Disney
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"We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make a statement. To make money is our only objective."
- – Michael Eisner, former CEO of Disney and Avatar of Capitalism
"Now, look at it! Gaze upon my empire of joy! "
- – Walt Disney, Epic Rap Battles of History
What Geedubs aspires to be.
The Walt Disney Company, also known as Disney, The Mouse, or The Empire of the Belligerent Rat, is an ancient juggernaut of a company made in ages past, and therefore is completely out of touch and sees everyone as walking piles of cash. They started out as an animated film company and went from there.
Chances are you’ve heard of them and so has /tg/, mainly because some franchises we like have been bought up by the greedy motherfuckers over the years. Mainly Star Wars.
History
Once upon a time, there was a man from the magical land of Chicago named Walter who liked to draw, and so he got into the new film industry in the roaring 20s making short animated films. He was a decent artist who soon got a firm grip on animation, but he was a better businessman who especially understood the importance of iconography, image and self promotion. He gathered talented people, cultivated their skills and methods and pushed the envelope with Steamboat Willie, the first animated short with sound. By the 1930s Disney had become a household name with a large number of popular shorts and eventually releasing Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs first feature length animated film in 1937, which he followed up with Pinocchio in '40 and more afterwards. During World War II he got a lot of money from the US Government making Propaganda and afterwards, Disney was swimming in money like a Cartoon Duck. He had a vast studio with an entrenched niche, a brand known around the world, the cash to pursue big prestige projects like massive theme parks and became an icon of American Success. He was also a hard-driving union-busting sexist jerk who smoked himself to death and also (unintentionally) helped pidgeon-hole animation as being something "For Kids".
Even so, things were not going so well for the Disney Corporation in the third quarter of the 20th century. After Walt got a taste of building theme parks, he fell for utopianism. Believing that he could make a better city, he and a small group of like-minded yes-men became increasingly distracted with their pet project of buying up large swaths of Florida to make a glorious worker's paradise (except not like that one) known as EPCOT.
As a result, the company wasn't paying attention to trends. They missed the bus on television, leaving fertile ground for lower cost, faster turnaround studios like Hanna-Barbera and a resurgent Warner Bros. What they lacked in quality they made up for in quantity (especially Hanna-Barbarra, who worked out how to use layered frames to animate a character's arm or head instead of having to redraw the character from scratch for each frame), shutting Disney out of the children's television market for decades as producers discovered that cartoons were WAAAAAY more profitable if you treated them as 20 minute toy advertisements. They repackaged some of their old shorts for broadcast but there were only so many of those to go around and the trickle of new ones dried up as animated shorts died off in the early 60s. The pace of new Disney feature films dropped to one every few years, with lower cost live action family films filling in the void.
Walt's death brought an INSTANT end to the envisioned EPCOT project, and what followed was essentially a lost decade of cost cutting and rummaging through Walt's notes for half baked ideas to keep the company going through the 70's. Tired of this creatively bankrupt environment, Don Bluth and several other key animators prominently quit to form their own studio and went on to dominate children's movies in the early 80's. The absolute low point of Disney's dark age came with the aptly named "The Black Hole" and "The Black Cauldron", neither of which will ever see a remake (god forbid anyway). Their idea pipe was empty; they'd been reduced to own-brand ripoffs of Star Wars and Tolkien, both of which plowed in harder than Porkins.
This would not stand. Tired of watching the company simultaneously sink and burn, the board brought on Michael Eisner from rival Paramount to straighten things out. The first decade of his tenure was a string of successes. Disney's animation department entered its renaissance, and began a partnership with Pixar. The cold war ended and a booming 90's economy juiced park sales. Understanding that they couldn't ignore TV, Disney bought ABC and began building it's own cable TV Channel. But like General Lee in the Civil War, Eisner would have his Gettysburg, a mistake that would break him forever... and it was Disney Paris.
Disney Paris almost destroyed Disney. Had it been attempted later in the 90's, with more debt, it WOULD have bankrupted the company. The park was a gamble; it was too big to fail... and it failed. It would be years before it turned a profit. It caused every park under construction to grind to a halt. Projects too far along to be cancelled outright had to be severely cut back, while potentially more lucrative long term projects like Disney Regional Entertainment (which planned to go after Dave & Busters and Chuck'e'Cheese) died. Eisner, previously a bold thinking risktaker, became a defensive, embattled CEO firing anyone who looked like a threat to his position; this brought an end to their animation renaissance as Jeffery Katzenberg was kicked out only to go found Dreamworks (FYI, the midget prince and his perfect city in Shrek is a brazen jab at Eisner).
