Disney

The Walt Disney Company
File:The Walt Disney Company logo.png
Type	Public
Founded	October 16, 1923
Headquarters	Burbank, California
Key people	Walt Disney, Roy O. Disney, Bob Iger, Bob Chapek
Industry	Entertainment
Products	Films, music, amusement parks, web portals
Website	https://www.disney.com

The Walt Disney Company (often shortened to simply Disney) is an American multinational entertainment and media conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. The origins of the company can by traced to the late 1910s with a man named Walt Disney. Returning to his home in Kansas City Missouri and having a brief career in France as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross (which he forged his birth date for), he decided to use his skills in drawing and animation as a new career. He contacted his friend Ub Iwerks, and together they ventured as freelancers. After finding little success, they decided to create their own studio, titled Laugh-O-Gram Studio, in 1921, where they created several successful short films. Walt's brother Roy O. Disney, as well as a large amount of animators also signed on around this time, and they needed more space. Laugh-O-Gram was shut down and turned into "Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio" in 1923. The new team created several shorts in the Alice's Wonderland series and signing on with Universal Pictures in 1927 to create the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit shorts. However, creative differences and growing unrest caused many personell to leave the company at this time, and they ended up losing the rights to Oswald since Universal technically owned the IP and refused to resign the contract. Out of desperation, the remaining staff created a new character, Mickey Mouse, as a last ditch effort to save the company. After experimenting with the character on limited releases, the decision was made for the third release, "Steamboat Willie," to use synchronized, which had never been done with animation before. The short released on November 18 1928 and was an unprecedented success, leading to Mickey being the company's official mascot to this day.

Now titled Walt Disney Productions, the studio became a driving force in the animation industry throughout the 1930s, including the first color cartoon, "Flowers and Trees," in 1932, several iconic characters like Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto, and the first feature length animation, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in 1937. However, a general decline in interest and the financial failure of Fantasia in 1940 caused the company to nearly go bankrupt. A worker's strike in 1941 also deeply decreased morale, especiall for Walt, who never fully regained his sense of trust. They were bailed out by the United States government in exchange for several anti-axis propaganda films for World War II, as well as material for the Good Neighbor policy afterwards. the company also expanded into other mediums around this time, such as live-action film production and television, as well as theme parks with the construction of Disneyland in 1955. Walt also had plans for a controversial plan for a utopian society run by the company, but he died in 1966 at the age of 65 before his plans could be realized. These plans eventually morphed into Walt Disney World in 1971.

The death of Walt and Roy a few years later caused the company to enter a dark age throughout the 1970s and 1980s where revenue was at an all time low and the company again faced bankruptcy. However, an initiative by figures like Michael Eisner created an upward swing for Disney, including expanded television programming, international ventures like theme parks and studios, and more investment into animation, which culminated in The Little Mermaid in 1989. This film started what is known as the Disney Renaissance, a period where Disney saw record profits from all departments. Despite seemingly too big to fail at this point, the same figures that helped pull the company out of crisis made a string of poor decisions that led to many financial failures, resulting in another dark age through the 2000s. The company did recover, mostly due to a refocus like what they did 30 years prior as well as acquiring properties that would go on to be the most profitable franchises in history.

The Walt Disney Company currently spans just about every aspect of consumer procucts, such as film production, television, theme parks, video games, Research and Development, venture capital and many others. A full list of assets owned by The Walt Disney Company can be found here. The company also has an infamous reputation for its stance on intellectual properties, frequently participating in cutthroat business acquisitions and ruthlessly protecting their copyright, even if said copyright is impossible to enforce.

In Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Mickey Mouse and Mickey & Donald, both Game & Watch games published by Disney, are listed in the Chronicle in all regions. Three additional games are also included exclusively in the Japanese version, those being the Nintendo 64 version of Mickey's Speedway USA, Disney's Magical Quest Starring Mickey and Minnie, and Disney's Magical Mirror Starring Mickey Mouse.

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Sora, the protagonist of the Kingdom Hearts franchise, developed by Square Enix as a joint collaboration between them and Disney, was confirmed on October 5, 2021 to be the sixth and final fighter in the Fighter's Pass Vol. 2, and the final Super Smash Bros. Ultimate fighter in general. Despite Disney neither developing nor publishing the Kingdom Hearts games, they are the sole owner of the brand and all of its original assets, leading to them being the company credited with Sora's inclusion.

The silhouette of Mickey Mouse's head, one of Disney’s most recognizable symbols and trademarks, can also be seen as a keychain on Sora's Keyblade.

Trivia

• Disney is the second oldest company represented in Smash, with only Nintendo debuting first by 34 years.
• Disney has previously collaborated with Nintendo on multiple occasions, with their earliest being in the 1950s to create hanafuda cards based around their characters.
• Disney is the second major Western third-party company to be introduced to the Super Smash Bros. series, after Microsoft.
  • They are also the only companies who primarily specialize in other industries.
• Disney is the fifth third-party company to be introduced to the Super Smash Bros. series as DLC, the first four being Square Enix, Atlus, Microsoft, and SNK.
• Coincidentally, Sora was revealed in the same month Disney was founded, with his release only falling 2 days after Disney's 98th anniversary.