Walt Disney Animation Studios

This article is about the current feature animation division of The Walt Disney Company. For this company's history prior to 1986, see Walt Disney Productions.

Credits

Descriptions by
Logoboy95, TheLogoFan2004, and Henrynguye5

Captures by
V of Doom, EnormousRat, and LogosForTheWin

Editions by
Henrynguye5, Scj323347, Prodigy012‎, Omoniyi.ade0614, Tjdrum2000, TheLogoFan2004, and Michael Kenchington

Video captures courtesy of
Raphael Freire Zanardo and EnormousRat

Walt Disney Animation Studios
Founded:	February 6, 1986 (38 years ago)
Predecessors:	Walt Disney Productions
Formerly:	Walt Disney Feature Animation (1986-2007)
Key People:	Clark Spencer (president) Jennifer Lee (CCO)
Location:	United States
Parent:	The Walt Disney Studios (The Walt Disney Company)
Website:	https://www.disneyanimation.com/

Background

Walt Disney Animation Studios is an American animation studio owned by The Walt Disney Studios, a division of The Walt Disney Company. It was formed on February 6, 1986 as Walt Disney Feature Animation, inheriting the animation staff of Walt Disney Productions following that company's reorganization as The Walt Disney Company. In its current incarnation, the studio has produced 37 animated films within the larger Disney Animated Canon, with its most recent being Wish, released on November 22, 2023. All of its films are released by Walt Disney Pictures through the Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures banner.

Walt Disney Animation Studios did not have an official onscreen logo until it took on its current name in 2007.

Walt Disney Feature Animation

Contents 1st Logo (1993) 2nd Logo (March 1996)

Walt Disney Animation Studios

Contents   Logo (March 23, 2007-)

Walt Disney Feature Animation

1st Logo (1993)

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Visuals: Just the short version of the 1986 Walt Disney Pictures logo, except the "PICTURES" is replaced with a purple box with "FEATURE ANIMATION" in Times New Roman written on it.

Variant: The opening variant has "PRODUCED EXCLUSIVELY FOR" fading at top part of the logo.

Technique: Traditional ink-and-paint animation.

Audio:. A triumphant fanfare.

Availablity: Was only seen on the internal documentary Walt Disney's Animazing Features: Sixty Years of Feature Length Animation Production.

2nd Logo (March 1996)

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Visuals: Above the Funcom logo on a white background, there's a sunlight. Over the sunlight, a Mickey Mouse silhouette is seen with a hand drawing a picture. Below it, there are the smaller texts "Animation Services" and "Walt Disney Feature Animation" with "Walt Disney" being in a corporate font.

Technique: A still, digital graphic.

Audio: None.

Availability: Only seen on Pocahontas for Sega Genesis.

Walt Disney Animation Studios

Logo (March 23, 2007-)

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  Flat version
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  Scope version
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  50th Animated Motion Picture variant
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  60th Animated Motion Picture variant
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  Alternate 60th Animated Motion Picture variant, seen on trailers for Encanto
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  Wreck-It Ralph variant
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  A .gif of the footage from Steamboat Willie used in the logo

Visuals: On a paper background, a red circle is drawn. As the camera zooms out, more pieces of paper fold out on the screen like a flipbook, and the circle quickly becomes a rough sketch of Mickey Mouse in his appearance from the 1928 cartoon Steamboat Willie. Eventually, the pages stop flipping, and the sketch animates (showing Mickey happily whistling while turning the wheel on the steamboat he is driving) before slowly turning into footage of the original scene from the short. The scene zooms out onto the background with a spotlight, and below the picture, the words "WALT DiSNEY" write themselves in a sketchier version of the signature corporate font, with "ANIMATION STUDIOS" (set in ITC Kabel Demi) fading in underneath.

Trivia: In 2024, Steamboat Willie entered the public domain in the United States. However, it has been speculated that this logo was created using footage of the cartoon to extend its protection under trademark law.

Variants:

• Starting in 2008, the logo was given a high-definition look, which used the same animation.
• On the iPad app Disney Animated, the logo is in a 4:3 aspect ratio and is shown before the first section "Art in Motion". In this variant, the logo zooms in to focus on an abridged version of the Steamboat Willie footage. As the animation finishes, it cuts to a scene from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
• On Tangled (the 50th Disney animated feature and the 25th film produced by WDAS) and Encanto (the 60th Disney animated feature and the 35th film produced by WDAS), a custom variant was used:
  • The former has the animation staying in place as it is slowly overtaken by a large, orange circle outline, with the wheel being filled with black before transforming into the normal scene. It then zooms out to reveal it is part of a large "50", with the company name entirely in brown at the top, while the stacked text "ANIMATED MOTION PICTURE" appears under the "50" and a small "TH" appears at the top-right corner. The closing version of this variant has the finished product shown up close before animating as usual (albeit at a faster pace); the company name is already formed while the rest of the text fades in.
  • The latter has the "50" replaced by a "60", and the logo is shortened to the number zooming out to its place. The closing variant just has the last seconds of the normal logo.
    • A trailer for the latter film has the company name replaced with "OUR".
• On Wreck-It Ralph, the logo is done in an 8-bit video game style on a black background.
• On Frozen II, the logo crossfades into the opening scene of the movie.
• A shortened version exists which has the logo in its last few seconds, with the cartoon footage already fixed in place as the text writes in. This seems to have replaced the standard logo on films.
• Sometimes, the logo is still.
• On the Disney100 "4th of July" special look video on Disney's social pages, the first few seconds of the logo are shown in black and white before it fades into footage from Steamboat Willie. On Disney's TikTok page, it is cropped in a 9:21 ratio to fit the phone's portrait orientation.

Technique: CGI directed by Mike Gabriel and produced by Roy Conli, using Ub Iwerks' original animation drawings from the Steamboat Willie short as reference.

Audio: The sound of pages turning, followed by audio of Mickey whistling the song Steamboat Bill (music by The Leighton Brothers and lyrics by Ren Shields) with a piano playing along, taken directly from the original Steamboat Willie cartoon.

Audio Variants:

• On Wreck-It Ralph, a short 8-bit version of Steamboat Bill plays.
• The shortened variant has a truncated version of the whistle tune.
• On some films, the opening theme or sound effects play over the logo instead.
• The closing variant is silent or has the ending theme of the movie.
• At the end of The Princess and the Frog and on post-2011 prints of Beauty and the Beast (1991), only the whistling is heard with no piano accompaniment.
• The still version has the ending theme of the film play over it.

Availability: This appears on every film produced by the studio beginning with Meet the Robinsons.

• It also appears on post-2011 prints of Beauty of the Beast (1991).
• The shortened variant appears at the end of the studio's films starting with Bolt, as well as on short films and movies beginning with Strange World (due to the length of the 2022 Disney logo).
  • It also appears on the Disney+ series Baymax! and Zootopia+.
• The still version appears on the Prep & Landing TV specials, as well as the short Operation: Secret Santa.
• Although a new print logo was introduced in 2020, this logo is still used onscreen.
• This logo does not appear on the 2022 short Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, despite it being produced by the company.

Legacy: This is a throwback to one of Disney's most important films, which marked the debut of Mickey Mouse, the company's mascot (the character actually made his debut on a test screening of Plane Crazy, an earlier short that was produced before Steamboat Willie but not officially released until a few months after said short).

◄ Walt Disney Productions

Walt Disney Animation Studios