Walt Disney’s Vision

You may not know this, because he wasn’t highly vocal about his faith, but Walt Disney was raised in a Christian home, and baptized in a Congregational Church. Near the end of his life, Walt Disney wrote an essay [for the book Faith is a Star] in which he credited his faith and his lifelong practice of prayer for his success in bringing clean, informative entertainment to people of all ages. And his faith likely explains why many of the themes in the Disney movies of his era reflect Biblical values.

You also may not know that Walt Disney was a brilliant inventor and innovator. He pioneered many of the filmmaking techniques that are commonly used today. For example, in 1928, he created Steamboat Willie, which was the first animated cartoon with the music, dialogue, and sound effects all recorded in synch with the animation. Prior to that, cartoons were silent. In 1940, he invented a camera which could simultaneously record multiple planes of animation, with a foreground, and a middle, and a background, giving films like Pinocchio and Bambi a depth and realism never before seen in cartoons. For that, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Disney was also the first to combine animation and live action, in the Alice Comedies. He invented audio-animatronics, those lifelike robotic figures which move, and gesture, and talk, like Abraham Lincoln in the Hall of Presidents. And he invented mass merchandising of his characters, selling millions of Davy Crocket coonskin caps in the 1950’s, and putting pictures of Mickey Mouse on everything from lunch boxes to wristwatches.

The list goes on and on. All of these are things we now take for granted. But what we forget is that at the time, many people dismissed these innovations as doomed to failure. The classic movie Snow White, for example, the first full-length cartoon ever made, was called “Disney’s Folly” by skeptics. It was expensive, and it went massively over budget. But it became a huge success, and funded much of what came later. However, Disney’s greatest vision, and his greatest gamble, was DisneyLand. Walt had noticed that at public parks, parents and children rarely enjoyed the attractions together. And he wanted to create a clean, wholesome environment where they could do that, a place that was different from the dirty and seedy carnivals which were common at the time. A place where all the members of the family, young and old, parent and child, would be delighted.

But when Walt tried to get financing for his project, it was rejected by every single banker he talked to. Most of them thought it would be a financial disaster. Disney remarked later that, “I could never convince the financiers that Disneyland was feasible, because dreams offer too little collateral.” And so he mortgaged his own home, and used up his own savings, and even borrowed against his life insurance to get the necessary capital. And he proved to be right. In the very first year it opened, 1955, Disneyland drew 3.6 million visitors, ten thousand per day, and today there are six Disney theme parks worldwide, in California, Florida, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, drawing 140 million visitors every year. Since 1955, it is estimated that a billion people have been to a Disney theme park at least once, including 70-90% of the current U.S. population. All of this came from the mind of one man who had faith in the power of that vision, to create a magical place that families could enjoy together.

All of this is summed up in a statement from Walt Disney’s brother, Roy, which he made at the opening of Walt Disney World, in 1971. Walt had passed away five years earlier from cancer. Roy was presiding at the grand opening of the new Florida park, when one of the reporters remarked, “It’s a shame that Walt never got to see this.” But Roy Disney replied, “He did see it. That’s why it’s here.” His brother Walt had envisioned the entire resort in his mind’s eye before construction ever began. Without that vision, Walt Disney World would never have existed.