Walt before Mickey: Disney's Early Years, 1919–1928.Timothy S.Susanin. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2011.

Abstract

Walt before Mickey: Disney's Early Years, 1919-1928. Timothy S. Susanin. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2011.Mickey Mouse first appeared in the 1928 animated short Steamboat Willie, and that is where most stories of his creator, Walt Disney, begin. In Walt Before Mickey, Timothy Susanin focuses on the decade in Disney's life prior to his first major achievement, scrutinizing his early career and influences. He divides his tale into two parts: Book One: Kansas City, and Book Two: Los Angeles.Book One begins with young Disney, at eighteen, returning to Missouri after serving as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross in France during World War I. Disney had two interests, acting and art, and opted for a career in art because he thought he could land a job. Following a tip from his older brother Roy, who worked at a clerk at a Kansas City bank, Disney applied to be an apprentice with Louis Pesmen and Bill Rubin, who operated an art shop for the Gray Advertising Company. This is where Disney got his start. Because most of the firm's work was for farm journals, Disney did a lot of pencil drawings of hens, cattle, farm equipment, and happy farmers, honing his drawing skills. While at Gray Advertising, Disney befriended another recent hire, Ubbe Iwwerks (later Ub Iwerks), who later became his business partner. He also made the acquaintance of a Gray client, Frank Newman, owner of several Kansas City theaters, who later screened Disney's first cartoon.Susanin traces Disney's career at Gray and at his and Iwwerks' first venture of their own, Iwwerks-Disney, which housed its first studio in an unused bathroom at the National Restaurant Association. These humble beginnings led to art positions at the Kansas City Slide Company and the Kansas City Film Ad Company, where Disney and Iwwerks discoveredand became enamored with-the new art of animation. They sold their first cartoons to Frank Newman, and the Laugh-O-Grams made a successful debut at Newman Theatre, encouraging Disney to open another studio of his own, Kaycee Studios (named after the abbreviation for Kansas City). Here he tried his hand at animating fairy tales, producing Little Red Riding Hood and The Four Musicians of Bremen. A year later, he developed a new venture, Laugh-O-Gram Films, dedicated to his growing interest: fairy-tale cartoons, including/itc& and the Beanstalk; Goldie Locks and the Three Bears; Cinderella; Puss in Boots; Jack, the Giant Killer; and Alice's Wonderland. The project was fraught with problems, and Disney lamented that he had entered the animation field-which was already six or seven years old-too late. With few options left in Kansas City, he took his brother Roy's advice to move to Los Angeles, where their Uncle Robert had a place he could stay. Disney felt his only hope was to get a job in live-action film. He wanted to be a director.Book Two commences with twenty-one year old Disney's arrival in Los Angeles, where his brother Roy, being treated for tuberculosis at the Veterans Hospital in nearby Sawtelle, met him at the train station. Susanin devotes the next one hundred pages to chronicling every nuance of Disney's early career, including his frustrations living with Uncle Robert and Aunt Charlotte and his attempt to make it on his own by establishing a new studio in Los Angeles. Susanin does a good job of putting Disney's efforts in the context of his time, noting his negotiations with New York distributor Margaret Winkler, who handled the 1920s sensation Felix the Cat, to provide a contract for his series of Alice Comedies. …