Portal:Disney

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Introduction

The Walt Disney Company is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt Disney and Roy Oliver Disney as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio; it also operated under the names Walt Disney Studio and Walt Disney Productions before changing to its current name 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 Pixar, Marvel Entertainment, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox. 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, the 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+, 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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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 1An aerial shot of Walt Disney World in 1982 (from Walt Disney World)
Image 2The original logo of Walt Disney World from 1971 to the mid-1990s (from Walt Disney World)
Image 3Map of the resort as of May 2015 (from Walt Disney World)
Image 4Disney in 1954 (from Walt Disney)
Image 5The Walt Disney World Monorail System provides free transport across the resort.
Image 6Critter Country
(Splash Mountain; 1989–2023) (from Disneyland)
Image 7Disney's promotional logo for its centennial. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 8Fantasyland
(Peter Pan's Flight in the foreground and the Matterhorn Bobsleds in the background) (from Disneyland)
Image 9Disney Magic at Port of Venice (from Disney Cruise Line)
Image 10The 2018 version of The Walt Disney World logo. (from Walt Disney World)
Image 11Roy O. Disney inspecting design plans on-site in Florida (from Walt Disney World)
Image 12Walt (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 13An aerial view of Disneyland in 2004 (from Disneyland)
Image 14Hollywood Studios' park icon, the Chinese Theatre (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 15Mickey's Toontown
(pictured in 2010) (from Disneyland)
Image 16Main Street, U.S.A.
(2010) (from Disneyland)
Image 17Jeffrey Katzenberg was chairman of the Walt Disney Studios from 1984 to 1995. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 18A Disney Cruise Line bus which takes guests to and from Terminal 8 from Orlando International Airport; as well as around Walt Disney World. (from Disney Cruise Line)
Image 19Disney family at Schiphol Airport (1951) (from Walt Disney)
Image 20Excerpt of Steamboat Willie (1928), the first Mickey Mouse sound cartoon. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 21Frontierland
(Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in 2008) (from Disneyland)
Image 22Adventureland entrance
(2006) (from Disneyland)
Image 23Characters from Alice in Wonderland host "Disneyland Musical Chairs" at Coca-Cola Refreshment Corner, accompanied by a ragtime pianist in 2005. (from Disneyland)
Image 24Disneyland fireworks from Sleeping Beauty Castle (from Disneyland)
Image 25Walt, Florida Governor W. Haydon Burns, and Roy announcing the plans for Disney World in November 1965 (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 26Disney (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)
Image 27Grave of Walt Disney at Forest Lawn, Glendale (from Walt Disney)
Image 28Overlay 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 29Team 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 30The 1996 version of The Walt Disney World logo (from Walt Disney World)
Image 31A portrait of Disney with cartoon representations of different nationalities on a 6-cent U.S. postage stamp, 1968 (from Walt Disney)
Image 32Walt (center) showing the plans of Disneyland to officials from Orange County in December 1954 (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 33Monorail Red travels over the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage in Tomorrowland in 2008. (from Disneyland)
Image 34Walt 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 35Tomorrowland
(Space Mountain in 2010) (from Disneyland)
Image 36The "Happiest Homecoming on Earth" celebrated the 50th anniversary of the theme park. Sleeping Beauty Castle was altered for the occasion. (from Disneyland)
Image 37Disney shows the plans of Disneyland to officials from Orange County in December 1954 (from Walt Disney)
Image 38One of four arches welcoming guests to the resort (from Walt Disney World)
Image 39Disneyland aerial view, 1963, which includes the new Melody Land Theater at the top of the photo (from Disneyland)
Image 40New Orleans Square
(the Haunted Mansion in the background and Fantasmic! viewing area in the foreground in 2010) (from Disneyland)
Image 41Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge
(Star Wars: Millennium Falcon – Smugglers Run in 2019) (from Disneyland)
Image 42Disneyland Railroad Engine 2 at the New Orleans Square station. (from Disneyland)
Image 43The original animation building at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California, which they fully moved into in 1940 (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 44Disney'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 45View of Disney Springs (from Walt Disney World)
Image 46One of Disney's first animated characters Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, which Disney lost the rights to in 2006. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 47Walt Disney introduces each of the seven dwarfs in a scene from the original 1937 Snow White theatrical trailer (from Walt Disney)
Image 48Main Street at Disneyland, as seen from a horseless carriage (from Disneyland)
Image 49Michael Eisner replaced Ron Miller as CEO. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 50Disney security vehicle, picture taken July 2, 2009 in front of Epcot (from Walt Disney World)
Image 51Disney bought The Muppets from the Jim Henson Company in 2004. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 52The Sherman Brothers in 2002. They composed many Disney songs in the 1960s. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 53Wedding Pavilion at the Seven Seas Lagoon (from Walt Disney World)
Image 54Bob Iger became CEO of Disney in 2005, expanding the company's properties (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 55Walt Disney (center) showing Orange County officials plans for Disneyland's layout, December 1954 (from Disneyland)
Image 56Roy E. Disney, Roy O. Disney's son, was head of the animation department until 2003. (from The Walt Disney Company)
Image 57Disney drawing Goofy for a group of girls in Argentina, 1941 (from Walt Disney)
Image 58Walt Disney's business envelope featured a self-portrait, c. 1921 (from Walt Disney)
Image 59Disney's childhood home (from Walt Disney)
Image 60Fantasmic! finale on July 4, 2010 (from Disneyland)

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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 John Oliver dared Disney to sue him over his version of Mickey Mouse?
... that the ferry General Joe Potter at Walt Disney World is named in honor of Major General William Everett Potter?
... 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 Disney once created a political advertisement for Dwight D. Eisenhower (featured)?

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Who me? Oh, no! I've got a belly ache!

— Donald Duck, The Wise Little Hen (1934)

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More Did you know...

...that Go.com partnered with Goto.com in 2001, even though a judge had ordered Go.com to pay Goto.com $21.5 million earlier for having a similar logo?

...that it took 16 years for the pilot episode of Phineas and Ferb to be picked up?

...that Mikey Blumberg's singing was voiced by Robert Goulet, who has starred in Rose-Marie and released more than 15 albums.
...that Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest set several records in its first three days, with an opening weekend of $136 million.
... 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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