The Disney imagination

"On a site bigger than Manchester, a spread of swamp and woodland eighty times the size of Hyde Park, they’re building a fantasy for £125 million.  This is the house the Mouse built.  The two million pound centerpiece of the Walt Disney World, the biggest thing to hit Florida since Sunshine. Cinderella’s castle, a fiberglass inspiration that looks real from any distance, should this be your idea of reality.  On October 1 Mickey Mouse, aged 43, opens his billion dollar business here, an improbable dream of Disney imagineers, to cater for 10,000 visitors an hour, fifty thousand a day, ten million a year, and so solve many Americans’ worries about expanding leisure time, and surplus cash."
Alan Whicker, Pixie Dust on Goody-Goody Land, 1971

It’s amazing, the impact that that three little circles can make on the world.  From one humble little sketch of a mouse, Walt Disney and his legacy have charmed and delighted people for eight decades.  Surely some of the twentieth century's most enduring creations, Walt's animated heroes have seen him go down in history as the man who brought magic, wonder and laughter to so many children.  I was one of the millions who was brought up with Disney, and remember fondly the hours of joy given to me by those famous cartoons.  Now at 30-years-old, the innocence may have faded, but a definite place still remains for the myriad characters of all shapes and sizes that comprise the Disney repertoire.  Recently, a long-held childhood dream was realised as, 20 years late, we finally took a trip to Disneyland.  The Paris version, obviously.

Walt Disney and his creations on the cover of Life Magazine

Mickey Mouse (The Mouse) was born in 1928, Walt Disney’s replacement for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character Disney lost in a 1927 dispute with film producer and distributor Charles Mintz.  Legend goes that, whilst drawing up new character ideas that included a cow, a horse, and even a frog, Walt Disney observed a tame mouse at his desk.  What followed was Mortimer Mouse, soon re-Christened Mickey Mouse.  Mickey was first piloted in the test screening of Plane Crazy on 15 May 1928; this was followed by The Gallopin’ Gaucho, but neither film was released due to low interest and a lack of a distributor.  Disney remained persistent and, on 18 November 1928, a third film was released - Steamboat Willie.  Disney’s use of sound in animation was a new technique, stealing a lead on other animators, to the delight of audiences.  Plane Crazy and The Gallopin’ Gaucho were both re-released in sound, and by the end of the 1920s, Mickey had become a household name.

Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie

The Mouse continued in his refinement into the 1930s, becoming a role model for children.  This Cinderella status made it difficult to write material for Mickey, as the jokes and situations he could be involved in were limited.  Thus, in 1933, an angry little duck entered the fray.  A tempestuous powder-keg, Donald Duck blew open the confines of Mickey’s idyllic little world.  It has been said that Walt Disney based the character on all the people he didn’t like, and Donald definitely offers a truer representation of humanity than his mouse companion.  Disney would get mileage out of Donald’s wild mood swings; a classic storyline would see Donald start off in a jovial mood, before something – anything – would spoil his day.  The weather.  Some chipmunks.  A dripping tap.  To Donald, Disney dealt the blows of life that somehow always passed over the head of ever-optimistic Mickey.  You find yourself naturally sympathising with Donald – you share in his plight, you understand his frustrations, and you admire his often-spiteful actions.  He is a genius creation by a genius animator.

Donald Duck

There’s obviously a lot more to the Disney franchise than Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, but were it not for these two characters, there would almost certainly be no Disneyland to speak of today.  Off the back of the Mouse and Duck combo, and having won an exclusive contract with Technicolor to produce cartoons in colour, Walt Disney Productions Limited broke even more new ground, with a feature film, three-years-in-the-making, called Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).  By 1939 it was the highest-grossing film of all time, and the profits generated paid for a new 51-acre studio complex in Burbank, California.  Countless classics followed through the decades – Pinocchio (1940,) Cinderella (1950,) Peter Pan (1953,) Sleeping Beauty (1959,) The Sword in the Stone (1963,) The Jungle Book (1967,) Robin Hood (1973,) The Little Mermaid (1989,) Beauty and the Beast (1992,) to name but a few of the many feature films produced in the next 76 years.  Not a bad legacy for a paper boy son of a farmer, and not a bad return for drawing those three little circles.

Most of Disney's films put a new spin on classic works of literature, such as Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book

All of which brings us to the outskirts of Paris in 2015, where a wander down Main Street USA infects you with the charm and innocence of that earlier age.  Main Street is billed in the visitor leaflet as a typical American street at the turn of the 20th century. I don't think anybody actually believes that, but nonetheless it has been brilliantly done, with well-maintained topiary, pastel-washed shop fronts, and a charming, old-fashioned, wholesome, idealised façade that is just Disney through-and-through.  The clean-cut image is superbly preserved here - everything is in the appropriate place, and there's not a hint of litter in sight.  Then there's the music, vintage family favourites wafting through the air from well-disguised speakers.  It's an experience that fills the visitor with a sense of childlike joy, for if you can genuinely believe that this artificial construct, built in 1994, is for real, then you'll get a lot more out of your visit.  And why not indulge yourself in this little piece of imagination?  Guests of all nationalities, and all ages, lap it up, and judging by the number of Minnie Mouse ears being worn by folk in their 30s, it certainly seems like an appropriate place to submerse yourself in fantasy.  

Main Street USA, Disneyland Paris

"A typical American street at the turn of the 20th century"

The reason for all of this is clear; Walt Disney, through his cartoons and feature films, strikes a chord with people across the globe.  As a child you are lassoed into his world, and what is fostered is a fondness that, for many people, continues into adulthood.  It may be the world's best marketing strategy, but cynicism doesn't seem to count within the bounds of Disneyland, and why should it?  Where else in this day-and-age can you really forget the world and all its problems?  To me, this is key to Disney's success, be it in a park or on the screen - it is escapism at its best, and that's appealing whether you're aged five or one hundred and five.  As the great animator himself penned: "Laughter is timeless, imagination has no age, and dreams are forever."