Walt Disney
All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.
-Walt Disney
Journal 3
1927
California is definitely a better place for me. Still, a little bit of bad luck is with me. When I opened my studio, I created a character called Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. I instantly fell in love with the character that I have created. He had a cute white face, a big button nose, and floppy ears. I predicted that everyone was going to love this sweet animated character. Indeed, everyone did so the studio that I was working in, “Universal Studios” ordered more series of shots. I was more than happy to do those but the studio told me that he had hired all of my employees and retained the rights of Oswald. I could not stay there more. They do not have the right to take away my salary and my employees as well as stealing my character. They always wanted to change how things work; whenever I get happy there is something wrong or something needs to be fixed in the contract. If it were not enough, they told me that I could keep working here with a very low salary. Of course, I refused. I had other studios that I can work with and I am definitely not going back to this one. Because the studio took my character that everybody adored, my loyal employee Ub Iwerks and I, created a character for Oswald’s replacement. We shortened its ears, added some extra padding around the middle and turned the rabbit into a mouse. This was the best that we could do and the best name we could think for him was “Mortimer”. We will see how will it turns out and it better be fine.
Journal 4
1928
I have bad news. I thought that they would give our character’s right back but there is no sign of it. We changed the name of “Mortimer” to “Mickey Mouse”. We liked this better because it represents the figure more and it sounds much better for the audience. Right now, Ub and I are thinking about the cartoon that we are going to create including Mickey Mouse. Today Ub came to me and said that we should create a series. He had already drawn plans to his draw board and he came to share it with me. I really liked his ideas. My favorite one is the series of “Silly Symphonies”. Silly Symphonies is a series that contains Mickey Mouse and some other characters that we haven’t decided yet in it. Of course, Mickey Mouse won’t speak; but I bet that the audience will love it. Since Universal is not funding us, we have to wait a couple of months to actually establish the series. We have to find a name to our first episode because the first of everything is special.
Journal 2
1921
Laugh-O-Grams was a success! After establishing “Little Red Riding Hood” everyone loved my idea. That is why I created six more of them and they all became as successful as the first one. Everything was going as I planned before something very unfortunate happened. Our Kansas City studio was in financial trouble from the start and because of my inexperience, I suffered bankruptcy. I was already in need before any of my cartoons were published. I thought that I had found distributor for my fairy tales called Pictorial Clubs of Tennessee, which promised 11,100 dollars for six of my cartoons but I have never gotten my money. That is why, some of my crew quit because they were working without salary. Later on, I moved to California and sued Pictorial Clubs for breach of contract. I am still waiting for an answer because they have been rude by not giving the money that they have offered. I hope that being in California will be a new start for me. My only problem is the money that is needed for this job and when I get over it; I believe that I will be successful.