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Walt Disney was born in Chicago in 1901 and he showed artistic talent early on and drew portraits of his family's neighbors for payment. During his studies in art and photography he further developed his artistic and creative side. But it was when he participated in the First World War in France that he first came into contact with animated films and cartoons. This later became his great passion and he came to revolutionize the field.

Back in the United States, he started a studio in 1921 that went bankrupt after a few years, but he refused to give up on his dream. In 1923, Walt, together with his older brother, formed The Disney Brothers Studio in Los Angeles. They later changed the name to Walt Disney Studios. After some further attempts, they succeeded, together with Ub Iwerks, in creating a cartoon character that they named Mortimer Mouse. They then changed it to Mickey Mouse and the character first appeared on film in 1928. Disney continued to produce animated short films during the 1920s and 1930s and soon a new character appeared, the chattering Donald Duck, who later became one of Walt Disney's most popular characters.

It was Mickey Mouse who, together with Donald Duck, laid the foundation for the empire that would dominate the comic book market in most of the Western world for more than half a century. The first Mickey Mouse series was drawn by Ub Iwerks based on Walt's own script. During the 1930s, Walt Disney also managed to engage several young talented animators and create a series of successful short films with them. These animators would create almost all of Disney's great successes in animated film and they would later be called "Disney's Nine Old Men".

In Sweden, we first got to know Mickey Mouse in 1930, when Stockholms Dagblad picked up the series. The Mickey Mouse comic book comes in 1936 and Donald Duck gets his own comic book in Sweden in 1948. However, it is the animated film that is Disney's greatest passion. Unlike the comics that are licensed out to various publishers, Walt Disney Studios retains control over all of its film production. The animated short films become such a great financial success that they give Disney the opportunity to realize his old dream of creating a cartoon feature film. After many years of hard work, the animated version of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale finally premieres on December 21, 1937. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is the first animated feature film ever and becomes a huge success. The film is considered one of the ten highest-grossing films of all time. The team included the Swedish animator Gustaf Tenggren.

Disney's animation technology is revolutionary at this time. By partly using human movements as models and then transferring them to animation, Disney creates something no one has seen before.

Disney is aware of the value of its films and cartoon characters and realizes early on the importance of marketing its brand. As early as 1929, the first licensed toy with Disney's name on it was released. Today, the company owns over 4,000 patents, from Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh to the characters in the newest Disney films. The income from this is now as large as from comic books and films.

When Walt Disney died in 1966, Walt Disney Studios had already established itself as one of the world's largest producers of family entertainment. In 2009, Disney bought the superhero publisher Marvel and in 2012, it also bought Lucasfilm, thus acquiring the rights to Star Wars.