WALT DISNEY

Waikato Times, Volume 126, Issue 21035, 10 February 1940, Page 13 (Supplement)

WALT DISNEY

ROMANCE OF THE SCREEN HOW MICKEY MOUSE BEGAN ! In a drawing office in Kansas City ; nearly twenty years ago, a little j mouse boldly perched itself each ! lunch hour on the rail of an artist’s ! desk, two bright eyes intent on the sandwich crumbs. He was a likeable, friendly, intelligent mouse; and the young artist encouraged his presence—to the dismay of the women members of the staff. The life of the average mouse is brief and uncertain, but this Kansas City mouse belongs to the immortals. You see, he was the progenitor of the famous Mickey. And if you guess that the young artist of the sandwich lunches was none other than Walt Disney—well, you guess right the first time. There in brief is the story of Mickey Mouse and the most celebrated cartoonist in the world. Until he met up with Mickey, Walt Disney, for all his youthful ambition, originality and genius, travelled no ' farther along Progress Way than his ! fellows. He had jobs in plenty—news de- ' livery on a bicycle, paper selling on ! a trans-continental express, postman, stage comedian (until he got “the ! hook” otherwise “the bird”), free lance sketching, and what not—be- , fore he landed a stool in a “slide” office, and assisted in turning out those wooden sort of caricatures which were the forerunners of the modern animated cartoon. A mouse changed all that! He in- ! spired in Walt Disney a great and grand idea. The Strange Assorted Family And out of that great idea has descended on an appreciative world the long line of Mickey Mouse cartoons, and Mickey’s relations, like Donald Duck, Gus Goose, Ferdinand the Bull, and Pluto the Dog. Walt Disney, today controlling the most elaborate and up-to-date studio in California and employing a great army of specialists in a branch of film production that is nearer a science than a mere “feature,” modestly protests “there has been no romance in my career.” That is characteristic of the man. But his life—certainly since Mickey entered into the scheme of things—has been one uninterrupted , romance.