Episode Details

Walt Disney built the most beloved entertainment empire in history, but the man behind Mickey Mouse was driven by obsessions that went far beyond cartoons. He was a perfectionist who drove his studio to bankruptcy pursuing quality, a union-buster who testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and a visionary whose final obsession — EPCOT as a living, working utopian city — was so ambitious that even his own company abandoned it after his death.

This episode traces Disney from his Midwestern childhood through the creation of Mickey Mouse, the Golden Age of animation, the theme parks, and the private obsessions and contradictions that the corporate brand has worked to obscure.

• Disney's hardscrabble childhood and the early failures that nearly ended his career
• The creation of Mickey Mouse, Snow White, and the gambles that built the studio
• The 1941 animators' strike, the HUAC testimony, and the labor battles Disney never forgave
• Disneyland, the EPCOT vision, and the utopian obsession his company abandoned after his death