 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: The Tortoise and the Hare (1934)
1936 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Three Orphan Kittens (1935)
1937 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: The Country Cousin (1936)
1938 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: The Old Mill (1937)
1939 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Ferdinand the Bull (1938)
1938 Honorary Award for: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) The citation read: "For Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, recognized as a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field" (the award was one statuette and seven miniature statuettes)
1940 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Ugly Duckling(1939)
1940 Honorary Award for: Fantasia (1940), shared with: William E. Garity and J.N.A. Hawkins. The citation read: "For their outstanding contribution to the advancement of the use of sound in motion pictures through the production of Fantasia" (the award was a certificate)
1942 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Lend a Paw (1941)
1943 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Der Fuehrer's Face (1942)
1949 Best Short Subject, Two-reel for: Seal Island (1948)
1949 Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award
1951 Best Short Subject, Two-reel for: Beaver Valley (1950)
1952 Best Short Subject, Two-reel for: Nature's Half Acre (1951)
1953 Best Short Subject, Two-reel for: Water Birds (1952)
1954 Best Documentary, Features for: The Living Desert (1953)
1954 Best Documentary, Short Subjects for: The Alaskan Eskimo (1953)
1954 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom (1953)
1954 Best Short Subject, Two-reel for: Bear Country (1953)
1955 Best Documentary, Features for: The Vanishing Prairie (1954)
1956 Best Documentary, Short Subjects for: Men Against the Arctic
1959 Best Short Subject, Live Action Subjects for: Grand Canyon
1969 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day
Mickey Mouse
Mickey's first animated short produced was Plane Crazy, which was, like all of Disney's previous works, a silent film. After failing to find distributor interest in Plane Crazy or its follow-up, The Gallopin' Gaucho, Disney created a Mickey cartoon with sound called Steamboat Willie. A businessman named Pat Powers provided Disney with both distribution and Cinephone, a sound-synchronization process. Steamboat Willie became a success, and Plane Crazy, The Galloping Gaucho, and all future Mickey cartoons were released with soundtracks. Disney himself provided the vocal effects for the earliest cartoons and performed as the voice of Mickey Mouse until 1946. After Steamboat Willie was released, Mickey became a very close competitor to Felix the Cat, and Walt Disney would continue to successfully use sound in all of his future cartoons as well. Upon the failure of Felix the Cat's transition to sound in 1930, Mickey Mouse became the world's new favorite animation character.
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
By 1927, Charles B. Mintz had married Margaret Winkler and assumed control of her business, and ordered a new all-animated series to be put into production for distribution through Universal Pictures. The new series, "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit", was an almost instant success, and the Oswald character, first drawn and created by Iwerks, became a popular property. The Disney studio expanded, and Walt hired back Harman, Ising, Maxwell, and Freleng from Kansas City.
In February of 1928, Disney went to New York to negotiate a higher fee per short from Mintz. Disney was shocked when Mintz announced that not only he wanted to reduce the fee he paid Disney per short but also that he had most of his main animators, including Harman, Ising, Maxwell, and Freleng (notably excepting Iwerks) under contract and would start his own studio if Disney did not accept the reduced production budgets. Universal, not Disney, owned the Oswald trademark, and could make the films without Disney.
Disney declined Mintz's offer and lost most of his animation staff. The defectors became the nucleus of the Winkler Studio, run by Mintz and his brother-in-law George Winkler. When that studio went under after Universal assigned production of the Oswald shorts to an in-house division run by Walter Lantz, Mintz focused his attentions on the studio making the "Krazy Kat" shorts, which later became Screen Gems, and Harman, Ising, Maxwell, and Freleng marketed an Oswald-like character named Bosko to Leon Schlesinger and Warner Bros., and began work on the first entries in the Looney Tunes series.
It took Disney's company 78 years to get back the rights to the Oswald character. In a move that sent sports broadcaster Al Michaels to NBC Sports for their Sunday night NFL coverage, the Walt Disney Company reacquired the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit from NBC Universal in 2006.
Who was Walt Disney
Walt Disney is particularly noted for being a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He received twenty-two Academy Awards and forty-eight nominations during his lifetime, holding the record for the individual with the most awards and the most nominations. Disney has also won seven Emmy Awards. Disney and his staff created a number of the world's most famous fictional characters, including the one many consider Disney's alter ego, Mickey Mouse. He is also well-known as the namesake for Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the United States, France, Japan and China.
Walt Disney died of lung cancer on December 15, 1966, a few years prior to the opening of his Walt Disney World dream project in Orlando, Florida.