Lessons from Walt Disney - Part 2 by John Torre

Walt Disney put his heart and soul into everything he did. He immersed himself in his studio’s projects to the point where even up till the last days of his life, he would stay long after everyone else had gone home and visit his animators’ desks to check on the day’s work and make suggestions for improvements.

He had his finger on the pulse of every component of every project his company was working on. It was this type of dedication to seeing a project through to fruition that drove Walt’s ambitions and led to the phenomenal growth of the Disney Empire. Walt even coined a phrase for it: “Stick-to-it-ivity.”

Stick-to-it-ivity

Even lying in his hospital bed the night before he died, Walt imagined a map of the “Florida project” on the ceiling above his bed and explained to his brother Roy about why they would need to construct a road that ran east-to-west through it for their customers’ convenience. Although there are countless examples like this of Walt’s practice of “Stick-to-it-ivity,” we’ll take a look at just two of them here that literally changed the world.

The first example begins when a young 18-year-old Walt, working as a commercial artist for the Kansas City Slide Company, discovered two books in the Kansas City library that altered the course of his life. One was Eadweard Muybridge’s “The Human Figure in Motion,” and the other was, “Animated Cartoons: How They Are Made, Their Origins and Development,” by Carl Lutz. After studying both books, Walt could no longer see himself drawing static cartoons that appeared for one day in a daily newspaper. Instead, he began dreaming of making drawings that lived and moved.

In the ensuing years, Walt worked on perfecting his new craft, and in May of 1922, he established a new enterprise, Laugh-O-gram Films, Inc. After some initial modest success, the new company foundered, and by July 1923, Laugh-O-gram Films filed for bankruptcy. The court allowed Walt to keep just one camera and his unfinished “Alice’s Wonderland” film, and ordered all his other assets liquidated to pay his creditors. Most people would have given up, but not Walt.

With $40 in his pocket, he boarded a train for California with the dream of becoming a motion picture director, only to be turned away by every studio in and around Los Angeles and Hollywood. Through pure persistence, and despite having no money and no studio, he got back into the cartoon business by securing a contract to produce six “Alice” comedies for movie distributor, Margaret Winkler. But a few years later, Winkler’s ruthless husband, Charles Mintz, dealt Walt a deathblow. After Walt fulfilled his contractual obligation to produce 26 Alice comedies a year, Mintz told Walt they had run their course. Mintz said he had a major studio that wanted a series starring a rabbit, however, and asked Walt to create the character. Mintz refused to tell Walt the name of the studio until all the details of the contract was set in stone. The studio turned out to be none other than Universal.

The new series, called, “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit,” was a huge success. But when Walt asked Mintz for more money per cartoon, Mintz instead offered him a pay cut saying, “take it or I’ll ruin you.” And he just about did. Mintz sent his brother-in-law, George Winkler, to the Disney studios supposedly to collect completed Oswald reels. The primary reason for his being there, however, was to hire away most of Walt’s artists. It soon became apparent to Walt that Mintz and Universal were attempting to dismantle Disney and takeover operations. The final kick in the pants came when Walt’s brother, Roy, who was as much a financial wizard as Walt was a creative genius, had an attorney look over the fine print of the contract Walt had signed with Mintz. The attorney discovered that Walt had unknowingly signed over ownership of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit to Universal Pictures.

Walt had trusted Mintz and the man robbed him blind. Consequently, Walt lost his only cartoon character and quite nearly his entire animation staff. Again, it would have been easy to cash it all in. Instead of despairing though, Walt’s propensity for “Stick-to-it-ivity” once again rose to the top. On a train ride back to New York from Los Angeles, wondering what he was going to tell Roy and pondering how he was going to replace Oswald, he remembered a little mouse that he had tamed at the Laugh-O-gram Films studio in Kansas City. Mickey, who was originally named, “Mortimer,” by Walt, but changed to, “Mickey,” at the urging of his wife, Lilly, was born on that train ride and the rest, as they say, “is history.” In a 1934 article Walt wrote for “The Windsor Magazine,” he commented on that particular time of his life:

“But was I downhearted? Not a bit! I was happy at heart. For out of the trouble and confusion stood a mocking, merry little figure. Vague and indefinite at first. But it grew and grew and grew. And finally arrived—a mouse. A romping, rollicking little mouse…By the time my train had reached the Middle West I had dressed my dream mouse in a pair of red velvet pants with two huge pearl buttons, had composed the first scenario and was all set.”

(As a side note—the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit were recently reacquired by Disney and new Disney CEO, Robert Igor, plans to reintroduce the character to the Disney lineup)

Our next example of Walt’s “Stick-to-it-ivity” involves his dream of building a fantasy park. After Walt became a father and both his daughters were in their formative years, Walt would take them to amusement parks and sit on a bench watching them ride the attractions, always thinking that there should be a place where both parents and children could have fun together. As his idea for a fantasy park took shape, he visited other amusement parks and observed children at play, asking them which rides they liked the best.

In 1948, after attending the Railroad Fair in Chicago with his trusted friend, advisor, and top animator, Ward Kimball, Walt returned to California with his “Stick-to-it-ivity” in high gear, talking of plans for a project he called, “Mickey Mouse Park,” which would be located across the street from Disney’s Burbank studios. (Note: Due to the need for more room than the 8 acre lot offered across the street from the studios, Disneyland was eventually built about 35 miles south of Burbank on a 160 acre parcel of orange groves in Anaheim, California)

Walt’s brother Roy, the man who always found the money to fund Walt’s projects, hit the roof, calling the proposition irresponsible and a “screwball idea.” But Roy knew better than anyone that it was beyond the point of putting any brakes on Walt, especially when an internal memo with the heading, “Mickey Mouse Park,” was circulated to the Disney staff in August of 1948. In the memo, Walt described his vision in vivid detail for what would one day become Disneyland.

