Walt Disney- Hero of the Damn Happy

Walt is one of my all time heros. As a young man he started a business making short cartoon films that showed before the main feature, his first partner burned him and stole his main character Oswald, along with most of Walt’s animation staff. Riding back home on the train, he told his wife of a new character, Mortimer Mouse, his wife suggested the name Mickey – a legend was born.

He dreamed of the future and was constantly pushing the frontiers of animation, being one of the first to adopt sound and color, later pressing on with the first full feature animation Snow White despite warnings from others.

Disney also imagined a new safe beautiful theme park as an antidote for the shabby, dirty carnivals of the day. His Tomorrowland was his idealistic hope for the future. Despite the odds, and weathering several bankruptcies he survived and prospered.

Upon his death on December 15, 1966, Walter Cronkite commented:

"He was an original. Not just an American original, but an original, period. He was a happy accident, one of the happiest this century has experienced. And judging by the way it's behaving, in spite of all Disney tried to tell it about laughter, love, children, puppies, and sunrises, the century hardly deserved him."

Those words were spoken by news journalist Eric Sevareid on the CBS Evening News on this day in 1966 ... the day Walter Elias Disney passed away.

"He probably did more to heal -- or at least soothe -- troubled human spirits than all the psychiatrists in the world. There can’t be many adults in the allegedly civilized parts of the globe who did not inhabit Disney’s mind and imagination for at least for a few hours and feel better for the visitation.
It may be true, as somebody said, that while there is no highbrow in a lowbrow, there is some lowbrow in every highbrow. But what Disney seemed to know was that while there is very little grown-up in every child, there is a lot of child in every grown-up. To a child, this weary world is brand-new, gift wrapped. Disney tried to keep it that way for adults.
By the conventional wisdom, mighty mice, flying elephants, Snow White and Happy, Grumpy, Sneezy and Doc -- all these were fantasy, escapism from reality. It’s a question of whether they are any less real, any more fantastic than intercontinental missiles, poisoned air, defoliated forests, and scrap iron on the moon. This is the age of fantasy, however you look at it, but Disney’s fantasy wasn’t lethal.
People are saying we will never see his like again."

Shine on!  Braxton

A very small sample of the Disney Legacy...

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