Walt Disney and The Disneyland Corporate Roller Coaster Ride

The Walt Disney Company, along with its many subsidiaries, is the second largest media conglomerate in the world. It is divided up into four business segments which include Media Networks, Parks and Resorts, Studio Entertainment, and Consumer Products.

The genius behind the magic was of course, Walt Disney himself, who arrived in California in 1923 with nothing more than a naïve, but genuine belief in following one's dreams. While in Kansas City, he had created a cartoon he called "Alice in Wonderland" which he believed could be a successful pilot film that he could sell to a distributor. It wasn't long after Disney's arrival in California that he became successful with Alice in Wonderland. A New York distributor by the name of M.J. Winkler contracted to distribute copies of Alice in Wonderland on October 16, 1923. This became the official date of the start of the Disney Company.

In 1925, Disney came up with the idea for a cartoon mouse. He mentioned that mice had always intrigued him. In fact, he spoke of catching them in the waste basket when he worked at the Kansas City Slide, a small company that sold ads that appeared in motion picture theaters before the start of a movie. He kept the mice in a cage, as pets, and he enjoyed watching their antics.

While returning on a train from New York, Disney sketched some drawings of mice. He came up with a character he had named Mortimer Mouse. A Disney painter, and future secretary, Lillian Bonds, said she didn't like the name and recommended that the character be named Mickey Mouse.

In 1928, Disney directed the first Mickey Mouse cartoon called Plane Crazy. He also directed Steam Boat Willie, the first talking cartoon with a soundtrack, which was released in 1928 in New York, making Mickey Mouse a household name and launching Disney Studios into mainstream American culture. Disney went on to direct Disney's first feature film Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs in 1937. Disney became a publicly traded company in 1940.