Today on the podcast, we're going to finish our 10-part story of Walt Disney, Larry Watkin,

and how the Disney company transformed itself from a modest animation studio into a major Hollywood

operation. And as we close up this story, there are a couple of surprises along the way.

A few elements that I'm guessing most of our listeners won't see coming.

When we left off last time, Walt and Watkin had just returned from the Dublin premiere of Darby O'Gill,

only to find that Hollywood writers were moving toward a strike.

Walt had offered Watkin a position as a producer,

a position that would have saved him from the strike.

But Watkin, much to Walt's surprise, turned him down,

claiming that he only wanted to be a writer

and that he didn't want to work again on the business side of production.

And so now, without delay, let's jump back into our story and find out how all of this ends.

The Stride The strike was long and difficult. It lasted 148 days from January 16th through June 12th, crippling Hollywood for nearly half a year.

During these months, Walt began to drift away from movies. His attention

was focused more on his amusement park in Anaheim, in proposing attractions that he might build

through wed for the New York World's Fair, and in plans for a new resort somewhere on the east

coast, perhaps just north of Miami.

When the strike was over, Walt called Watkin in for a meeting, as presumably all striking

workers were now returning to their old jobs. But Watkin knew immediately that he was being

dismissed. By now it was clear that Walt was trying to shift

live-action production over to a set of surrogates so that his time might be freed up for other

projects, likely related to the expansion of his theme parks. His hand-picked surrogates included

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