Case Scenario : The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company was founded as a cartoon studio in 1923 by Walt Disney and his brother Roy with a $500 loan from an uncle. In the early 1920s, cartoonist Walt Disney visited New York to pitch his idea for a cartoon rabbit called Waldo. During that trip, through a complicated series of events, Disney lost the rights to develop Waldo. On the train-ride back to California he spoke with his wife about the importance of coming home with some alternative character. "I can't come back to our office and tell them I've lost Waldo," he bemoaned.

This hardship inspired Disney to develop a new character, Mickey Mouse, and release the world's first fully-synchronized sound cartoon, "Steamboat Willie" (starring, of course, Mickey Mouse). Disney's creative genius was now coupled with a fierce instinct to protect and control his creative output. Never again would he lose "Waldo." Consequently, the Walt Disney Company was pushed by Walt to tirelessly create timeless and universal entertainment, consistently innovate and take risks to deliver that entertainment, stress a vision of being the provider of choice of quality family entertainment, and maintain rigorous control over the quality of customers' experiences with Disney products and its image.

Such a personal passion for controlled the Walt Disney Company into theme parks because Disney did not want Mickey's reputation sullied by the dirty, cheap theme parks that littered the land during those days. All films had to be new and of the highest quality animation (taking a minimum of five years to create, including hand-painted backgrounds); sequel films were not tolerated. Walt's vision and risk taking propensity led him in the early 1960s to buy 43,000 acres in Florida (now Walt Disney World), betting the company's future on a high-risk, uncertain venture.

Amidst such a flurry of activity, Walt Disney died just before Christmas 1966, and the company was literally stopped dead in its tracks. Walt Disney's blueprint was being followed to the letter, but no further (Walt Disney World opened in 1971). No "new" creations were undertaken until 1982, when the company finally launched such businesses as the Disney Channel, Touchstone, and their home video business.

Had it not been for the appointment of Michael Eisner as Disney's new CEO in 1984, the company would likely not have survived its perilous financial situation and stifled creativity. Eisner returned the company to its roots of family entertainment and values of quality, fairness, creativity, entrepreneurialism, and teamwork.

Question 1. What value-creating legacy did Walt Disney leave to the Walt Disney Company?

Question 2. To what extent had the Walt Disney Company become a reflection of Walt up to the time that he died in 1966?

Question 3. Why do you think the Walt Disney Company had so much difficulty being innovative in the decades following Walt's death?