Disney Revolt [TRADE PAPER ]

An essential piece of Disney history has been largely unreported for eighty years.

Soon after the birth of Mickey Mouse, one animator raised the Disney Studio far beyond Walt’s expectations. That animator also led a union war that almost destroyed it. Art Babbitt animated for the Disney studio throughout the 1930s and through 1941, years in which he and Walt were jointly driven to elevate animation as an art form, up throughSnow White,Pinocchio, andFantasia.

But as America prepared for World War II, labor unions spread across Hollywood. Disney fought the unions while Babbitt embraced them. Soon, angry Disney cartoon characters graced picket signs as hundreds of animation artists went out on strike. Adding fuel to the fire was Willie Bioff, one of Al Capone’s wiseguys who was seizing control of Hollywood workers and vied for the animators’ union.

Using never-before-seen research from previously lost records, including conversation transcriptions from within the studio walls, author and historian Jake S. Friedman reveals the details behind the labor dispute that changed animation and Hollywood forever.
 
The Disney Revoltis an American story of industry and of the underdog, the golden age of animated cartoons at the world’s most famous studio.“Jake S. Friedman has done an impressive job of research, to put it mildly. Without knowing the sequence of events it’s impossible to understand how this bitter strike came about. Add to that the perceived insults, slights, and resentments and you have the stuff of great drama.” —Leonard Maltin, film critic and historian, author ofOf Mice and Magic“Author Jake S. Friedman takes us ona deep dive into Hollywood history delivered in a style that reads like a film noir page turner. I could not put this book down.” —Don Hahn, producer ofBeauty lC%