Ok well I know this might push some of your guys buttons, and if I do I am sorry. I know that Walt Disney to most of you is a hero. Well When I was in high school (last year). There was an art teacher named Mr. Disney. I asked my art teacher is he was related to Walt Disney, and she said yes. But he denies it. When I asked her why he says he not related to him she said because Walt Disney was an [not nice word].

So I dont know what to belive, because how can the person who made Disneyland be mean??? :|

Mod Note: Self-edited word deleted. If you need to self-edit it, you probably shouldn't use it. Thank you. ak

actually I bet he or she says that because she or he is always asked that. anyway i don't believe a [blank] would almost go broke by building a park for families

Another possibility...this is life, and everybody does NOT like everybody else. So maybe they just didn't get along.

As you get older, you will learn that people have biases and that people are complex. Nobody is simply good or bad and nobody is able to see others souls with complete clarity. I suspect that Walt Disney was a complex person. There may have been people who disagreed with him and thought he was a bad person. Heck, you can look around on-line and find all kinds of books claiming that Disney's Corporation is evil. But life isn't that simple. "Good" and "Bad" are really a matter of perspective. I love Disneyland and am grateful to Walt Disney for bringing it about. If he rubbed some people the wrong way in the process, it's really not my place to judge him, anyway.

Ok well I know this might push some of your guys buttons, and if I do I am sorry. I know that Walt Disney to most of you is a hero. Well When I was in high school (last year). There was an art teacher named Mr. Disney. I asked my art teacher is he was related to Walt Disney, and she said yes. But he denies it. When I asked her why he says he not related to him she said because Walt Disney was an [not nice word].

So I dont know what to belive, because how can the person who made Disneyland be mean??? :|

Mod Note: Self-edited word deleted. If you need to self-edit it, you probably shouldn't use it. Thank you. ak

Actually, I believe individuals are overall good or bad. I also believe Walt Disney was a good person; a very good person. He died when I was very young and I never had a chance to meet him. I have read a lot about him.

My impression is that while Walt was by all definitions a very warm, caring and passionate person, he also had very high standards. When you combine passion with high standards, disappointment and frustration are going to come along sometimes. Obviously, if Walt was disappointed or frustrated with a situation, he was going to express it. A few people didn't like this and, unjustifiably in my opinion, labeled him as a cranky and two-faced. In all the reading I've done about Walt Disney, I came across very few people who had anything bad to say about him. These people were typically unions reps or folks who thought they'd been mistreated.

A modern group of people who don't like Walt Disney are elitists who think everything Disney is for uncultured morons. It makes them feel superior to criticize Walt and the company he founded. Of course, none of these people ever met him.

Ub Iwerks was an early friend and associate of Walt. I know they had a falling out, but I've never been able to find a detailed story about exactly what happened. While he and Walt had their differences, I've never come accross any quotes where Ub Iwerks referred to Walt not being a good person.

I suspect the teacher you know named Disney falls in the "elitist" category.

Or there could have been some family falling out...tensions, etc. as do many families. I know this happened in my family back around 1920 or so and we lost touch with alot of close family members. I wasn't even born until the 70's so I've always wondered what could have been....It's very sad, but it happens.

From what I understand Walt could be described in very modern day terms as somewhat of a control freak. He was also a perfectionist and a demanding taskmaster. Such traits could have made him someone who for some people might have been a little difficult to work for. This does not mean that he did not also posess the "Uncle Walt" qualities that were portrayed in his public image.

Like all great men and women, Walt was way to complex of a human being to simply be described by simple words like "nice" or "mean".

A great guy that provided entertainment for all ages of people from small to old.

Years ago a customer came to my workplace and his last name was Disney. Of course i had to ask him"any relation?", his reply was "yes 2 cousins short of the money". He was'nt doing to bad though,Driving a brand new 4wd Suburban.Never did get a chance to talk to him any longer than that.:cool:

Disney hated and feared communists with a passion and testified at the infamous Mccarthy hearings. There are many people who hated him for it then and still hate him for it now.Perhaps that is what the art teacher was refering to. I'm grateful he gave us DL and those wonderful films. I think he was basically a good man.He was definitely a brilliant man. But my hero? No.

There are a number of biographies of Walt Disney on the market, one of them "An American Original" by Bob Thomas which leans towards a positive portrayal, and another one, I forget the title but it was published in the early 1990s, which dredged up a lot of negative things about Walt, especially when his animators went on strike in the 1940s.

Perhaps by today's standards and outlooks, Walt Disney is considered a conservative industrialist. Some political pursuasions see American business as part of America, what makes the country great, we export many products overseas, and American's get jobs and prosperity out of it. Oppossite political pursuasions distrust "big business" and see anyone with "traditional" points of view as out of step, a threat to personal freedoms.

I happen to think Walt Disney was a brilliant man, flawed, a perfectionist, but perfectionism doesn't mean you're a threat or evil. It just means you set high standards. Most of the entertainment concepts and concepts he had about pleasing the public not only remain in style and make money for the company today, but the new CEO, Robert Iger, is clearly on a path to restore some of these tenets to how the company is run on a global basis. It pleases stockholders, many of whom are Disney fans but many of whom also manage large retirement systems and other investment firms on behalf of people who want to see their savings grow, in part to put kids through colleges or for their retirement.

It seems everything today "has" to be put through a political spectrum, liberal or conservative, or red state blue state. If that is the attitude your teacher seemed to have in the context of the moment, just forgive the teacher and ignore that part of the teacher's biases.

Unknown to you is perhaps how much an art teacher with the surname of "Disney" has been addressed over the past years to act as if or produce as if truly a part of the Walt Disney family or draw like a Disney animator would or be supportive of the type of art and pop cultural entertainment Walt Disney produced. Sometimes those with similar names to celebrities hate it only because they want to be known as their own person, their own creative product and their own contributions to the world, and their individual view points vs. what the celebrity is like. If that is what was going on with your teacher, just forgive the teacher and ignore that part of the teacher's biases.

In the creative community their are a variety of viewpoints about a lot of things. There can also be a lot of conflict in creative endeavors. People care a lot about the outcome, want to reach common visions, and in trying to reach such goals between people there can be misunderstandings and conflicts. That is normal within that social group of people. It is normal in any endeavor where a lot of creative people have to come together to create a single work product, especially if there is a deadline involved.

If your teacher addressed me that way, I'd definitely have a few negative thoughts occuring to me about that person, and I'd definitely endeavor to stay out of that person's way in the future.

My advice is to read up on who Walt Disney was, and to read up on his animators and Imagineers. Books abound, the more Disneyana/Pixie Dusted of Mouse Planet's writers can steer you to some excellent books that give a great deal of insight. There is also an excellent magazine called The E-Ticket. It celebrates the history of Disneyland. You can get back issues on CD-ROMs. Just Google the term. When you read the back issues you will get great insights into the creative process within the Disney company when Walt was alive and trying to establish that particular theme park. It didn't go smoothly all the time, and working relationships had to realize their dedication and the proof that when Walt's visions got created, in fact they were sound and enduring for decades.

So the best way to get over your teacher's remarks and attitude is to do the homework and read up.

This is not to say that Walt was a totally perfect person, who among us is? However, his creative product is still around and still enduring decades after the fact, when other forms of entertainment today are used up and spat out in short order after it gets it's 15-minutes of fame. Take steps back, read up, and mull it over. Decide for yourself. Your best bet is to conduct your own inquiry and decide for yourself.