_________________________________
_________________________________
FLOYD NORMAN: Every time
Walt walked down a hallway,
_________________________________
RICHARD SHERMAN:
In Bambi, there's a line:
_________________________________
ROLLY CRUMP: He walked
through the door and, you know,
_________________________________
SHERMAN:
There was no joking around.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt Disney was an
international celebrity
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Won more Academy
Awards than anybody in history,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: and invented a new kind
of American vacation destination.
_________________________________
RON SUSKIND: Disney's a
Rorschach in America.
_________________________________
RICHARD SCHICKEL: Nobody who
does stuff on the scale that he did
_________________________________
NEAL GABLER: Walt Disney is in
many ways a very dark soul.
_________________________________
SARAH NILSEN: He is feeling
so much inside,
_________________________________
GABLER: Most successful people,
_________________________________
SCHICKEL: Walt Disney was as
driven a man as I've ever met in my life.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt Disney was still
a few months shy of his 18th birthday
_________________________________
DON HAHN: He's got all these
ideas and he starts acting on them.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt was determined
to do work he loved,
_________________________________
TOM SITO: It was an exciting
and very dynamic medium.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney was captivated.
_________________________________
SARAH NILSEN: He was really
into modern culture.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney's first efforts
_________________________________
HAHN: I can imagine
a young Walt Disney
_________________________________
STEVEN WATTS:
He has stars in his eyes.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Just as he was
beginning to get some traction
_________________________________
GABLER: It's hard to find a father
and son who are more different
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney and his
Laugh-O-Grams crew
_________________________________
WATTS: Hollywood in the 1920s
is a beacon of the future.
_________________________________
GABLER: He's not thinking
about animation now.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The wannabe movie man
_________________________________
GABLER: When he gets that
telegram, the first thing he does is
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The two brothers
scraped up a little cash
_________________________________
HAHN: Walt loves to draw,
and he can draw,
_________________________________
ERIC SMOODIN: Iwerks is
incredible and can work fast.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Iwerks began
restyling the Alice's Wonderland shorts
_________________________________
WATTS: The difference
between Laugh-O-Grams
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The brothers
enjoyed their early success
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney was
understandably obsessed with his rivals
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The key to challenging
the supremacy of Felix the Cat,
_________________________________
WATTS: I think the two sides
of Disney emerge.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Charles Mintz,
_________________________________
GABLER: Ub Iwerks comes to
Walt Disney and says,
_________________________________
WATTS: Disney doesn't believe it.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt went to New York
in February of 1928
_________________________________
NILSEN: Things are unfolding
that most people would understand,
_________________________________
NARRATOR:
When Disney boarded the train
_________________________________
HAHN: Oswald the Rabbit
gets taken away from him
_________________________________
NARRATOR: It was a long
cross-country ride for Disney.
_________________________________
WATTS: Walt was living in the
country on the edge of this town,
_________________________________
NILSEN: Marceline represents
really the one moment in his childhood
_________________________________
SUSKIND: Marceline was this
seemingly idyllic place
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The Disney family
business was a tough go.
_________________________________
DISNEY: My dad sold the farm,
_________________________________
GABLER: Walt Disney once said that
_________________________________
NARRATOR: When Walt and Lillian
arrived at Union Station
_________________________________
GABLER: Coming from
the Disney family,
_________________________________
NILSEN: Where his dad just continually
gets more and more depressed,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney held daily
brainstorming sessions
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney was unable
to find a distributor
_________________________________
NILSEN: "How can I do something
better with animation
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney saw no
good option but to take the chance.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The crowd at the
Colony Theater was in thrall.
_________________________________
SMOODIN: Steamboat Willie
was such a huge hit,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Mickey was a
multi-talented charmer...
_________________________________
NARRATOR: While the country
slid toward economic disaster in 1930,
_________________________________
SUSKIND: Mickey's a little bit
in your face.
_________________________________
WATTS: Walt Disney was certainly
not a social theorist.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Mickey Mouse Clubs
began sprouting up
_________________________________
WATTS: He was an ad man.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The Disney brothers
gave Kamen
_________________________________
SMOODIN: Mickey is understood
as being the creation of Disney,
_________________________________
HAHN: When everybody
else is suffering,
_________________________________
SUSKIND: Mickey and Walt
are talking to each other.
_________________________________
SUSKIND: So he's gotta
do Mickey's voice.
