The reasons for Disney's success are varied and numerous, but ⁶ultimately the credit ⁷belongs to one person - the man who created the cartoon and built the company from nothing, Walt Disney. ⁸Ironically, he could not draw ⁹particularly well. But he was a genius in plenty of other respects. In business, his greatest skills were his ¹⁰insight and his management ability.

　　¹¹But what really distinguished Disney was his ability to ¹²identify with his audiences. Disney always made sure his films ¹³championed the "little guy", and made him ¹⁴feel proud to be American. This he achieved by creating characters that reflected the hopes and fears of ordinary people. Some ¹⁵celebrated American achievements - Disney's very first cartoon Plane Crazy, ¹⁶featuring a silent Michey Mouse, was ¹⁷inspired by ¹⁸Charles Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic. Others, like the Three Little Pigs and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, showed how, through hard work and helping one's fellow man, ordinary Americans could ¹⁹survive social and economic crises like the ²⁰Great Depression.

　　By the time he died in 1966, Walt Disney was an icon like ²¹Thomas Edison and the ²²Wright Brothers. To business people and filmmakers, he was a role model; to the public ²³at large, he was "Uncle Walt" - the man who had ²⁴entertained them all their lives, the man who represented all that was good about America.