The Failure Pledge

Animation studio founder

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Walt Disney

Walt Disney

What failed

Laid off from a commercial art firm after the Christmas rush at eighteen, and the firm he started next attracted few customers. His animation studio, Laugh-O-Gram, lost its distributor to bankruptcy before being paid and was forced into bankruptcy by its creditors in October 1923. He went to Hollywood wanting to direct live action and could not get a job at any studio. Then in February 1928 he went to New York to renegotiate his contract for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and found that his distributor, Charles Mintz, had already persuaded most of his animators to work for him, and that the character belonged to Universal, not to him.

What happened next

He walked away from Oswald rather than take the terms, went home, and put out a cartoon with a new character and synchronised sound. Steamboat Willie premiered in November 1928. Nine years later, in December 1937, he released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first animated feature made in the United States and the first made with cel animation.

The point

The famous version of this story is that a newspaper editor fired him for lacking imagination. No reliable source supports it. What actually happened is duller and more useful: he lost the company, the character and the staff, and started again with what he had left.

The sequence

5 documented failures, shown with the successes in between. Every entry carries its own source — the wins are part of the record, and leaving them out is how these stories get distorted.

  1. 1920

    Laid off from a commercial art firm at eighteen, after the Christmas work dried up.

    failureWalt Disney (Wikipedia)

  2. 1922

    His studio's distributor goes bankrupt before paying what it owed.

    failureLaugh-O-Gram Studio (Wikipedia)

  3. 1923

    His first animation studio, Laugh-O-Gram Films, is forced into bankruptcy by its creditors.

    failureWalt Disney Never Filed Bankruptcy (American Bankruptcy Institute)

  4. 1923

    He arrives in Hollywood wanting to work his way up to directing live action, and spends August and September going round the studios without getting a job.

    failure100 Years Ago: Walt Meets Hollywood (The Walt Disney Family Museum)

  5. 1928

    His distributor hires away most of his animators and keeps the character. He quits rather than take the terms.

    failureOswald the Lucky Rabbit (Wikipedia)

  6. 1928

    A new character, synchronised sound, and an immediate hit.

    successSteamboat Willie (Wikipedia)

  7. 1937

    The feature-length film the industry predicted would bankrupt his company.

    successWalt Disney (Wikipedia)

Sources

  • Disney Bankruptcy (U.S. National Archives at Kansas City)
    Filed in 1923, this bankruptcy case marked the final demise of a small Kansas City animation studio.
  • Walt Disney (Wikipedia)
    In January 1920, as Pesmen-Rubin's revenue declined after Christmas, Disney, aged 18, and Iwerks were laid off.
  • Walt Disney (Wikipedia)
    Failing to attract many customers, Disney and Iwerks agreed that Disney should leave temporarily to earn money at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, run by A. V. Cauger; the following month Iwerks, who was not able to run their business alone, also joined.
  • Walt Disney (Wikipedia)
    Mintz had also persuaded many of the artists involved to work directly for him, including Harman, Ising, Carman Maxwell and Friz Freleng. Disney also found out that Universal owned the intellectual property rights to Oswald.
  • Walt Disney Never Filed Bankruptcy (American Bankruptcy Institute)
    As a result, on October 4, 1923, at 4:55 p.m., Ubbe Iwwerks “[Iwwerks”], one of the Laugh-O-Gram animators and a close friend of Walt Disney, filed a Creditor’s Petition forcing Laugh-O-Gram into bankruptcy.
  • Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Wikipedia)
    It is the first animated feature film produced in the United States and the first cel animated feature film.

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