Disney

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The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) was founded in 1923 by Walt Disney and is one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world. TWDC had revenues of 22 billion USD in 2002. The Disney company's corporate headquarters are located in Burbank, California.

Its movie studios include Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Miramax Films, and Dimension Films. It owns the rights to animated and live action films and operates many theme parks including Disneyland, Disney's California Adventure, Walt Disney World, and franchises Disneyland Resort Paris, and the Tokyo Disney Resort.

The company operates the Disney Vacation Club resorts and ESPN Zone restaurants. It owns Hyperion Books, Disney Publishing Worldwide and the Walt Disney Cruise Line. Disney's music division includes Walt Disney Records, Mammoth Records, Lyric Street Records, and Hollywood Records.

TWDC also owns the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) television network (since 1996), The Disney Channel and ESPN's family of cable television networks.

The company also owns the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim hockey team and owned the Anaheim Angels baseball team, which was later sold to businessman Arturo Moreno. It also handles licensing of Disney products and sales through the Disney Store, Disney Publishing, and Disney Interactive.

Some librarians have objected to TWDC's lobbying of the world's major legislative bodies into passing repeated retroactive copyright term extensions, calling it "manipulative" and "absurd". As well as the general limitation on the public domain that this implies, critics are quick to point out that Disney has made much of its fortune from stories that have passed out of copyright, such as Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty.

The company was originally named Walt Disney Productions; the name was changed on February 6, 1986

Contents

[edit] Timeline

[edit] 1923-1939

[edit] 1940-1966

  • 1940: Studio moves to the Burbank, California buildings where it is located to this day
  • 1941: As the USA enters World War II, the studio begins making morale-boosting propaganda films for the government.
  • 1944: Short on cash, a theatrical rerelease of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs generates much-needed revenue and begins a reissue pattern for the animated feature films.
  • 1945: The studio hires its first ever live actor for a film, James Baskett, to star as Uncle Remus in Song of the South
  • 1949: The studio begins production on its first all-live action feature, Treasure Island; the popular True-Life Adventures series begins
  • 1954: The studio founds 'Buena Vista Distribution Company, Inc.' to distribute its feature films; beginning of the Disneyland TV program.
  • 1955: Opening of Disneyland in Anaheim, California
  • 1961: The studio licenses the film rights to Winnie-the-Pooh, whose characters continue to be highly profitable to this day.
  • 1965: The regular production of short subjects ceases, as theatres no longer have any demand for them.
  • 1966: Walt Disney dies.

[edit] 1967-1984

[edit] 1985-1999

[edit] 2000-

  • 2001: Disney-owned TV channels are pulled from Time Warner Cable briefly during a dispute over carriage fees; Disney's California Adventure opens to the public.
  • 2003: Once again, Roy Edward Disney resigns as head of animation and from the board of directors, citing similar reasons to those that drove him off 26 years earlier. Fellow director Stanley Gold resigns with him. They establish [1] to apply public pressure to oust Michael Eisner.
  • 2003: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl becomes the first film released under the Disney label with a PG-13 rating.
  • 2004: The studio breaks off renegotiation talks with Pixar; their current contract expires in 2006. Comcast makes a $66 billion unsolicited bid to buy The Walt Disney Company. Disney purchases rights to The Muppets. Company stockholders give Michael Eisner a 43% vote of no confidence; as a result, Eisner is removed from the role as chairman of the board (but maintains his position as CEO) and George Mitchell becomes chairman in his place. In April, Comcast withdraws their unsolicited bid.

[edit] Labor

[edit] Environmental

[edit] Social History

[edit] Intellectual Property

[edit] Activism Against

[edit] Critical Websites

[edit] Notable feature films under the Disney label

Notable feature films produced by the studio over the years include:

[edit] 1930s

[edit] 1940s

[edit] 1950s

[edit] 1960s

[edit] 1970s

[edit] 1980s

[edit] 1990s

[edit] 2000s

[edit] Notable television series

This includes those by the subsidiaries.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links


Content for this article came originally from WikiPedia

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