He told of a relaxing, cool and inviting park that would be ringed by a scale-model steam train. He described a clean, well-run carnival with Disney-themed rides and a merry-go-round. He detailed it right down the benches, bandstand, drinking fountains, trees and shrubs. Inside the park would be a self-contained village with a town hall, fire and police stations, and a working post office. Another section would replicate a Wild West town, complete with cowboys, horses, stagecoach, and a saloon-style theater. Still another part would feature a tour of the Disney studio.

Disney artists and employees remember seeing Walt standing by himself across the street from the Burbank studio in the weed-filled lot (before the decision to locate elsewhere was made), walking off yardage and visualizing his dream. In fact, the employees indicated that the more Walt visualized his park, the more apparent it became to them—and to Walt—that he was no longer planning a mere amusement park, but rather a Kingdom, complete with a castle towering over magical realms of past, future, and fantasy.

By the 1950’s Walt was intensively researching Disneyland. He spent countless days at California fairs, zoos, and circuses. He talked to the patrons, learning their likes and dislikes. He talked to amusement park operators and asked what could be improved. When Walt told them he envisioned a park staffed with friendly people, a park that would charge admission to keep out drunks and unruly people, a park that was kept clean and spotless—including the restrooms—they laughed at him and told him he’d go broke within a year. Their predictions fell on deaf ears, however. Walt’s Stick-to-it-ivity was redlining and he was as focused and determined as ever.

Even his good and trusted friend, Art Linkletter, whom Walt had befriended in 1940 when Art interviewed him for a radio spot, thought his idea for a Disney-themed park was ill conceived. Interestingly, once Anaheim had been selected as the location for Disneyland, Walt took Linkletter there to look over the property shortly after groundbreaking. He suggested that Linkletter buy up land around the site of the future park because it would one day be worth millions. Linkletter passed on the opportunity. He later tried to figure how much money he would have made if he had taken Walt’s advice. According to his calculations, every step he took through that orange grove that day was worth about $3 million dollars, and he let it all slip through his fingers.

Walt knew that bringing Disneyland to fruition would be his hardest undertaking. Everyone told him it didn’t stand a chance. The studio was already heavily leveraged. His brother Roy begged him to forgo it, telling Walt that they were “in the motion picture business, not the roller coaster business.” Still, Walt stuck to it. He pursued his dream.

When Roy stuck to his guns in his refusal to arrange the financing, Walt began assembling his own funds, starting with his own personal savings account. He borrowed $100,000 against his life insurance and sold his vacation home at Smoke Tree Ranch. After he had borrowed every cent the banks would lend him and sold everything he could, however, he was still millions of dollars short. His Stick-to-it-ivity was being sorely tested and the answer came to him in a single word one sleepless night—Television!

Having already produced two top-rated Christmas specials in 1950 and ’51, Walt approached the two biggest networks, NBC and CBS, both of which were eager to air Disney programming. Both networks quickly soured on the idea of pumping money into Disneyland, however. Walt then turned to the smaller third network, ABC, who also turned him down. As always though, Walt refused to accept failure as final and ratcheted up the Stick-to-it-ivity yet another notch when he turned to his employees to lend him money.

Walt’s latest financing scheme turned out to be amazingly effective. Disney employees believed in Walt’s dream and were eager to be a part of the project. When Roy Disney saw that, he was forced to reconsider his options and allocated $10,000 to research and development plans for the new park.

In the fall of 1953, Walt again approached the TV networks. After making an impassioned plea to his friend and noted designer Herb Ryman to produce renderings of the new park over the course of a single, frantic weekend, he sent his brother Roy to New York with drawings in hand to once again pitch the project. Again, NBC and CBS rejected the park. But this time, Leonard Goldenson of ABC, after studying Ryman’s renderings, told Roy that “Walt can have whatever he wants,” and the deal was done.

ABC put up a half million dollars and co-signed bank loans for an additional $4.5 million, and in return received a 34.5 percent share of the Disneyland theme park plus a weekly hour-long anthology show called Disneyland. (Which, by-the-way, featured an episode called, “Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter,” that ignited a nationwide—and merchandising— Davy Crockett craze). ABC’s investment, along with other smaller investors in the Disneyland ownership group, ensured that Walt’s dream of a place where parents and children could have fun together would indeed materialize. Again, the rest “is history.”

Stick-to-it-ivity. How many of us have the drive and determination within us that Walt showcased on a daily basis to realize his goals? How many of us let obstacles deter us from our dreams? What would Walt’s vision of a living, working Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow (EPCOT) look like today if he had lived long enough to see it through to fruition? (Today’s version of Epcot in Walt Disney World—while unique and educational—is decidedly NOT what Walt envisioned EPCOT to be, but that’s another story!) Even Walt’s brother and partner, Roy Disney, once said, “I’m afraid if I’d been running this place we would have stopped several times en route because of the problems. Walt has the stick-to-it-iveness.”

Since money and finances is often a major obstacle for anyone in business, we’ll close our second and final installment on “Lessons from Walt Disney” with a quote from Walt himself:

“All I know about money is that I have to have it to do things. I neither wish nor intend to amass a personal fortune. Money may worry me, but it does not excite me. Ideas excite me.”

Dream big and let your ideas excite you. Then just practice “Stick-to-it-ivity.” You’ll be amazed at the things you can accomplish.

Recommended reading:

• Walt Disney: An American Original, Bob Thomas, 1976, revised, 1994

• How to Be Like Walt: Capturing the Disney Magic Every Day of Your Life, Pat Williams, 2004

• The Disney Version: the life, times, art, and commerce of Walt Disney, Richard Schickel, 1968