Acquired
00:29:44 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[00:29:44] S0: As Disney today is the Disney Brothers cartoon studio and a whole bunch of Kansas City guys that moved out to join Walt to start crank it away. [00:29:54] S1: Yep. And the Alice Comedy's become a moderate success in the marketplace. Again, I think the novelty of cartoons plus live animation, audiences are entertained for a few years. Ultimately, the Disney Brothers Studio produces 57 of the Alice Comedies from 1923 to 1927. And then in 1927, Winkler's relatively new husband, Charles Mintz, who actually got to start working for her in the business, by this point in time, he has taken over as sort of head of the business. He is no longer getting along with Pat Sullivan, the creator of Felix the Cat. Big opportunity. Big opportunity. And and he has brokered a little arrangement with Universal Pictures, the big New York film distributor, to on the sly create a new character to rival Felix. Now now mind you, he and Winkler are still the distributor for Felix, for Sullivan, and they're creating a new character to compete with him on the side. [00:31:02] S0: Sorta like they're building their own chips while still buying NVIDIA. Yeah. [00:31:07] S1: And so he turns around and taps Disney Says, hey, Walt. Can you make us a new series and a new character? You know, like Felix, but but not Felix. Like like, maybe not a cat. [00:31:20] S0: Right. We need it to be plausibly different while still having everything that made Felix successful.
00:31:20 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[00:31:20] S0: Right. We need it to be plausibly different while still having everything that made Felix successful. [00:31:26] S1: Yes. So Walt and Ub cast about. What can we come up with? It's like a cat, but maybe shares a lot of the same recognizable attributes, like, you know, a lot of white fur, a tail, some big ears, easy to draw in black and white. And they come up not with Mickey Mouse, but with Oswald, the lucky rabbit. And Oswald is a big hit. It's got the backing of Universal distribution behind it. That's a big hit for Universal, big hit for Winkler and Mintz, and a big hit for the Disney Brothers cartoon studio. [00:32:02] S0: And it's not surprising because if you give the creative brief to Walt and Ub, take something that's kinda working, but apply your style. Their style was great. I mean, they were emotional animators. There's a great quote in the book Walt Disney, an American original by Bob Thomas that says, before Disney, cartoons were slapdash. Yeah. Two dimensional characters in bizarre movement before elemental backgrounds. Disney insisted on rounded, humanized figures. He wanted the humor to come out of the character, not the outrageous action. So it's sort of like, hey. Here's the template, but Disneyfy it or iWorkify it [00:32:40] S1: Yeah. [00:32:41] S0: In a way that really can speak to people.
00:32:41 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[00:32:41] S0: In a way that really can speak to people. [00:32:43] S1: Well, I think it really was the partnership of the two of them. I think iWorks had, like, immense artistic talent as an animator and was able to do that, and Walt had taste. Like, he recognized it, and he knew when and where to apply it. Yep. So on the back of the Oswald success, the Disney Brothers cartoon studio grows pretty quickly from this ragtag group from Kansas City to, like, a real operation, like a real, you know, at this point, bordering on major animation studio. They hire about 25 employees and start churning out Oswald cartoons. Yep. They move into a real studio building on Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. And when they move there, Walt and Roy decide at a unclear which brothers instigation that they need to rename the company and the studio from the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio to the Walt Disney Studio. So there's two stories about this. [00:33:50] S0: I was gonna say, I've seen both. [00:33:51] S1: One is that it was actually Roy's idea. [00:33:53] S0: Yes. [00:33:54] S1: Because he's like, hey. You know, we need to start building a brand, and, like, people need to know who is making these Oswalds, and it should be the Walt Disney studio. [00:34:02] S0: And you're very clearly the front man. You know? You're selling. You're the visionary. You're the sort of creative talent, and this is a creative company. Of course, it should be you.
00:34:02 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[00:34:02] S0: And you're very clearly the front man. You know? You're selling. You're the visionary. You're the sort of creative talent, and this is a creative company. Of course, it should be you. [00:34:09] S1: Yep. The other story is that Walt's always had a dream since he got to Hollywood of having his name up on a neon sign. Now that they have their own real studio, he wants a neon sign constructed that says the Walt Disney Studio, which I think does happen. [00:34:26] S0: Yes. We'll put the photo in the email. The Hyperion Avenue Studio has this really cool sign or did for a long time before it got knocked down, and I think [00:34:34] S1: it's a script mall or something today. And in that vein, now that the studio has become a real operation, Walt moves from actually doing a lot of the animation and camera work mostly to overseeing the studio, which you have to with an operation of 25 artists and creative people and camera folks. You need someone who has an overall vision and taste to drive everything. Yep. Now as Walt is transitioning from, you know, sort of doer to [00:35:09] S0: really studio head. And worth knowing the ownership of Walt Disney Studios that would become Walt Disney Productions, that would become the Walt Disney Company, was at this point 60% owned by Walt and his wife and 40% owned by Roy and his wife.
00:35:09 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[00:35:09] S0: really studio head. And worth knowing the ownership of Walt Disney Studios that would become Walt Disney Productions, that would become the Walt Disney Company, was at this point 60% owned by Walt and his wife and 40% owned by Roy and his wife. [00:35:24] S1: Yep. So Mintz, the husband of Winkler back in New York, who has sort of already proved his stripes by his dealings with Felix the cat and Pat Sullivan, he senses another opportunity. He thinks that Walt has become superfluous and that it's actually just the animators who really matter. And because the Walt Disney studio doesn't actually own the IP of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Universal does. Although the Walt Disney studio was was acting like this was sort [00:36:02] S0: of their creation that they owned. [00:36:04] S1: Yeah. I don't think Walt, or Roy really read the fine print on the contracts here. So in early nineteen twenty eight, Walt and his wife, Lillian, who Lillian also was an early studio employee [00:36:17] S0: In the ink and paint department. [00:36:19] S1: Ink and paint department. [00:36:19] S0: That's right. We'll get to that.
00:36:19 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[00:36:19] S0: That's right. We'll get to that. [00:36:21] S1: They make a fateful trip as a couple to New York, where one of the items on the agenda is for Walt to go meet with Mintz and ask for a raise in the amount that the studio is getting paid per Oswald short. So Walt sits down with Mintz, and Mintz is like, well, I don't know about paying you more. I don't think I like that idea. In fact, I'm not even really sure, Walt, what you are doing around here any longer. But I tell you what, I'm a nice guy. I'm willing to let you and your little studio stay involved here and keep making the Oswalds, but we're gonna have to pay you less, not more. Like, $500 per cartoon [00:37:04] S0: less. Which my understanding is that basically wiped out the margin, and they were saying, we'll pay you cost to make these Oswald cartoons. [00:37:13] S1: Yeah. I think Mint had basically calculated, okay. If Walt takes this, then I'm willing to let his studio keep making it. And if he doesn't take it, then it's all equal to me. I'm just gonna steal his animators and go make it myself. [00:37:25] S0: And, crucially, before this meeting even happens [00:37:29] S1: He's already stolen the animators. [00:37:31] S0: Mintz has an ace in the hole. He has, I think, signed contracts with nearly all the animators except Ub Iwerks. Yeah. He has sort of, through an act of subterfuge, gotten in touch with each of them individually and brought them over.