_________________________________
NARRATOR:
Walt Disney was not yet 30,
_________________________________
MICHAEL BARRIER: His role
was changing in the studio.
_________________________________
NARRATOR:
Disney had talked of having
_________________________________
DISNEY: In 1931,
I had a hell of a breakdown.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: In October 1931,
Walt Disney took his doctor's advice
_________________________________
GABLER: Walt comes back
from his nervous breakdown,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney had never been
shy about spending money on his vision,
_________________________________
SMOODIN: The Silly Symphonies
were much more about animation as art.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Silly Symphonies
raised Walt to near mythic status
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Men ruled the studio,
as they did all studios in the 1930s.
_________________________________
NILSEN: It becomes, like,
the studio to work at.
_________________________________
BOB GIVENS: It was like
a renaissance to us.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney's new series
was the test ground for innovation,
_________________________________
GABLER: Walt intended
the studio tone the place
_________________________________
GABLER: That was so instrumental.
_________________________________
SITO: He was very jovial.
_________________________________
RUTH TOMPSON: Boss?
_________________________________
GIVENS: We used to play
volleyball at noon,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney offered
drawing classes at the studio
_________________________________
HAHN: He was always very much
about not only hiring the artists
_________________________________
SUSKIND: He wanted a family,
a community, a place.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt Disney, not yet 35,
_________________________________
GABLER: Disney is lit
on the sound stage,
_________________________________
WATTS: What he did was to go
through the whole movie as he saw it,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: What Disney was
proposing had never been done,
_________________________________
WATTS: Roy Disney was pretty
skeptical about all of this.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt would not let it go.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt's excitement
was catching.
_________________________________
GABLER: In the shorter cartoons,
you can make people laugh.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: One key, Disney believed,
_________________________________
WATTS: They would bring in actors,
_________________________________
BARRIER: What he was after
was something different,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt's stubborn
insistence on getting the story right,
_________________________________
GABLER: To draw each
of these characters,
_________________________________
GIVENS: We were the crew that did
most of the Snow White drawings,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The production
process did not change.
_________________________________
SMOODIN: Making the film
required an army of people,
_________________________________
NARRATOR:
The Disney had already built
_________________________________
NARRATOR: As the production
dragged into its second
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt kept upping the
ante, which meant Roy had to raise
_________________________________
TOMPSON: I was working
the 12 hour deal,
_________________________________
DON LUSK: I worked my tail off.
_________________________________
GIVENS: The ink-and-paint
gals were...
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The animators
finished in early November,
_________________________________
NEWS ANNOUNCER:
Blasé Hollywood,
_________________________________
GABLER: Walt was in a state
of high anxiety.
_________________________________
RADIO REPORTER: Well, Walt, I think
you're due to do all the talking tonight.
_________________________________
DISNEY: Well,
it's been lot of fun making it,
_________________________________
REPORTER:
Well, I'm sure they won't be,
_________________________________
NARRATOR:
Audience members gasped
_________________________________
NARRATOR: They howled in laughter
at the antic dwarfs.
_________________________________
SNOW WHITE:
Uh-uh-uh, just a minute!
_________________________________
NARRATOR: They hissed
disapproval at the Evil Queen.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: He sat gripping
Lillian's hand for nearly 75 minutes,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: When it arrived,
the apparent death of Snow White,
_________________________________
GABLER:
The audience started weeping.
_________________________________
SUSKIND: Clark Gable and Carole
Lombard are weeping.
_________________________________
NARRATOR:
When the curtain came down,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: "I could not help but
feel," one rival movie producer gushed,
_________________________________
SCHICKEL:
I know the first movie I saw
_________________________________
TOMPSON: I loved the queen.
_________________________________
SCHICKEL: Kids had a be carried
screaming out of Radio City Music Hall.
_________________________________
SUSKIND: Think about what he does.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs
_________________________________
SMOODIN: There are Snow White jars
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt Disney was
celebrated as a true American original,
_________________________________
SUSKIND: He's hailed in Paris.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney cultivated the
look of the artist in public,
_________________________________
GABLER: There's no question,
_________________________________
WATTS: He was very domestic,
very nurturing
_________________________________
NARRATOR: He had had only
sporadic contract with his own parents
_________________________________
DISNEY: Well, you know,
here it is, 1937,
_________________________________
FLORA: We're not gonna celebrate.
_________________________________
DISNEY: Why not?
_________________________________
FLORA: Oh, what's the use?
