Darien Morrisseau

Son of a Canadian father and mother. Grew up on an uncle’s farm near Marceline, Missouri. Loved growing up on the farm and he used many of the farm animals in his animated cartoons. At the time of his death in 1966, Disney made 21 full-length animated films, 493 short subjects, 47 live-action features, 7 True-Life Adventure features, 330 hours of Mickey Mouse Club T.V. shows, 78 half-hour Zorro T.V. adventures, and 280 other T.V. shows.

Walt Disney Productions estimated that around the world, 240,000,000 people saw a Disney movie, 10,000,000 watched a Disney T.V. show weekly, 800,000,000 read a Disney book or magazine, 50,000,000 responded to Disney music or records, and 6.7 million visited Disneyland in Anaheim, California. Disney’s many accomplishments earned him numerous awards. In 1932 he received an honorary Oscar for the creation of Mickey Mouse. In 1964 President Lyndon Johnson presented Disney with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Disneyland opened on July 18, 1955 in Anaheim, California and featured rides based on Disney film characters and settings. On the day of the park opening, Disney said that “Disneyland will never be completed, as long as there is imagination left in the world.” In 1971, after Disney’s death, his second planned theme park, Disney World opened near Orlando, Florida. Disney also dreamed of developing a city of the future, therefore EPCOT opened, which stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. EPCOT cost an initial 900 million dollars, and is supposed to appeal more to adults than to children.

His first early successful creation was Mickey Mouse, who debuted in his first cartoon, Steamboat Willie, with Disney as the voice of the mouse. For years Disney feared that he would go down in history as the man who had created Mickey Mouse. Started his own studio in Hollywood, California with the “Alice in Cartoonland” series, which he sold to local theaters. In 1932 he developed the first cartoon to be made in full color, Flowers and Trees. The world’s first full-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, appeared in 1937.