Walter Elias "Walt" Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American animator and film producer whose company Walt Disney Productions (later The Walt Disney Company) was the main competitor of Fleischer Studios, the ones responsible for bringing Popeye to animation, for most of the 1930s. Disney's Mickey Mouse and various other characters would vie for popularity with Popeye in the animated cartoon field. Fleischers even produced an answer to Disney's animated feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with their Gulliver's Travels of 1939. This competition however ended with Fleischer Studios's dissolution early into the 1940s.
Disney's company would evolve into the world's foremost producer of family entertainment and, many decades after the aforementioned rivalry, they would join forces with Paramount Pictures and King Features Syndicate in 1980 for the release of the feature-length Popeye film.
External links[]
- Walt Disney at the Internet Movie Database
- Lambiek Comiclopedia entry