The span of 12 years between Steamboat Willie, the first Mickey with Sound, and Fantasia,

is the bridge between primitive and modern animated pictures. No genius built this bridge. It was built

by hard work and enthusiasm, integrity of purpose, a devotion to our medium, confidence in its future,

and above all, a steady day-by-day growth in which we all simply studied our trade and learned.

Walt Disney, in a speech given in 1940.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

Music Episode 288. What's up, Doc?

Walter Elias Disney was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1901.

His father, Elias, was an immigrant from Canada.

Walter was the youngest of four sons.

He also had a younger sister. The family was not prosperous.

When Walt was four, the family moved to a farm in Missouri. When he was nine, they moved to Kansas

City, Missouri. There Elias made Walt and his big brother Roy take on a paper route.

They got up at 4.30 in the morning to deliver the morning Kansas City Times before school,

and then after school another round to deliver the evening Kansas City Star.

This was the first business partnership between Roy and Walt. It would not be the last.

They kept this up for six years, and it made Walt a poor student, who often fell asleep in class.

But he was also taking art classes on the side. He had shown a flair for drawing and painting from an early age,

but his real love was cartooning. In 1917, the family moved back to Chicago, where Walt

became the cartoonist for his high school newspaper. And as you may recall from episode 172,

Walt Disney attempted to enlist in the U.S. Army during the Great

War, though he was under age. He forged the date on his birth certificate to persuade the American

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