When considering Disney milestones, fans may think of moments like the premiere of Steamboat Willie in 1928, the opening of Disneyland in 1955, or even the start of the Disney Renaissance in the late ’80s with The Little Mermaid. However, perhaps the most important anniversary of them all rarely gets mentioned, even though it marks the genesis of what is now a global media empire worth $91 billion. Without this day in history, there’d be no Mickey Mouse, no theme parks, no Pixar, no Marvel, and no Disney magic as we know it.
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Over a century ago, two brothers rented a garage with the hopes of fulfilling a dream. It was October 16th, 1923, when Walt and Roy O. Disney officially founded the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in Los Feliz, California. The company’s first project was Alice’s Comedies, a series that superimposed live-action footage of a young girl over black and white cartoon animation. Little did they know that what they started on this day would become the gravitational center of 20th-century entertainment.
The Humble Beginning of the Global Disney Empire
On that fateful October day, Walt and Roy founded their company after signing a distribution deal for Alice’s Comedies with New York producer Margaret J. Winkler. The deal was based around a proof-of-concept pilot called “Alice’s Wonderland,” which was technically made under Walt’s previous Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City. Winkler was then one of the few female producers in Hollywood, and with her support, the brothers were able to expand the series. The short episodes combined live-action and animation, starring a young actress named Virginia Davis, who interacted with cartoon characters in hand-drawn worlds. The concept was groundbreaking, foreshadowing the rise of both mediums as well as hybrid techniques that we’d later see in films like Mary Poppins, Pete’s Dragon and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
The studio’s first “headquarters” was a small office in the back of a real estate agency at 4651 Kingswell Avenue. Walt drew the animations while Roy handled the finances and camera work. Walt even lived nearby, renting a room at his aunt and uncle’s house where he worked late into the night. When the first officially released Alice short, “Alice’s Day at Sea,” premiered in 1924, it was a modest success, but it gave the brothers just enough juice to move to a bigger space on Hyperion Avenue, where Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and later animated superstar Mickey Mouse would be born.
By 1929, the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio officially became The Walt Disney Studio. Within a decade, Disney would debut the first synchronized sound cartoon (Steamboat Willie), the first full-color short (Flowers and Trees), and the first full-length animated feature (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs). From that rented room in Los Feliz grew an empire of storytelling that now spans from Burbank to Shanghai, from 2D animation to all of Walt’s Oscars to the digital age of Marvel, Star Wars, and Disney+. It all started 102 years ago today, and for Disney fans, October 16th is a day worth celebrating.
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