Born in 1901, Walt Disney took up drawing at an early age, enrolling in cartooning courses by age 10. By 20, he was running his own company, Laugh-O-Gram Studio (which would soon fold after failing to generate enough revenue), where he experimented with cel animation, a technique that would come to define his films. His most famous character, Mickey Mouse, was created in 1928, and, by 1933, Disney won his first of 22 Academy Awards. Disney’s entrée into television in the 1950s was a shrewd business move: He needed funding for Disneyland. In a 1953 deal between Disney and ABC, the network financed a portion of the theme park’s construction in exchange for Disney producing original programming. Out of this era, Disney created The Mickey Mouse
Club and the still-running…