_________________________________
DISNEY: Well, Dad likes to celebrate.
_________________________________
FLORA: We've been celebrating
for 50 years.
_________________________________
DISNEY: What about you, Dad?
_________________________________
ELIAS: Oh, we don't want to
go to any extremes with it at all.
_________________________________
DISNEY: Well, I expect you...
_________________________________
FLORA: He don't know
how to make whoopee.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt sometimes seemed
compelled to talk about the old days.
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM: He feels it very
important to identify and to make note
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt Disney had been
a player in the movie business
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney had
dreams of producing
_________________________________
GABLER: They struggled mightily
with the story of Pinocchio.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney was still
puzzling out the Pinocchio story
_________________________________
NILSEN: It was something
he dealt with within himself
_________________________________
GABLER: Walt Disney once
exploded during a story session
_________________________________
SUSKIND: Art doesn't work unless
it gets to the big stuff.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney wasn't thinking
small on Pinocchio.
_________________________________
DOUGLAS BRODE: Pinocchio becomes
about what it means to be human,
_________________________________
HAHN: They take huge liberties.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Difficult as they were
and engaging as they were,
_________________________________
HAHN: So here's Stravinsky,
_________________________________
GABLER: Well, he's dealt with
realism and realistic emotions,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The Disney studio
ran to the rhythms
_________________________________
GABLER: It was designed
for absolute efficiency,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The day after Christmas
1939, most of the Disney staff
_________________________________
LUSK: It was wonderful.
_________________________________
SITO: It had a cafeteria.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: By the time the studio
was ready to launch Pinocchio
_________________________________
NARRATOR: He was singing
the praises of Jiminy Cricket,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: He was also talking
up the studio's breakthroughs
_________________________________
NARRATOR: "For the first time
_________________________________
SCHICKEL: Pinocchio has
richness and dimensions
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM:
And instead, any indiscretion
_________________________________
BLUE FAIRY: Prove yourself
brave, truthful, and unselfish,
_________________________________
SUSKIND: That's what the goal is.
_________________________________
GEPPETTO: You've alive!
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Audiences across the
country walked away from Pinocchio
_________________________________
NARRATOR: "For it will
be said that no generation
_________________________________
NARRATOR:
The downside of Pinocchio
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Roy Disney had a plan.
_________________________________
WATTS: Fantasia opens with the Bach
Fugue and Toccata in D minor,
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM:
Fantasia is wildly ambitious.
_________________________________
WATTS: When the movie worked,
it's spectacular.
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM: Fantasia raises
a number of questions
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Fantasia's financial losses
_________________________________
WATTS: The new Burbank studio
was a kind of a case study in
_________________________________
NARRATOR: There was something
unmistakably mechanical
_________________________________
GIVENS: I missed the
old Hyperion place.
_________________________________
SITO: Some of the people who
told me about the cafeteria,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Workers at the
bottom of the Disney ladder
_________________________________
SITO: Even after organizing
MGM and Warner Brothers
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt Disney
saw little reason to be worried.
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM: Walt sees
himself as the father of this company,
_________________________________
GABLER: "Why in the world
would anyone need a union
_________________________________
NARRATOR: There were plenty
of people at Burbank
_________________________________
GABLER: He was rather
a large personality.
_________________________________
SITO: Babbitt used to tell the story
about a young painter
_________________________________
NARRATOR:
Disney didn't see the problem,
_________________________________
DISNEY: In the 20 years
I have spent in this business,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Much of the staff
left the auditorium infuriated.
_________________________________
HAHN: The street's full of strikers,
_________________________________
NILSEN: He poured his passion,
everything he believed in
_________________________________
BRODE: A certain light,
if not had gone out,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Another man might
have walked away
_________________________________
NEAL GABLER: Walt Disney
could deal with anything creatively.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Employees at the
Walt Disney Studios
_________________________________
TOM SITO: As the strike lingered
and kept going,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: A month into the strike,
_________________________________
SITO: There was one day
where Art Babbitt noticed Disney
_________________________________
NARRATOR: As the crowd cheered,
_________________________________
NANCY KOEHN: He needed
to have a bad guy.
_________________________________
ERIC SMOODIN: He becomes
then like a typical industrial boss.
_________________________________
GABLER: Walt Disney
is being bombarded
_________________________________
NARRATOR: "The entire situation
is a catastrophe,"
_________________________________
STEVEN WATTS: What Walt Disney
was doing was getting away, period.
