Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to What Went Wrong, your favorite podcast full stop that just so happens to be about movies, and how it's nearly impossible to make them,

let alone a good one, let alone a medium-defining foray into a pioneering new art form.

As always, I am Chris Winterbauer, and since my fearless co-host, Lizzie Bassett is still on

maternity leave, we're going to be doing things a little bit different today.

In support of

our coverage of Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, we've decided to release this

companion episode, ideally you'll listen to it first, that serves as a primer on the upbringing and

early professional career of Walt Disney up until he decided to make his first feature film. We hope that this

will show you both what a risky and revolutionary film Snow White really was. If you're interested

for some direct links to many of the short films that we'll discuss in this episode, head to our

Patreon. www. patreon.com slash what went wrong podcast, and search for Snow White,

extra credit, and you will find a breakdown of many of the short films discussed here. Again,

this is free. It's in our public page. That's www. patreon.com slash what went wrong podcast. All right. Now let's dive in to the story of Walt

Disney, read by me, but given a very helpful and necessary assist with sound and music by David Bowman.

Once upon a time, far from the forests of Germany, across the Atlantic Ocean, in the American Midwest, there lived a young boy who loved to draw.

Walt Disney, born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 5th, 1901, was the fourth of five children, and his childhood was, well, Disney-esque. He lived in Missouri for a spell on a farm, and he spent time

with the animals roaming the countryside, drawing, always drawing. It was clear. He was very talented.

In fact, a neighbor paid him a quarter for a portrait of himself and his horse.

In 1910, Walt's family headed to Kansas City,

and there Walt fell in love with vaudeville theater and Charlie Chaplin.

He wasn't much of a student, but he honed his art skills drawing caricatures

for a local barber in exchange for free haircuts.

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