Mickey Mouse and his pals are looking to the future. Since their creator filmed Four Methods of Flush Riveting in funny cartoon in April, 1941, for Lockheed – and started a flood of government orders they've been 90% in war work.
After showing G.I. Joe how to fight, fly, read and write, and teaching his civilian cousin to run machinery and toe into the home front, they can look toward their place in peacetime visual education. They taught 40% faster than textbooks, said Army; folks liked them better, remembered longer.
Everybody can understand cartoons, says Chicago-born, farm-bred Walt. He believes his brain-children some day will teach communities how to live as easily as they taught soldiers to fight.
The Motion Picture Academy Award, degrees from Yale and Harvard, his $2 million studio, haven't changed this 44- year-old powerhouse. He still walks to work, eats donuts-and-coffee every morning at the studio, chums with workers, teases his two daughters at night. A near breakdown made him take time out from work for sports, more sleep. He's always gone to movies.
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