_________________________________
GABLER: South America is a
real relief for Walt Disney.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney was still on
the road in South America
_________________________________
WATTS: Roy Disney sees
the writing on the wall.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: By the time Walt did
finally return at the end of October,
_________________________________
SITO: After the strike,
Walt distrusted everybody.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Just a few months
after the bruising strike,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt was counting
on a big box-office hit
_________________________________
NARRATOR: When it was finally
released in August of 1942,
_________________________________
DON HAHN: A generation
was and still is traumatized
_________________________________
HAHN: And it's done
almost in pantomime
_________________________________
GABLER: Bambi is a triumph for Disney
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Bambi did not make
back its costs in its initial run.
_________________________________
SITO: One of the things that was lost
_________________________________
SITO: And the Big Five is
Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia,
_________________________________
SITO: Now, if you look at
those films individually,
_________________________________
GABLER: The paradise that
Disney had at Hyperion
_________________________________
JOHNNY MERCER:
Walt, how did you happen to
_________________________________
DISNEY: Well, Johnny, I first heard
the stories of Uncle Remus
_________________________________
MERCER: Your favorites
and a million others.
_________________________________
CARMENITA HIGGINBOTHAM:
The Uncle Remus stories
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney took a
cost-conscious approach
_________________________________
WATTS: It's the story of outsiders:
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney had been thinking
_________________________________
HAHN: The core issue is,
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM: Walt Disney
has never been, up until this point,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney solicited notes
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney chose
to celebrate opening night
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM: It is as if Walt
has divorced himself
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Critics were split.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Others, like the usually
friendly New York Times,
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM:
Disney was utterly dismayed
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney decided the
attacks were being engineered
_________________________________
SITO: "Who says the natural
goal of animation is realism?
_________________________________
ROBERT GIVENS: We had a
whole new approach,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney was keeping
an eye on UPA.
_________________________________
SITO: The Burbank River
goes past the Disney Studio,
_________________________________
GIVENS: Walt was curious,
because he'd send his spies over there
_________________________________
NEWS REPORTER: Labor strife
on the movie front.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Hollywood had
been hit by another wave of strikes
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The first thing Disney
did was reassure the committee
_________________________________
DISNEY: They bought
the Three Little Pigs
_________________________________
NARRATOR: But then he
started to name names,
_________________________________
SITO: All his testimony was
focused on the union leaders.
_________________________________
GABLER: The HUAC
testimony is 1947.
_________________________________
SITO: He basically had
this narrative ins mind
_________________________________
SITO: He couldn't actually
prove he was a Communist.
_________________________________
SITO: That's not enough for a trial.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney and other
friendly witnesses
_________________________________
SMOODIN: The black list is designed
to rid the industry of leftists.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt Disney beat a hasty
retreat from the political battlefield
_________________________________
REPORTER: Oh, Mr. Disney,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney was producing
more than ever by 1948,
_________________________________
HAHN: If Disney's gonna
make nature movies,
_________________________________
DOCUMENTARY NARRATOR:
Since no one else will nurse him,
_________________________________
HAHN: So to him, it's a way
of getting an animated film,
_________________________________
DOCUMENTARY NARRATOR: Yes,
here they are at last, right on schedule.
_________________________________
HAHN: He has to diversify.
_________________________________
DOCUMENTARY NARRATOR:
having a final fling of single blessedness.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Seal Island
won an Academy Award
_________________________________
ROLLY CRUMP:
She was a very pleasant lady.
_________________________________
GABLER: Well, Hazel George
becomes one of those very few figures
_________________________________
WATTS: He's very famous.
_________________________________
GABLER: Walt Disney is at low ebb.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: In the fall of 1948,
_________________________________
WATTS: It's Disney
returning to his roots.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney arrived home
with a new obsession,
_________________________________
GABLER: Walt Disney
was building these trains
_________________________________
NARRATOR: When a film critic
from the New York Times
_________________________________
NARRATOR:
Roy optimistically told Walt
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt was happy
to have the financial cushion
_________________________________
WATTS: He builds a scale model
of the old Marceline barn
_________________________________
RICHARD SCHICKEL:
It was funny, you know,
_________________________________
NARRATOR:
There was more in that train
_________________________________
KOEHN: It's comfort and
salvation and a working surface
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Lillian Disney
could sense something big brewing
_________________________________
WATTS: He gets a little building,
the back part of the studio lot,
_________________________________
GABLER: "I'll get a few guys,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt Disney
had one very specific vision in mind,
_________________________________
ALICE M. DAVIS: When he had his
girls and they were very young,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney first dubbed
the park Mickey Mouse Village,
_________________________________
GABLER: Roy thinks it's a nutty idea.
