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How Did Disney Get the Ideas for His Theme Parks & Characters?

Walt Disney was born December 5, 1901 and named Walter Elias Disney. Born in Chicago, Illinois to Elias and Flora Call Disney, he was their fourth child. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Marceline, Missouri where Walt Disney learned about and experienced the agrarian lifestyle. These experiences instilled in Walt a love of family, nature, love, and wildlife. With a vivid imagination, he began to draw cartoons and later, came up with his now-famous characters such as Mickey Mouse and Goofy.
  1. Life Experience

    • The stories and characters Disney chose to cartoon stemmed from his experience with the agricultural lifestyle, part of which involved nature and wildlife. Many of his now famous cartoons involved nature and the animal world. Family and community are also a very important part of countrified living and those characteristics also made it into his drawings and stories. Disney's love and appreciation for these aspects of pastoral life are vividly illustrated in his cartoons.

    Creativity

    • Walt Disney never stopped creating. Ever since his teachers noticed his aptitude for drawing with watercolors and crayons, he never stopped. Disney would often sell his drawings to his neighbors for extra money. Even after the success of Mickey Mouse, Walt did not stop creating new characters. In 1929, he created the successful "Silly Symphonies" series. Then in 1937, he created the Oscar-winning "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," a full-length cartoon that was dubbed "Disney's Folly" before its success. In 1955, he opened Disneyland, an amusement park he planned and built.

    Persistence

    • Though Disney had a fair share of setbacks, he persevered. Hollywood had called his first full-length cartoon a folly. Disney did not listen to the nay-sayers and continued with his vision and was rewarded with an Oscar. His first company "Laugh-O-Grams" went bankrupt, but that did not stop Disney. He continued moving forward by moving to Hollywood to start fresh with only $20 in his pocket. No matter what happened in his life, he remained true to his passion of creating new cartoon characters and stories.

    Love

    • All Disney's cartoons were drawn from his heart with emotion and love. Drawing cartoons was his passion. Even when he had a job driving an ambulance in France, Disney still drew whenever he could. The ambulance he drove was covered with his cartoons. No matter what happened in his life, he kept drawing and refining his characters and creating new ones. Mickey Mouse was created on a train ride home.

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