DisneyDreamer.com A non profit website not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company dedicated to Walt Disney History and Disneyland Park in California.
Started 9 years ago by Cameron English Jr. Currently returns number one in a Google search for "Walt Disney History" The movement of independant Disney Websites has seen explosive growth over the last several years. Disneydreamer.com is an example of a new style website that focuses on Walt Disney and his many accomplishments and his many failures.The Disney. Co is now embracing these websites as their popularity grows and feeds business and promotion right back into the company.


Walt Disney on Faith, Church, Bible Study, Prayer & God.


In these days of world tensions, when the faith of men is being tested as never before, I am personally thankful that my parents taught me at a very early age to have a strong personal belief and reliance in the power of prayer for Divine inspiration. My people were members of the Congregational Church in our home town of Marceline, Missouri. It was there where I was first taught the efficacy of religion ... how it helps us immeasurably to meet the trial and stress of life and keeps us attuned to the Divine inspiration. Later in DeMolay, I learned to believe in the basic principle of the right of man to exercise his faith and thoughts as he chooses. In DeMolay, we believe in a supreme being, in the fellowship of man, and the sanctity of the home. DeMolay stands for all that is good for the family and for our country.

Every person has his own ideas of the act of praying for God’s guidance, tolerance, and mercy to fulfill his duties and responsibilities. My own concept of prayer is not as a plea for special favors nor as a quick palliation for wrongs knowingly committed. A prayer, it seems to me, implies a promise as well as a request; at the highest level, prayer not only is a supplication for strength and guidance, but also becomes an affirmation of life and thus a reverent praise of God.

Deeds rather than words express my concept of the part religion should play in everyday life. I have watched constantly that in our movie work the highest moral and spiritual standards are upheld, whether it deals with fable or with stories of living action. This religious concern for the form and content of our films goes back 40 years to the rugged financial period in Kansas City when I was struggling to establish a film company and produce animated fairy tales. Many times during those difficult years, even as we turned out Alice in Cartoonland and later in Hollywood the first Mickey Mouse, we were under pressure to sell out or debase the subject matter or go "commercial" in one way or another. But we stuck it out -- my brother Roy and other loyal associates -- until the success of Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies finally put us in the black. Similarly, when war came to the United States in 1941, we turned from profitable popular movie-making to military production for Uncle Sam. Ninety-four per cent of the Disney facilities in Hollywood became engaged in special government work, while the remainder was devoted to the creation of morale building comedy, short subjects.

Both my study of Scripture and my career in entertaining children have taught me to cherish them. But I don’t believe in playing down to children, either in life or in motion pictures. I didn’t treat my own youngsters like fragile flowers, and I think no parent should.

Children are people, and they should have to reach to learn about things, to understand things, just as adults have to reach if they want to grow in mental stature. Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful, insincere, and saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows. Most things are good, and they are the strongest things; but there are evil things too, and you are not doing a child a favor by trying to shield him from reality. The important thing is to teach a child that good can always triumph over evil, and that is what our pictures attempt to do.

The American child is a highly intelligent human being -- characteristically sensitive, humorous, open-minded, eager to learn, and has a strong sense of excitement, energy, and healthy curiosity about the world in which he lives. Lucky indeed is the grown-up who manages to carry these same characteristics into adult life. It usually makes for a happy and successful individual. In our full-length cartoon features, as well as in our live action productions, we have tried to convey in story and song those virtues that make both children and adults attractive. I have long felt that the way to keep children out of trouble is to keep them interested in things. Lecturing to children is no answer to delinquency. Preaching won’t keep youngsters out of trouble, but keeping their minds occupied will.

Thus, whatever success I have had in bringing clean, informative entertainment to people of all ages, I attribute in great part to my Congregational upbringing and my lifelong habit of prayer. To me, today, at age sixty-one, all prayer, by the humble or highly placed, has one thing in common: supplication for strength and inspiration to carry on the best human impulses which should bind us together for a better world. Without such inspiration, we would rapidly deteriorate and finally perish. But in our troubled time, the right of men to think and worship as their conscience dictates is being sorely pressed. We can retain these privileges only by being constantly on guard and fighting off any encroachment on these precepts. To retreat from any of the principles handed down by our forefathers, who shed their blood for the ideals we still embrace, would be a complete victory for those who would destroy liberty and justice for the individual.


Walt died all too young, less than two weeks after his 65th birthday. It's no surprise, given his ability to juggle a number of different projects at a time, that various efforts were still in the works when he passed on. In 1960, he had staged the ceremonies for the Winter Olympics. The success of that activity led Walt to make plans for an elaborate year-round recreational facility in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. It was to be called Mineral King, and would feature skiing, an alpine village, skating rink, hotels, dormitories for young people, and restaurants. Walt's bid for the property was accepted by the U.S. government. But he met with resistance from environmentalists who worried that the development would destroy the natural beauty of the land. Walt argued that he was taking every measure to make sure the natural landscape was preserved -- by limiting automobile access, for example. The State of California was prepared to support the effort with highway construction, and Walt announced these plans at his last press conference, held on September 19, 1966. After Walt died, however, the environmentalists prevailed, and the project didn't come to be.

Another project didn't survive Walt's death was Walt Disney's Boyhood Home, a nonprofit tourist site that would help the economy of Marceline, Missouri -- the tiny community in which Walt spent his happiest childhood years. He bought land in Marceline and had plans drawn up. But that was about as far as things went. By happy contrast, his idea for a new kind of university education for creative people -- to be called CalArts -- fared somewhat better. For a long time, the Chouinard Art Institute had trained Disney artists. By merging the Chouinard Art Institute with the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, supported by patron Mrs. Richard Van Hagen, the opportunity existed to create a new kind of university. It could educate students in all facets of the arts -- dance, music, drama, art, and film. Students wouldn't be trained in just one discipline, but rather treated to a multi-arts educational approach. This general idea was novel when Walt argued for it -- now, it's found in most major universities. Today CalArts is thriving, and "Smithsonian Magazine" has declared that it "has now become one of the great progressive forces for the arts it serves."







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