9. Reading Skills Comprehension: Walt Disney

Walt Disney

Read the following passage carefully.                                             

Walter Elias “Walt” Disney was born on December 5, 1901, in Hermosa, Illinois. He lived most of his childhood in Marceline, Missouri, where he began drawing, painting and selling pictures to neighbours and family friends. Disney attended McKinley High School in Chicago, where he took drawing and photography classes and was a contributing cartoonist for the school paper. At night, he took courses at the Chicago Art Institute.

When Disney was 16, he dropped out of school to join the army but was rejected for being underage. Instead, he joined the Red Cross and was sent to France for a year to drive an ambulance. When Disney returned from France in 1919, he moved back to Kansas City to pursue a career as a newspaper artist. His brother Roy got him a job at the Postmen-Rubin Art Studio, where he met cartoonist UbbeEertIwerks, better known as UbIwerks. From there, Disney worked at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, where he made commercials based on cutout animation. Around this time. Disney began experimenting with a camera, doing hand-drawn cel animation and decided to open his own animation business. From the ad company, he recruited Fred Harman as his first employee.

Wait and Harman made a deal with a local Kansas City theatre to screen their cartoons, which they called Laugh-O-Grams. The cartoons were hugely popular, and Disney was able to acquire his own studio, upon which he bestowed the same name. Laugh-O-Gram hired a number of employees, including Harman’s brother Hugh and Iwerks. They did a series of seven-minute fairy tales that combined both live action and animation, which they called Alice in Cartoonland. By 1923, however, the studio had become burdened with debt, and Disney was forced to declare bankruptcy.

Disney and his brother, Roy, soon pooled their money and moved to Hollywood. Iwerks also relocated to California, and there the three began the Disney Brothers’ Studio. Their first deal was with New York distributor Margaret Winkler, to distribute their Alice cartoons. They also invented a character called Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and contracted the shorts at 1,500 each.

Questions :

Answer the following questions briefly.

(a) What did Walt Disney learn in his childhood?

(b) Why was Walt not selected in the army?

(c) How did Walt’s brother hells him in Kansas?

 (d) What did Walt learn at the Kansas City Film Ad Company?

 (e) Name the first employee of Ad Company.

(f) What deal was made with the Kansas City theatre?

 (g) Write briefly about Alice in Cartoonland.

(h) What was the deal made with Margaret Winkler?

Answers :

(a) Walt Disney learnt drawing, painting and selling pictures to neighbours and family friends.

(b) Walt was not selected in the army because he was underage.

(c) Walt’s brother got him a job at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio, where he met cartoonist UbbeEertIwwerks, better known as UbIwerks.

(d) Walt learnt to make commercials based on cutout animation.

(e) Fred Harman

(f) The deal was to screen their cartoons, which they called Laugh-O-Grams.

 (g) A series of seven-minute fairy tales that combined both live action and animation, which they called Alice in Cartoonland.

(h) The deal was to distribute their Alice cartoons.

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