Walt Disney's Conceptual Creativity
In 1928, Walt Disney's fledgling animation studio lost most of its staff to a rival company, his two latest cartoons had not found a buyer, and he had had to sell his car to meet payroll. Disney's innovative response changed his industry, and American popular culture.
All animated cartoons had previously been silent. But in 1927 The Jazz Singer had begun the sound era in movies, and Disney decided to do the same for cartoons, ignoring the objections of his animators that audiences would not expect drawings to talk or sing. Adding music as well as speech posed a technical problem: "Damn it, I know how fast film goes, but how fast does music go?" Disney delegated this to a director whose mother was a music teacher, and the director used a metronome to determine the ratio of animation frames to beats of music. The director understood that lacking any musical background, Disney simply assumed the problem could be solved: "He was not a person to recognize any limitation as to what could be done."
When Steamboat Willie premiered in 1928 - the first synchronized-sound animated cartoon - it was an instant hit, and overnight made silent animation obsolete. It also introduced Mickey Mouse, who would become the most important cartoon character ever created, and the foundation of the Disney commercial empire.
Steamboat Willie was a prime example of Walt Disney's conceptual approach to innovation: he would formulate a new idea by combining elements that had previously been unrelated, then find others who could execute it if he himself lacked the necessary ability. Walt's brother Roy, his business partner who was in charge of finances, once complained to his parents that "Walt always strives for something that has not been done before. That sort of policy, of course, is always costly." But Walt went ahead with a series of innovations that Roy opposed on grounds of cost, by adding color to animated cartoons, and making feature-length cartoons.
Walt was 27 when Steamboat Willie was released. Twenty years later, he began planning a project he called Mickey Mouse Park, which was soon changed to Disneyland. Roy was unable to convince Walt that an amusement park would be a financial disaster, and Walt incorporated an independent organization to pursue his goal of creating a place that not only children, but the whole family could enjoy. He did meticulous and painstaking research, visiting state and county fairs, circuses, carnivals, and national parks, measuring walkways, and watching how people moved from one attraction to another. What he wanted to create was not an amusement park of unrelated rides and shows, but a new construct that would comprise integrated parts, the first theme park. He imagined it as "a place for people to find happiness and knowledge... dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America."
When Disneyland opened in 1955, a New York Times editorial judged that "Mr. Disney has tastefully combined some of the pleasantest things of yesterday with the fantasy and dreams of tomorrow." Disney had created a true theme park, that brought financial success for his company as it created a new industry, and quickly became one of the greatest tourist attractions in the United States. Disney loved to call Disneyland the happiest place on earth.
Walt Disney was a conceptual innovator, who achieved success in "the most controlled of motion-picture mediums. The animator draws his own character, makes them move...Total control." An amusement park was not subject to the same degree of control, but Disney devoted extensive research and planning to achieving order and harmony. Steven Watts contended that throughout his career, "Walt's insistence on always moving into new creative territory made Disney's work consistently interesting and often challenging." But what remained constant in all the forms he touched was his goal of presenting his dream of the way the world ought to be. As a biographer put it, "He had Platonic templates in his head."