After Disney Paris, the company shifted to a model of growth through acquisitions that turned them into the Borg we know today. They bought Pixar. Then they bought the Jim Henson Company. Marvel. Lucasfilm. FOX. If there is a profitable set of Intellectual Properties that fits a niche in the current media environment, they'll be there to snarf it up. And as is the case with many media empires, many of these franchises have turned into shells of their former selves; some even to the extent of becoming near-dead franchises.
The issue with Disney is essentially the Lorraine Williams problem scaled up to Epic levels of money. While Walt was alive, his focus on quality and creativity reigned. But the Disney of today is in some ways reflective of the greater malaise of the western media in general; the sense that the best stories have already been told, that there's nothing new or compelling to do. Disney has even gone on to cannibalize its own properties, first by making low-budget sequels of the Classic and Renaissance era films for the direct-to-video market, and then doing it again decades later with live-action remakes. As of 2022, Disney appears to be returning to the post-Walt era of releasing an increasing number of forgettable films than culturally relevant successes, leaning heavily on brand familiarity with Marvel and Star Wars over its own in-house properties.
/tg/ Relevance
For better or worse Disney has been one of the biggest forces in pop culture period for nearly a century. Part of this is that it worms it's way into kid's childhoods and laying the foundation for sales down the line. A Seven Year Old who saw Snow White in '37 would grow up to have kids who'd they take to see Sleeping Beauty in 59 to try to share some of that nostalgic magic, who'd in turn take their kids to see The Little Mermaid in 89, who took their kids to see Moana in 2016. A lot of their most Iconic work is Fantasy and bits and pieces of imagery has wormed it's way out and into other works. If not lifted outright, than responded against. See Princesses, Disney did not invent the idea of a young woman who's a monarch's daughter as being a plot element in stories but you'd be hard pressed to find a depiction of someone who holds that title in fiction nowadays which does follow the template or deliberately breaks the mold that the Mouse made.
Disney is big on IP management. It has its roster and with a few exceptions that it likes to keep buried for being bad or (ahem) Problematic (coughsongofthesouthcough) it tries to keep them in the Zeitgeist so they'd keep up a trickle of cash for years to come. In the 2010s there was a set of Live Action remakes or accompaniments to old Animated classics to cash in on nostalgia and remind the public that, yes, The Lion King still exists. It preserves this by lobbying the US government to push back copyright expiration as far as it can go. The GW guys may use these laws to get their way but Disney has the money and reach to shape them to suit it's will.
In particular, a 2010s acquisition spree led to Disney owning both Marvel Comics and Star Wars, both significant /tg/ adjacent-and-related properties, means we'll probably be talking about Disney owned properties for decades. Tolkien specifically wrote that he did not want the Walt Disney Company to adapt his work for film, probably because of major alterations done to the original work in various adaptions by them in his lifetime. Unfortunately for him, another monolithic corporation took his work, but that's another story.
Disney Stuff that might be /tg/ relevant
In their heyday, Disney created a score of fantastical worlds for their animated films and TV series, as well as their comic adapations thereof, and some of these, especially the fantasy based stuff, may well be worth mining for world-building ideas.
The Mouse & Duck Verses: The oldest and in many ways most famous are the Mouse & Duck Verses, derived from the two cornerstones of Disney's OG properties; Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. These iterations are more notable for their comic basis than their cartoons; whilst the comics largely faded into obscurity in America after the 60s, they have thrived in Europe for decades, with different nations building up vast libraries of stories and creating their own distinct sub-universes. Whilst Mickey was heavily watered down into a milquetoast generic nice guy in the 50s, originally, the Mouse was actually something of a little scrapper - not a screwball trickster like his rival Bugs Bunny over at Warner Brothers, but actually an adventurous badass. He was often a detective or a freelance crime fighter, battling not only his long-time nemesis Pete (originally a hulking peg-legged cat crime boss), but also the master criminal and mad scientist "The Phantom Blot". Donald Duck, meanwhile, got his own series of badass adventures, and also spawned one of the most iconic Disney family members in Scrooge McDuck; Donald's ancient, fantastically rich adventure-loving granduncle. There's a reason why Glorantha created the Durulz in homage to the Donald Duck comics! The reason these are treated as separate universes is because, well, continuity gets a little screwy... see, whilst Donald is usually portrayed as an in-universe character in the Mickey Mouse comics, many Donald Duck comics present Mickey as a purely fictional character, especially in the stories written by Carl Barks and his ascended fanboy Don Rosa, which many consider to be the defining backbone of the Duckverse comic continuity. These stories can be surprisingly useful inspiration for more urban fantasy/sci-fi/real life adventuring inspired worldbuilding, since Mickey or Donald going on crazy adventures is literally half the point of them.
