“After the military, Walt hoped to have a career as an artist. He applied to the advertising agency of Pesman-Rubin. Roy, his brother, claimed that Pesman-Rubin hired Walt as a personal favor to Roy who handled the agency’s account at the bank Roy worked at. Walter lasted a month until the advertising agency let him go due to Walt’s ‘singular lack of drawing ability.’ According to Current Biography 1952, in 1923, Walt and Roy had together $290. They borrowed $500 from another Disney, one of their uncles named Robert Disney and began to try to make cartoons. Robert Disney had retired in the L.A. area in Edendale, CA after a successful mining career. Robert had always been close to Walt’s father Elias, and helped Walt and Roy out when they came to California. Walt loved to study Charlie Chaplin (a member of the Collins family). He scrawled notes about his body language, facial features, and his gag methods. He also read everything he could about animation and cartooning. They worked out of their uncle’s garage in Hollywood, CA. They were finally able to make a good cartoon ‘Steamboat Willie’ in 1928, which became an instant hit.
As with many things in life, the cartoon was not only good, but Walt finally had the right ‘connections.’ On Nov. 18, ’28, ‘Steamboat Willie’ was shown in a small, independent theater without any advance promotion or advertising. But amazingly (!) the New York Times, Variety, and Exhibitor’s Herald all ran rave reviews of the cartoon the next day. Was this an accident? Did journalists from all these prestigious periodicals just happen to go to this tiny independent theater? No it was connections. The reason the elite decided to promote Walt Disney after Steambot Willie came out as Hollywood’s newest ‘boy wonder’ was to deflect enormous bitterness that had been generated by the Stock Market collapse toward Jewish financiers. Hollywood, even in its first two decades, was known as ‘Babylon’ and ‘Sin City.’ The movie industry was well-known to be run by Jews, and many people blamed the Stock Market Crash on the moral degradation that Hollywood had introduced to this nation. There were calls for government regulatory groups to stop the smutty Hollywood films, Edgar Magnin, the spiritual leader of the major movie makers who were part of the Los Angeles B’nai B’rith movie makers that Hollywood needed to protect itself by putting Walt Disney in the limelight as a Christian ‘white knight with family values.’ (By the way, Edgar Magnin was nicknamed ‘Rabbi to the Stars’, because he was ‘the Hollywood rabbi.’) E. Magnin’s grandfather’s department store chain was one of the first major accounts of the Bank of Italy, and Edgar Magnin had continued his family’s close association with the Bank of Italy. The closeness also came from the Bank of Italy’s close ties to the B’nai B’rith and ADL. In 1930, the movie industry made a production code which stated that the industry must make a special effort to make movies appropriate for children. Hollywood directly praised Disney in that code as an exemplary model of what the movie industry wanted to do.”
The rise to fame of Walt Disney
“After the military, Walt hoped to have a career as an artist. He applied to the advertising agency of Pesman-Rubin. Roy, his brother, claimed that Pesman-Rubin hired Walt as a personal favor to Roy who handled the agency’s account at the bank Roy worked at. Walter lasted a month until the advertising agency let him go due to Walt’s ‘singular lack of drawing ability.’ According to Current Biography 1952, in 1923, Walt and Roy had together $290. They borrowed $500 from another Disney, one of their uncles named Robert Disney and began to try to make cartoons. Robert Disney had retired in the L.A. area in Edendale, CA after a successful mining career. Robert had always been close to Walt’s father Elias, and helped Walt and Roy out when they came to California. Walt loved to study Charlie Chaplin (a member of the Collins family). He scrawled notes about his body language, facial features, and his gag methods. He also read everything he could about animation and cartooning. They worked out of their uncle’s garage in Hollywood, CA. They were finally able to make a good cartoon ‘Steamboat Willie’ in 1928, which became an instant hit.
As with many things in life, the cartoon was not only good, but Walt finally had the right ‘connections.’ On Nov. 18, ’28, ‘Steamboat Willie’ was shown in a small, independent theater without any advance promotion or advertising. But amazingly (!) the New York Times, Variety, and Exhibitor’s Herald all ran rave reviews of the cartoon the next day. Was this an accident? Did journalists from all these prestigious periodicals just happen to go to this tiny independent theater? No it was connections. The reason the elite decided to promote Walt Disney after Steambot Willie came out as Hollywood’s newest ‘boy wonder’ was to deflect enormous bitterness that had been generated by the Stock Market collapse toward Jewish financiers. Hollywood, even in its first two decades, was known as ‘Babylon’ and ‘Sin City.’ The movie industry was well-known to be run by Jews, and many people blamed the Stock Market Crash on the moral degradation that Hollywood had introduced to this nation. There were calls for government regulatory groups to stop the smutty Hollywood films, Edgar Magnin, the spiritual leader of the major movie makers who were part of the Los Angeles B’nai B’rith movie makers that Hollywood needed to protect itself by putting Walt Disney in the limelight as a Christian ‘white knight with family values.’ (By the way, Edgar Magnin was nicknamed ‘Rabbi to the Stars’, because he was ‘the Hollywood rabbi.’) E. Magnin’s grandfather’s department store chain was one of the first major accounts of the Bank of Italy, and Edgar Magnin had continued his family’s close association with the Bank of Italy. The closeness also came from the Bank of Italy’s close ties to the B’nai B’rith and ADL. In 1930, the movie industry made a production code which stated that the industry must make a special effort to make movies appropriate for children. Hollywood directly praised Disney in that code as an exemplary model of what the movie industry wanted to do.”