stylistic:style_transfer, stylistic:tone, information:filtering
1934–1949: Golden Age of Animation, strike, and wartime era

In 1934, Walt Disney announced a feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It would be the first cel animated feature and the first animated feature produced in the US. Its novelty made it a risky venture; Roy tried to persuade Walt not to produce it, arguing it would bankrupt the studio, and while widely anticipated by the public, it was referred to by some critics as "Disney's Folly". Walt directed the animators to take a realistic approach, creating scenes as though they were live action. While making the film, the company created the multiplane camera, consisting of pieces of glass upon which drawings were placed at different distances to create an illusion of depth in the backgrounds. After United Artists attempted to attain future television rights to the Disney shorts, Walt signed a distribution contract with RKO Radio Pictures on March 2, 1936. Walt Disney Productions exceeded its original budget of $150,000 for Snow White by ten times; its production eventually cost the company $1.5 million.

Snow White took 3 years to make, premiering on December 12, 1937. It was an immediate critical and commercial success, becoming the highest-grossing film up to that point, grossing $8 million (equivalent to $169,555,556 in 2023 dollars); after re-releases, it grossed a total of $998,440,000 in the US adjusted for inflation. Using the profits from Snow White, Disney financed the construction of a new 51-acre studio complex in Burbank, which the company fully moved into in 1940 and where the company is still headquartered. In April 1940, Disney Productions had its initial public offering, with the common stock remaining with Disney and his family. Disney did not want to go public but the company needed the money.

Shortly before Snow White's release, work began on the company's next features, Pinocchio and Bambi. Pinocchio was released in February 1940 while Bambi was postponed. Despite Pinocchio 's critical acclaim (it won the Academy Awards for Best Song and Best Score and was lauded for groundbreaking achievements in animation), the film performed poorly at the box office, due to World War II affecting the international box office.

The company's third feature Fantasia (1940) introduced groundbreaking advancements in cinema technology, chiefly Fantasound, an early surround sound system making it the first commercial film to be shown in stereo. However, Fantasia similarly performed poorly at the box office. In 1941, the company experienced a major setback when 300 of its 800 animators, led by one of the top animators Art Babbitt, went on strike for 5 weeks for unionization and higher pay. Walt Disney publicly accused the strikers of being party to a communist conspiracy, and fired many of them, including some of the studio's best. Roy unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the company's main distributors to invest in the studio, which could no longer afford to offset production costs with employee layoffs. The anthology film The Reluctant Dragon (1941), ran $100,000 short of its production cost, contributing to the studio's financial woes.

While negotiations to end the strike were underway, Walt and studio animators embarked on a 12-week goodwill visit to South America, funded by the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs. During the trip, the animators began plotting films, taking inspiration from the local environments and music. As a result of the strike, federal mediators compelled the studio to recognize the Screen Cartoonist's Guild and several animators left, leaving it with 694 employees. To recover from their financial losses, Disney rushed into production the studio's 4th animated feature Dumbo (1941) on a cheaper budget, which performed well at the box office, infusing the studio with much needed cash. After US entry into World War II, many of the company's animators were drafted into the army. 500 United States Army soldiers occupied the studio for 8 months to protect a nearby Lockheed aircraft plant. While they were there, the soldiers fixed equipment in large soundstages and converted storage sheds into ammunition depots. The United States Navy asked Disney to produce propaganda films to gain support for the war, and with the studio badly in need of profits, Disney agreed, signing a contract for 20 war-related shorts for $90,000. Most of the company's employees worked on the project, which spawned films such as Victory Through Air Power, and others which included some of the company's characters.

In August 1942, Disney released its fifth feature film, Bambi, after five years in development, and performed poorly at the box office. Later, as products of the South American trip, Disney released the features Saludos Amigos (1942) and The Three Caballeros (1944). This was a new strategy of releasing package films, collections of short cartoons grouped to make feature films. Both performed poorly. Disney released more package films through the rest of the decade, including Make Mine Music (1946), Fun and Fancy Free (1947), Melody Time (1948), and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949), to try to recover from its financial losses. Disney began producing less-expensive live-action films mixed with animation, beginning with Song of the South (1946) which would become one of Disney's most controversial films. As a result of its financial problems, Disney began re-releasing its feature films in 1944. In 1948, it began premiering the nature documentary series, True-Life Adventures, which ran until 1960, winning 8 Academy Awards. In 1949, the Walt Disney Music Company was founded to help with profits for merchandising.