On this episode of TRAP TV, we examine a critical moment in the history of the Walt Disney Company, when the tremendous success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 gave way to a period of rapid expansion and ambitious, ultimately unsuccessful projects that nearly bankrupted the business and ended the Disney era. Then, the war came. This is the story of how World War II not only rescued Disney from financial ruin, it sharpened the company’s aesthetic and ideological purpose. With an unprecedented animator’s strike nearly paralyzing production in 1941, the war and its fallout on the homefront began a new period for both Disney the man and Disney the cultural product, as hyper-nationalism, militarism, and explicit anti-communism entered Disney’s bloodstream and brought the company to unimagined new heights of profit and influence. 

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