us, “Walt Disney was never satisfied with what he had already accomplished.”34
Actual work on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the company’s first animated feature, began in 1936, with an estimated budget of $150,000. By the time it was completed in 1937, the cost was $1.5 million. Before its release, the film was also known as “Disney’s Folly,” as many in the film industry were not convinced that audiences would sit through a feature-length cartoon. Nevertheless, by some accounts, Disney persevered primarily because he was convinced that the introduction of the double bill would eventually squeeze out short cartoons, and that the only profitable future for animation was in features that would attract more revenues.
Snow White was an immediate hit, setting attendance records around the United States, with box-office grosses of $8.5 million within its first three months of release. The film industry was pleased as well, awarding Disney a special Academy Award in 1939. The film was also reissued six times by 1983, with revenues increasing to $47 million. On its fiftieth anniversary release in 1987, the film attracted $40 million in fewer than eight weeks.
The merchandising and tie-in campaigns that accompanied the film may surprise those who think of such activities as a more recent Hollywood phenomenon. As early as 1936, the company granted more than 70 licenses to various companies to produce a wide range of items, including clothing, food, toys, books, phonograph records, and sheet music. Comic books, painting and coloring books, and picture books were sold before the film was released. Also featured were Snow White radios produced by Emerson, Snow White-print corsets, Snow White sliced bread, and Snow White treasure chests for all the Snow White toys. In fact, the merchandising campaign was noted as a “dramatic example of a new force in merchandising.”35 The multitude of products not only brought in revenues but importantly helped to publicize the film and build the Disney reputation.
While continuing to produce several cartoon series based on Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto, and Goofy, the studio also worked on new animated features. Pinocchio and Fantasia were both released in 1940, followed by Dumbo (1941), The Reluctant Dragon (1941), and Bambi (1942).
The animation factory
With the success of Snow White, the company grew dramatically. By May 1940, the company’s 1,100 employees had moved into a new $3 million studio in Burbank, with 20 separate buildings for the different stages of the animation process. For instance, the Animation and Story departments were separated from the Camera and Inking and Painting buildings, although all were connected via underground tunnels. The new studio represented not only the success of the company but also the growing rationalization of the animation process. While this specialization was intended to make the operation more efficient, it also increased the bureaucracy at the studio.
Other innovations were incorporated into the animation process, including the pencil test (a method of projecting pencil drawings) and the Leica reel (a method of projecting both completed and uncompleted parts of a project). The studio also adapted the storyboard, a series of drawings used to depict an entire film, rather than just segments. Other technological developments included the multi-plane camera, a device that incorporated multiple layers of animation, thus providing increased depth and contributing to Disney’s constant quest for more realism. The famous artists’ school set up at the studio was another innovative feature that helped to eliminate waste, though it also enforced a kind of “uniform technical mastery” among the animators.
Many of these innovations were attributed to Disney, but it is arguable that others at the studio were more responsible for their development. McReynolds noted that Disney had an “unerring appreciation of technical developments and how to use them for profit.”36 As Schickel pointed out, “Disney’s gift, from the beginning, was not as is commonly supposed a ‘genius’ for artistic expression; if he had any genius at all it was for the exploitation of technological innovation.”37
The company received a good deal of publicity for its new studio, which became known as the “fun factory.” People seemed fascinated with the industrial process that created Disney’s films, apparently finding it hard to believe that fantasy could be manufactured. Much less attention, however, was focused on the commercial orientation of Disney’s fantasy production.
Along with the company’s success, its debts had grown as well. So before completing the move to the new Burbank headquarters, the company issued 155,000 shares of preferred stock and 600,000 shares of common stock. Though the company had incorporated in 1929, until now all its stock remained privately held. In 1938, 45,000 shares were owned by Walt and Lillian Disney, and 30,000 shares by Roy and Edna Disney. While the stock sold quickly and provided needed capital for the company, it diluted the Disneys’ ownership control of the company.38 Yet, by most accounts, Walt was still very much in control of the company’s operations, at least until the dramatic events that started unfolding in the early 1940s.
Conflict in Wonderland
According to many of those involved, the growth of the studio and the move to the new Burbank facilities led to changes in the working conditions at the company. The Disney studios had previously been depicted as a “democratic, collective, creative paradise.”39 Many of the employees agreed that the Disney plant was unique during the 1930s, with a family atmosphere that inspired creativity.
However, the studio began to lose its charm for at least some of its workers. By the end of the 1930s, there was increasing dissatisfaction at the studio, especially due to the inconsistent wage scales, the erratic distribution of bonuses and other forms of compensation. And although the studio was known for its creativity, it was always Walt’s personal visions that prevailed. Furthermore, screen credits were provided only for the company’s feature films, often with “Walt Disney” as the only name attached to the cartoons. The dissatisfaction finally erupted in 1941.
Hollywood had experienced a wave of unionization during the 1930s, with most of the industry’s workers being represented by the end of the decade by labor organizations both from within and outside the film industry.40 The Screen Cartoonists Guild (SCG) had been founded in 1936 to organize the growing number of animators in the industry and, by the early 1940s, had gained contracts at MGM and Schlesinger’s animation unit at Warner Brothers. Meanwhile, at the Disney studio, the Federation of Screen Cartoonists was formed as a company union in 1937.
The SCG started organizing at Disney in late 1940 and, by January 1941, was recognized by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) as the bargaining unit for animators, story men, directors, and production workers at the studio. The SCG filed formal charges with the NLRB, charging the company with unfair labor practices (including supporting a company union). After Disney fired a group of union activists, the SCG voted to strike in May 1941. At least one-third of the company’s employees supported the strike, although it has also been claimed that one-half of the company’s workers went out.41
By most accounts, the nine-week strike at the fun factory was no fun. Tension grew as physical and verbal conflicts increased the hostility between workers and management. Disney (who almost became involved in a fist fight with the strikers at one point) accused the union leaders of being communists and “bad seeds.” The conflict became especially bitter when the company called on the assistance of infamous labor racketeer Willie Bioff, who was working with the conservative International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) at the time.
After the studio closed down completely for nearly a month, the conflict was finally settled in September with assistance from Labor Department arbitrators. It probably helped that Walt had departed in early August on a government-funded tour of South America, which later served as the basis for several films, including Saludos Amigos (1943) and The Three Caballeros (1945), as well