_________________________________
SUSAN DOUGLAS: Amusement
parks were carnivalesque places.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney's newest
notion was not unlike
_________________________________
RON SUSKIND:
This is a "leap from the tub,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney had been
looking for the best way
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The three major networks
_________________________________
HAHN: So Walt can stand there
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The two men put
the drawing on a plane that Monday,
_________________________________
SCHICKEL: That was a pretty
dangerous moment for him,
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM: He saw this as his
personal statement about who he was,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney's plans for
the 160-acre building site
_________________________________
BOB GURR: The first time
I ever saw Disneyland,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The desire for escape
and amusement was growing
_________________________________
DOUGLAS: These kids are eight
and nine years old,
_________________________________
TV ANNOUNCER: American Motors,
_________________________________
ANNOUNCER: Each week,
as you enter this timeless land,
_________________________________
SKLAR: I think he was one
of the great salesman of our time
_________________________________
GABLER: Now Walt Disney is
creating anticipation for Disneyland.
_________________________________
SARAH NILSEN:
He was very humble and open
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM: Walt becomes
the master of dreams and hopes
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM:
He's actually an individual
_________________________________
DISNEY: Shooting out from here,
like the four cardinal points.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The Disneyland TV show
_________________________________
DISNEY: They are Adventureland...
_________________________________
NARRATOR:
It was a Frontierland offering,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Davy Crockett
aired on three separate Wednesdays
_________________________________
TV ANNOUNCER:
Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Children across
the country fell hard
_________________________________
DOUGLAS:
Davy Crockett was homespun,
_________________________________
DOUGLAS BRODE: Davy Crockett
is incredibly anti-authoritarian
_________________________________
BRODE: Disney films told children
to emulate Davy Crockett,
_________________________________
WATTS: The ratings just went
through the roof,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: By the time
the third and final episode
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The show's theme song
became a Number One hit record.
_________________________________
GABLER: The Davy Crockett series
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Davy Crockett even
proved a powerful pop culture symbol
_________________________________
WATTS: Davy Crockett's
famous saying was,
_________________________________
GABLER: His animations created
a perfect and artificial world,
_________________________________
SKLAR: You're walking into the story.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt was down
in Anaheim almost every day.
_________________________________
GURR: Walt was literally down
there every day, watching everything.
_________________________________
GABLER: Walt is interested
in every blade of grass.
_________________________________
NARRATOR:
Disney's constant demands
_________________________________
SKLAR: So many things were
finished at the last minute.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: "People can buy
Pepsi-Cola," Disney explained,
_________________________________
GURR: Well, the interesting
thing about Walt,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The park was a-bustle
the day before the opening.
_________________________________
WATTS: They have dozens of
cameras all through the park,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The audience for
the live broadcast that Sunday
_________________________________
GURR: It was so hot.
_________________________________
CRUMP: The lines were so packed,
we didn't try to eat
_________________________________
SKLAR: Oh, it was awful.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Newspaper reporters
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disneyland was thrown
open to the public
_________________________________
WATTS: What introduces all of it,
_________________________________
RIVERBOAT ANNOUNCER:
On Tom Sawyer's island,
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM:
Disneyland is a space
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Frontierland and
Adventureland pointed back,
_________________________________
DISNEYLAND ANNOUNCER:
Welcome to Monsanto's Plastics
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM: Disneyland
is the idealization of the past
_________________________________
GABLER: What people find there
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disneyland materializes
bigger than life and twice as real,"
_________________________________
GURR: Walt treated that park
as his personal toy.
_________________________________
RON MILLER: It was a good place
for Walt to relax,
_________________________________
CRUMP: If you saw him in person,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: At a dinner party one
evening, a friend suggested to Disney
_________________________________
HAHN: Mark Twain had his Hannibal,
_________________________________
NILSEN: For him, everything
springs out of Marceline.
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM: It almost
feels like it's locked in time.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: By 1960, Walt Disney
stood atop one of the world's
_________________________________
SUSKIND: "Brand" wasn't used
back then, but you know,
_________________________________
TV ANNOUNCER: Walt Disney
and Mickey Mouse present
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM:
He starts to internalize
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM:
As he solidifies as a brand,
_________________________________
MILLER: He invited Diane and
I over to watch a film.
