Walt Disneyby BUS ’10–’11

When most people think of cartoons, they think of Walt Disney. What they don’t realize is that Walt Disney was not a cartoon, but simply a man who drew himself some friends. “My drawings are my companions,” Disney once said, “but that doesn’t mean the relationship can’t become something more.” Disney was famously arrested for groping a legal pad.

Though overshadowed by constant controversy, Disney was first and foremost an artist. As a child, he would lock himself in his room for weeks at a time, only to emerge with a calcium deficiency and a flipbook of a mouse tea party. In college, Disney began to broaden his style by drawing ducks and dogs, often as guests at a mouse kegger. His first major breakthrough came in 1928, when he discovered that any character could be made female by putting a bow on its head.

Disney eventually gained a following with a series of shorts about “Mortimer the Mouse,” a trickster who relied on his wits to get out of trouble, usually by hiding behind a plant. Many criticized Disney for being out of touch, citing the fact that nobody had the name Mortimer anymore. “Mickey Mouse,” as the character was now called, became Disney’s alter ego, one he often used for the purposes of tax evasion.

After proving in Snow White that he could draw a human, Disney took the next logical step: designing a theme park in his image. He drew the designs himself, though most were thrown away when it became evident he had no knowledge of architecture or gravity. Disney’s favorite design, the Moustache-Coaster, was considered by engineers to be borderline retarded.

Disney soon returned to his animation roots, desperate to prove that all animals speak English. In 1967, he produced The Jungle Book, which, despite its title, was not a book at all, but rather a pamphlet on welfare reform. Fearful that he was ahead of his time, Disney opted to undergo cryogenic suspension, leaving behind his wife, his two daughters, and explicit instructions to wake him if we ever elect a mouse president.