The goal of my research is to take a close look at Disney's history of successful feature animated and live-action musicals to demonstrate that these movies are the source of Disney's success and should be their current focus as well. I am specifically interested in the recent movie High School Musical, and I plan to use it as a case study about how musicals in general are a better source of entertainment for children. Disney's marketing of High School Musical made use of many new forms of media and took advantage of the cross-platform media available to such an all-encompassing conglomerate. I also will look at research studies concerning children's attentiveness to different forms of media to show that they are more likely to show repeated interest in and remember songs than standard dialogue. How many of your favorite childhood songs were from Disney movies?

    The 2006 Annual Report from The Walt Disney Company summarizes the financial status of the company in comparison to the past two years. It is sent to every shareholder and available online as well. While reading through their statistics, I was looking to see if they made mention of “High School Musical” as having any amount of effect on their success and to see how much they specifically credited made-for-TV movies or feature animation as key to their survival.
    Disney has their hands in a large variety of markets, from their parks and resorts to movies to cable TV channels, international markets, and consumer products, and their newest endeavor with the Walt Disney Internet Group. Each of these components contributes to their overall financial success. Featured on the title page of the the section on “Media Networks: Cable Networks” is a two-page spread picture of the cast of “High School Musical,” claiming that nearly 90 million viewers have seen the movie since its debut on the Disney Channel.
    Overall, the company boasts revenues at $34,385 million for the year, a seven percent increase since 2005. For perspective, 2005’s revenues were a four percent increase from those of 2004. Their net income weighed in at $3,374 million, which is thirty three percent higher than last year’s income. The percent difference between 2005 and 2004 was only eight percent (p.57). Obviously they’re heading in the right direction, up. But when I was looking at the numbers for their Media Networks section, nothing seemed unusual or different from the previous year. The eleven percent increase to revenue of $14,638 million is close to the twelve percent increase last year (p.59). The increase specifically from cable networks (as opposed to broadcast television) was ten percent, whereas last year’s revenues increased by thirteen percent (p.60). At least when looking at the numbers, it doesn’t look like the cable networks experienced any sort of huge jump from previous years.
    The note about Disney’s purchase of Pixar, however, shared some relevant insight into the company’s philosophy of the nature of feature animated films: “Disney believes that the creation of high quality feature animation is a key driver of success across many of its businesses and provides content useful across a variety of traditional and new platforms throughout the world.” (p.83) Not only do they consider feature animation important in its own right, but they see the multitude of possibilities that it creates in their other markets. Disney is already used to the idea of cross marketing, because they’ve existed across so many different forms of media for a long time already. I’m glad to see that they’re sticking to tradition in putting feature animation at the top of their priorities, because it has been proven to be their most successful endeavor as well as a valuable fuel for the rest of their departments.

Note: Page numbers are based on the print version of the Annual Report. To download a PDF copy, click on the tab labeled “Financials.”

Throughout Smith and Clark’s catalog of one hundred years of Disney endeavors, one particular element of their success is consistent: feature animation musicals. At practically every turning point in the company’s history, the great success that brought the studio back out of the red was always a successful feature animation, and not just that, but a musical too. Disney’s initial success in the business of cartoons was with Steamboat Willie (1928), which was the first “synchronized sound cartoon” and put Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse on the map (p. 24). Soon after, Walt and Roy Disney formed their own recording company to make back the money they spent on sound equipment. The world’s first feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) was also the first film whose movie soundtrack was created using the original movie soundtracks, and it was the first film to have a merchandising campaign established to coincide with the release of the film into theaters. Everyone left the theater singing one of Snow White’s songs.
    The nineteen forties left Disney headed toward failure with the loss of their international markets because of the war. They invested everything they could in a new feature animation: Cinderella (1950), and they ended up with a huge success. The fate of the company rode on the success of the movie because of all of the labor and money put into creating it, and with both its score and the song “Bibbidi-Bobbidi Bo” nominated for Oscars, Disney realized that their salvation was in the creation of more feature animated musicals.
    Of course not every feature was as profitable. Disney invested over six million dollars in creating Sleeping Beauty (1959), its “most lavish and costly” film up to that point, but its initial release did not do as well as they’d hoped (p. 85). Luckily, Mary Poppins (1964) flew in with her umbrella and created a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious film that received thirteen Oscar nominations and five awards.
    The authors mark 1984 as the lowest point financially for Disney theatrical releases in thirty years. Under the new leadership of Michael Eisner and Frank Wells, though, the company started turning around. By 1989, The Little Mermaid put Disney back at the top. It was the first of five Disney feature animations in a row to win the Oscars for Best Original Score and Best Song, and it caused for “renewed excitement in the animation and musical genres” that set Disney straight for the next decade (p. 151). Beauty and the Beast, which was also nominated for Best Picture in 1991, Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), and Pocahontas (1995), followed equally strongly, and reinvigorated Disney’s animation department. Again, the cause for success was feature animated musicals that brought back both audiences and awards.
    Following the entry for the final year, 1999, the authors take a look into the future at what Disney has planned for the upcoming century. They spelled out every bit of advance information they could get their hands on, and looking back, they were pretty dead on. Two of the major disappointments that they could not have anticipated were the movies Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) and Treasure Planet (2002). Their predicted success was based on the fact that they would have the same directorial and production staff that made the movies of the early nineties so incredibly successful. The missing piece? Music.