Walt Disney Character Analysis in Fast Food Nation

The founder of the Walt Disney Company, famous for its animated films and its theme parks. Walt Disney was, like Ray Kroc, a corporate visionary who saw the enormous profits company’s might be able to reap when they marketed their products to children. Like Kroc, too, Disney was a strong anti-union campaigner, although Disney was an even more stridently conservative than Kroc, who still expressed sympathies for some liberal (though non-union) causes.

Walt Disney Character Timeline in Fast Food Nation

The timeline below shows where the character Walt Disney appears in Fast Food Nation. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...notes that the tone of the McDonald’s museum, and indeed its entire corporate complex, is “Disneyesque,” and he argues that this is not a coincidence, since Kroc—the man who took the... (full context)

Both Kroc and Disney were self-educated, and their training facilities they christened “universities,” to make employees at Disney and... (full context)

Schlosser notes that, after purchasing McDonald’s franchising rights, Kroc sent a letter to Disney, then already quite famous as head of the Disney movie studio, to ask to sell... (full context)

Schlosser explains Disney’s methods for making cartoons during the 1930s and ‘40s: for Disney, his studio was “a... (full context)

Disney, as Schlosser notes, was a strong supporter of Republican causes. Ronald Reagan, a former movie... (full context)

Disney was also greatly enamored with “progress,” not unlike Carl Karcher, the founder of Carl’s Jr.... (full context)

Schlosser writes that corporate synergy reached a new zenith in 1996, when McDonald’s and Disney signed a ten-year agreement for cross-promotion of products between the companies—especially the marketing of Disney... (full context)