_________________________________
HAHN: It is entertained that
is bounded by Walt's ethics
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney made
no apologizes for his work.
_________________________________
DISNEY: Hello!
_________________________________
NARRATOR:
When ABC expressed frustration
_________________________________
SCHICKEL: He liked his fame.
_________________________________
CRUMP: They would write scripts
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM: There is something
very affable about Walt Disney the host.
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM:
He's there every week.
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM: He speaks to you
as if you mattered to him.
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM: Is it really him?
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt was aware of the
gap between himself
_________________________________
FLOYD NORMAN: Every time
Walt walked down a hallway,
_________________________________
RICHARD SHERMAN:
In Bambi, there's a line:
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney's
company was bigger than ever
_________________________________
MILLER: For the most part,
he was patient,
_________________________________
NORMAN: Walt was not
generous with praise.
_________________________________
SHERMAN: Walt Disney
could be very hard on someone
_________________________________
SCHICKEL: I don't think he
was totally grounded.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt Disney
had no real intimates
_________________________________
MILLER: There was no
animation in Mary Poppins.
_________________________________
SHERMAN: He's basically a story man.
_________________________________
SHERMAN: Mary Poppins
is not a children's story.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Mary Poppins
debuted in the summer of 1964
_________________________________
NARRATOR: You have made
a great many pictures
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM: He is able
to produce a film on his terms
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM:
About the healing of the family.
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM: So he's staying
true to what he believes personally
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Mary Poppins was
nominated for 13 Oscars,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Mary Poppins premiered
into a different America
_________________________________
DOUGLAS: The gap is growing
wider and wider
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt's defenders
pointed to his movies
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Critics slammed him.
_________________________________
NILSEN: Watered down, no edge.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The truth was,
Disney's commercial success
_________________________________
DOUGLAS: There were a lot of ways
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney was aware
of the knocks against him,
_________________________________
MILLER: There was a film critic
for the New York Times,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Word started
to get around in 1965
_________________________________
HAYDON BURNS: Walt Disney, who
will bring a new world of entertainment,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt remained cagey
about the scope and outlines
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Only a handful
of company insiders
_________________________________
HAHN: It's like,
"I did the mouse, that was great.
_________________________________
KOEHN:
What can you leave the world?
_________________________________
GURR: A lot of people
had talked about it,
_________________________________
NORMAN: He was now being
a futurist, a visionary,
_________________________________
CRUMP: He used to get so goddamn
excited about EPCOT.
_________________________________
ANNOUNCER: No city of today
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney's design called
for a high-density town center
_________________________________
CRUMP: He wanted all the major
companies in the United States
_________________________________
ANNOUNCER: But most important,
_________________________________
GURR: Walt's got these
drawings of EPCOT
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney allowed himself
a rare treat in the summer of 1966:
_________________________________
MILLER: This gentleman offered
Walt his yacht
_________________________________
NARRATOR: On October 27, 1966,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: The effort winded
the 64-year-old so badly
_________________________________
DISNEY: Community of Tomorrow.
_________________________________
GURR: He didn't look good.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Disney's old polo
injury was giving him trouble.
_________________________________
MILLER: Walt, the optimist that he was,
felt he was going to lick it.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt did not return
to the studio as usual the next day.
_________________________________
NARRATOR: On the night of
December 14, 1966,
_________________________________
SHERMAN: I heard somebody
shrieking and running down the hall.
_________________________________
CRUMP: I was in my office
in the model shop,
_________________________________
TV ANNOUNCER: Walt Disney
is dead tonight at the age of 65...
_________________________________
NARRATOR: Walt Disney's death
was front-page news the next day,
_________________________________
TV ANNOUNCER:
Of his success, Disney has said,
_________________________________
NARRATOR: In the year after he died,
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM:
That sense of happiness,
_________________________________
GABLER: He's either the man who
ruined American culture
_________________________________
HAHN: Walt Disney represented
more than just a guy.
_________________________________
NILSEN: How do we deal
with growing up?
_________________________________
NILSEN: What does it mean
when we leave childhood behind?
_________________________________
SUSKIND: Disney goes back and
taps old myths and old narrative arcs
_________________________________
HIGGINBOTHAM: He affects all of us.
_________________________________
GABLER: There aren't that many
figures in American culture
_________________________________
_________________________________
