Walt Disney

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney (/ˈdɪzni/; December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American entrepreneur, cartoonist, animator, voice actor, and film producer. He was a prominent figure within the American animation industry and throughout the world, and is regarded as a cultural icon, known for his influence and contributions to entertainment during the 20th century. As a Hollywood business mogul, he and his brother Roy O. Disney co-founded The Walt Disney Company.

As an animator and entrepreneur, Disney was particularly noted as a filmmaker and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created numerous famous fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy. Disney himself was the original voice for Mickey. During his lifetime, he won 22 Academy Awards and received four honorary Academy Awards from a total of 59 nominations, including a record of four in one year, giving him more Oscar awards and nominations than any other individual in history. Disney also won seven Emmy Awards and gave his name to the Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the U.S., as well as the international resorts Tokyo Disney Resort, Disneyland Paris, Hong Kong Disneyland, and Shanghai Disney Resort.

Animation studios owned by The Walt Disney Company

The Walt Disney Company has owned and operated several animation studios since the company's founding on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio; the current Walt Disney Animation Studios in Burbank, California is the company's flagship feature animation studio and claims heritage from this original studio. Adding to the growth of the company and its motion picture studio division The Walt Disney Studios, several other animation studios were added through acquisitions and through openings of satellite studios outside of the United States. These expanded the company's animation output into television, direct-to-video, and digital releases, in addition to its primary feature animation releases.

Currently Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, DisneyToon Studios and Lucasfilm Animation are parts of The Walt Disney Studios unit. This article does not include other animation studios whose films were released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (the company's distribution unit) and not acquired by the company, nor does it count the Laugh-O-Gram Studio (1921–23), Disney's first animation studio, which predated the founding of The Walt Disney Company. For example, certain Studio Ghibli films were distributed by Disney internationally but never owned by the company. Also, Miramax, a independently operating unit of the Walt Disney Studios, also purchased US rights to foreign animated movies.

List of animation studios

The following list of animation studios presents past and present organizations similar to artists studios but principally dedicated to the production and distribution of animated films. Such studios may be actual production facilities or corporate entities. The countries with the most listed, active studios, are Japan, United States, Canada, United Kingdom and South Korea, but studios are found across all continents.

Studios

See also

References