Walter Elias Disney was an American animator, film producer, and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film producer, he holds the record for most Academy Awards earned and nominations by an individual. He was presented with two Golden Globe Special Achievement Awards and an Emmy Award, among other honors. Several of his films are included in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress and have also been named as some of the greatest films ever by the American Film Institute.
Ubbe Ert Iwwerks, known as Ub Iwerks, was an American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, and special effects technician, known for his work with Walt Disney Animation Studios in general, and for having worked on the development of the design of the character of Mickey Mouse, among others. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Iwerks grew up with a contentious relationship with his father, who abandoned him as a child. Iwerks met fellow artist Walt Disney while working at a Kansas City art studio in 1919. After briefly working as illustrators for a local newspaper company, Disney and Iwerks ventured into animation together. Iwerks joined Disney as chief animator on the Laugh-O-Gram shorts series beginning in 1922, but a studio bankruptcy would cause Disney to relocate to Los Angeles in 1923. In the new studio, Iwerks continued to work with Disney on the Alice Comedies as well as the creation of the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit character. Following the first Oswald short, both Universal Pictures and the Winkler Pictures production company insisted that the Oswald character be redesigned. At the insistence of Disney, Iwerks designed a number of new characters for the studio, including designs that would be used for Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar.
The Alice Comedies are a series of animated/live-action shorts created by Walt Disney in the 1920s, in which a live action little girl named Alice and an animated cat named Julius have adventures in an animated landscape.
The golden age of American animation was a period in the history of U.S. animation that began with the popularization of sound cartoons in 1928 and gradually ended from 1957 to 1969, where theatrical animated shorts began losing popularity to the newer medium of television animation since in 1957, produced on cheaper budgets and in a more limited animation style by companies such as Terrytoons, UPA, Paramount Cartoon Studios, Jay Ward Productions, Hanna-Barbera, DePatie-Freleng, Rankin/Bass and Filmation. In artefact, the history of animation became very important in the United States.
Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising were an American animation team and company known for founding the Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation studios. In 1929, the studio was founded under the name "Harman-Ising Productions", producing Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies for Leon Schlesinger from 1930 to 1933. From 1934 to 1938, Harman-Ising produced the Happy Harmonies series, with William Hanna as their employee.
Donald Gets Drafted is a 1942 American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The cartoon has Donald Duck being drafted into the U. S. Army during World War II and follows his introduction to military life. The film was directed by Jack King and introduced the song "The Army's Not the Army Anymore" by Carl Barks and Leigh Harline. The voice cast includes Clarence Nash as Donald, John McLeish as an officer, and Billy Bletcher as Pete who is Donald's drill sergeant.
Margaret J. Winkler Mintz was a key figure in silent animation history, having a crucial role to play in the histories of Max and Dave Fleischer, Pat Sullivan, Otto Messmer, and Walt Disney. She was the first woman to produce and distribute animated films. Winkler was the subject of a feature film Walt Before Mickey.
Alice in Wonderland is a 1951 American animated musical fantasy comedy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. It is based on Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass. The production was supervised by Ben Sharpsteen, and was directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske. With the voices of Kathryn Beaumont, Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn, Sterling Holloway, Jerry Colonna, Verna Felton, J. Pat O'Malley, Bill Thompson, and Heather Angel, the film follows a young girl Alice who falls down a rabbit hole to enter a nonsensical world Wonderland that is ruled by the Queen of Hearts, while encountering strange creatures, including the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat.
The Laugh-O-Gram Studio was an animation studio located on the second floor of the McConahay Building at 1127 East 31st in Kansas City, Missouri, that operated from June 28, 1921, to October 16, 1923.
Walt Disney Animation Studios (WDAS), sometimes shortened to Disney Animation, is an American animation studio that creates animated features and short films for The Walt Disney Company. The studio's current production logo features a scene from its first synchronized sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie (1928). Founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt and Roy O. Disney, it is the oldest-running animation studio in the world. It is currently organized as a division of Walt Disney Studios and is headquartered at the Roy E. Disney Animation Building at the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, California. Since its foundation, the studio has produced 62 feature films, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) to Wish (2023), and hundreds of short films.
Charles Bear Mintz was an American film producer and distributor who assumed control over Margaret J. Winkler's Winkler Pictures after marrying her in 1924. The couple had two children, Katherine and William. Between 1925 and 1939, Mintz produced over 370 cartoon shorts.
Aesop's Fables is a series of animated short subjects, created by American cartoonist Paul Terry. Produced from 1921 to 1933, the series includes Closer than a Brother (1925), The Window Washers (1925), Small Town Sheriff (1927), Dinner Time (1928), and Gypped in Egypt (1930). Dinner Time is the first cartoon with a synchronized soundtrack ever released to the public. The series provided inspiration to Walt Disney to found the Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, Missouri, where he created Mickey Mouse.
Thru the Mirror is a 1936 American animated short film directed by David Hand from a story by William Cottrell and Joe Grant. In this cartoon short, Mickey Mouse has a Through the Looking-Glass-parody-like dream that he travels through his mirror and enters a topsy-turvy world where everything is alive. While there, he engages in a Fred Astaire dance number with a pair of gloves and a pack of cards, until the cards chase him out of the bizarre world. Produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by United Artists, it was the 83rd Mickey Mouse short film to be released, the fourth of that year.
The Mad Doctor is a Mickey Mouse cartoon released in 1933. It is known as the first appearance of the title character "The Mad Doctor", or "Dr. XXX". It was the 52nd Mickey Mouse short film, and the second of that year.
Alice's Wonderland is a 1923 Walt Disney short silent film, produced in Kansas City, Missouri by Laugh-O-Gram Studio. The black-and-white short was the first in a series of Walt Disney's famous Alice Comedies and had a working title of Alice in Slumberland. The film was never shown theatrically, but was instead shown to prospective film distributors.
The second wave of Walt Disney Treasures was released December 3, 2002. This was the final wave with the tin's individual number embossed on the tin.
Fiddlin’ Around is a 1930 animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by Columbia Pictures as part of the Mickey Mouse film series. It was the sixteenth Mickey Mouse short to be produced, the first of that year.
Julius the Cat is a cartoon animal character created in 1922 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. He first appeared in the very first animated series created by Walt Disney, the Alice Comedies, making him the predecessor of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Mickey Mouse. Julius is an anthropomorphic cat, appearing intentionally similar to Felix the Cat. A bold and inventive hero, he gradually became the primary focus of the Alice Comedies, to the point Disney abandoned live action for pure animation on subsequent projects.
Events in 1912 in animation.