Ducktales: The foundation of the "Disney Afternoon" series of cartoons in the late 80s and early 90s, Ducktales was an animated series inspired by the Donald Duck & Scrooge McDuck comics of the 50s, centering on Scrooge himself and his three nephews, casting him as an eccentric adventurer-entrepreneur (Teddy Roosevelt meets Herbert Hoover) who's out of his element with children. Whilst it does tone Scrooge's flaws down a fair bit, it's still worth checking out for being more overtly "alien", whereas the comics they were based on were literally just "Earth with cartoon animal people instead of humans". Received a 2017 remake which, remarkably for a post-2010s remake, is widely considered to not only be not be a piece of shit but actually pretty decent.
Darkwing Duck: A spin-off to a spin-off, Darkwing Duck exists in the same Duckverse sub-universe as the OG Ducktales. An action-comedy series spoofing superheroes, it revolves around the misadventures of the titular superhero, a costumed crimefighter in the vein of Batman defined by his massive ego - though he can kick a surprising amount of ass when he pulls his head out of his ass and gets serious. Pretty solid inspiration for a supers setting, especially if you want to go more Silver Age or Cartoon Supers style.
(Movie): The Animated Series: In the late 80s through the early 2000s, Disney decided that not only was it a good idea to try and cash in on their big animated film successes with direct-to-video sequels, but for the best to get full-fledged animated cartoon spin-offs. Exactly how good were these? Well, your mileage is gonna vary. The Little Mermaid TAS was a prequel series set before the events of the movie, and fleshed out Atlantis and its surroundings with a weird, magical feel that might actually be of interest if you want to try and do something with your underwater fantasy world. The Hercules TAS was an interquel to the movie itself, being set during Hercules' teenage years under his training with the satyr Phil and his misadventures at a high school full of famous Greek mortals... this one is probably the weakest and most easily skipped, but you might at least get some laughs out of it. Tarzan TAS was a sequel to the Disney Tarzan film, and it focused on Tarzan's continued adventures with his new lover in the jungles of Africa - great stuff if you want some of that old-timey pulp jungle adventure. Then there's Aladdin TAS... a sequel to the direct-to-video movie sequel "Return of Jafar" and prequel to the final DTV movie "Aladdin and the King of Thieves", this is... actually a pretty awesome series, all things considered. With crazy monsters, fantastical lands and entertaining villains like the teenage witch-king Mozenrath or the mad Greek artificer Mechanikles, it's not a bad idea to watch a few episodes of this before you try your hand at a game of Al-Qadim.
Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers: One of the original Disney Afternoon classics, this series revolved around the titular chipmunks being a crime-busting team with the aid of a pair of mice; the cheese-addicted big bruiser Monteray Jack and the brilliant but slightly dotty Gadget. What set this apart from, say, the Mickey Mouse comics was that the Rescue Rangers were a "Mouse World" series, taking place in a fantastical version of Earth where animals have their own secret civilization alongside humanity, especially those animals small enough to pass under human notice. So if you want to run such a campaign, it's worth checking this out. Fun fact; whilst many 80s/90s Disney cartoons are accused of fostering the birth of the furry fetish, Rescue Rangers' Gadget probably takes it to the extreme in that there is a literal cult dedicated to her worship in Russia!
Adventures of the Gummi Bears: Yes, as in the candy. It's actually not as stupid as you think. The premise is simple; in what seems to be a standard medieval fantasy type world, in the land of Dunwyn, young Calvin dreams of becoming a knight. One day, out in the forest, he stumbles into a long-hidden underground building, where he discovers that his crazy grandfather's stories of humans once sharing this land with brightly colored bearfolk are actually true; these are the Gummi Bears. Or, rather, they're the last vestiges of their people left behind after the majority fled across the sea to an unknown realm generations go. Now these six are all that remains, having all but forgotten the brilliant engineering skills and sorcery of their ancestors. Luckily, Calvin's grandfather just so happened to pass him down an amulet that unlocks the Great Book of Gummi, a tome containing all the wisdom and secrets of the ancient Gummi Bears, and giving these last vestiges a hope of reconnecting with their distant kin. The series revolves around the efforts of Calvin, his kingdom's princess Kala, and the titular Gummi Bears to safeguard their secrets from the malevolent Duke Igthorn of Drekmore and his army of ogres, who seek to use them to conquer Dunwyn. And when Igthorn isn't being a nuisance, all manner of sorcerers, monsters and weirdos tend to be getting in the way. With some surprisingly dark themes for a cartoon about off-brand Care Bears, it's not a bad little Heroic Fantasy series.
