Boss-man Walt Disney, whose genius has enriched viewers young and old, runs a shop where workers can also be happy. Let's take a look...
All good employers know the Golden Rule of Production: Give more and you will get more. But it took an exceptionally imaginative boss like Walt Disney to start putting it into practice, back in 1939, when the success of his animated cartoons — now full-length features, as well as short subjects — burst the seams of his old studio. Result: A daytime dreamland on fifty-some acres in Burbank, not far from Hollywood...
The present complex of specially-designed buildings, set in a park-like atmosphere, has led more than one first-sighter to exclaim, "Why, it's like a country club!" Comparative newcomer William Thomas — who designed the clothes for such Disney films as "Babes in Toyland" and "Moon Pilot" — adds: "Another wonderful feature is the relationship between Mr. Disney and the personnel. There's none of that front-office protocol, where you never seem to get an answer. Any problem, any brainstorm, is given a quick decision by Walt himself." Perhaps animation supervisor Frank Thomas — no relation, but a Disneyite for twenty-six years — gives the key to it all: "The Disney operation is a hobby, not a business, to Walt. He enjoys every minute of it and that enthusiasm rubs off on the rest of us."...
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