Gargoyles: An Urban Fantasy series from the 90s, and often remembered as Disney's answer to Batman: The Animated Series in terms of being the Dark Children's Cartoon of the 90s. In Iron Age Scotland, a castle-town is kept safe from marauders and raiders by their alliance with a clan of gargoyles; monstrous humanoids who are living flesh at night and lifeless stone during the day. But the humans fear and distrust their protectors, which leads to a series of betrayals that sees the gargoyle clan all but exterminated and the survivors frozen in stone by a magic spell. 1000 years later, a manipulative genius billionaire breaks the spell, just to see if he can, and the gargoyles are released to make new lives for themselves in modern day Manhattan.
Treasure Planet: The last traditionally animated film that Disney ever produced and a passion project of the two guys behind the Disney Renaissance, which turned out to be an expensive flop due partially to being released against some massive competition. Storywise it's... well, it's Treasure Island, but set in Spelljammer. Seriously, if you want to run Spelljammer, or even just a steampunk Sword & Planet, watch this movie; it's pure inspiration.
Zootopia: A police story set in a city populated by animals. If you think it's full of furries, well yeah. It also put a lot of thought about the logistics of how a society where anthropomorphic elephants, wolves, rabbits, foxes and shrews would live and work.
TRON: Literally Netrunner, in that Netrunner and virtually every other "we ARE programs in a computer" setting is inspired by TRON. Despite other franchises doing the "in a simulation" idea, the aesthetics of TRON remain the visual shorthand for what a raw computer-verse would be like. It's best to leave it at that and not dig too deeply into the actual plot and setting, which fall apart under any scrutiny; it's just an aesthetic, one which Daft Punk were really, really into.
Fun Facts
- Disney is one of the leading purchasers of explosives after the US army. Yep, the house of mouse is second only to the Department of Defense in terms of explosives purchases, though these are mostly of the firework and filmmaking variety.
- Disney Theme Parks are designed with the intent of maximizing pleasure. For example, trash cans colors and service doors are painted in a shade of color that is unnoticeable or forgettable. Disney may hate the lore of their franchises but they take their theme parks dead serious.
- Until 2022, Disney World could manage its own entire county in Florida due to legislation that was enacted there almost half a century ago, meaning that is the closest we have yet gotten to a corporate government since the East India Company in India.
- Walt Disney actually played a role in NASA's lunar program; in the 1950s, Wernher von Braun was having difficulty convincing the US Government to fund a civilian space program with the goal of eventually landing on the moon. So, he collaborated with Walt to appeal directly to the American public, by using Disney's TV access to present his proposals for space exploration and generate interest in the field. NASA was formed three years later, with Braun and his team brought on as rocket engineers.
- This only ended due to VERY stupid reasons. To sum up, Disney got in trouble when the CEO at the time decided to go full 'the gays are animals' which considering Disney has a long history of chasing them (and their wallets) resulted in a huge backlash resulting in his removal (which was probably going to happen anyway as he did a pretty shit job financially). However turns out the Florida government kinda likes the idea that the gays are animals and the previously closely connected relationship crumbled, eventually resulting in the above policy change.
- Walt Disney once considered St. Louis as a possible site for Disney world, but he eventually settled on Florida, most likely due to the year round warm weather.
- Walt Disney moved from Chicago to California to establish himself as an animator. Chicago was an early hub of film production in the early 1900s, but the weather and economy of California resulted in most people moving there, and Disney was among them.
- Disney once considered Big Idea (the guys who created VeggieTales) to be a serious competitor. Big Idea were some of the first people to master computer animated film production. Veggietales got its start in 1993, whereas Toy Story didn't come out until 1995, and a lot of Pixar's prototype animations were no better quality-wise than what Big Idea was putting out; so despite being a much smaller company making direct-to-video content, they had gotten in early on this new phase of animation and thus had an experience and market share advantage. Phil Vischer was the CEO and founder of Big Idea, and considered Walt Disney one of his biggest influences. This competition was eliminated by Big Idea being bought out by another company due to inept management and the acquisition of Pixar.