Current Exhibition
June 24, 2023–June 2, 2024
Disney Cats & Dogs explores the evolution and innovation of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ animal-inspired animation and storytelling through the decades, and the massive undertaking involved in bringing their iconic cats and dogs to life on screen.
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Now Open
May 11, 2023–October 1, 2023
The Walt Disney Family Museum is proud to present Pencils and Passion: A Student Art Exhibition —a celebration of the museum’s educational initiatives and the achievements of its students. Pencils and Passion is the 37th original exhibition produced...
Featured Experience
Book Now
Choose between The Jungle Book (1967) or Alice in Wonderland (1951) themes to create a themed fairytale birthday party at The Walt Disney Family Museum.
Enjoy the Museum from Anywhere
Anyone in the world can experience and enjoy the museum with our Virtual Tour and Museum Highlights. Benefitting from a wide range of embedded digital media content, the Virtual Tour brings Walt’s inspirational message directly to people’s streamable...
Featured Experience
Weekends only, dates and times vary
Connect objects in our galleries with the stories behind them as we look closer at Walt Disney's life and legacy. Join a museum staff member for a brief exploration of topics central to Walt's life.
Join us for a talk with Kim Irvine, executive creative director of Walt Disney Imagineering’s Anaheim office for the Disneyland Resort. She will share...
Sat, Sep 30 | 1pm
Special Events
Join us at The Walt Disney Family Museum as we once again celebrate The Big Draw, the world’s largest drawing festival! The Big Draw Festival 2023 is...
Sun, Oct 15 | 11am–4pm
Gallery 2
The Move to Hollywood
Walt landed his first major contract, opened a new studio, and fell in love with an inker. A sudden turn of events would spark the idea for Mickey Mouse.
It was late July 1923 and Walt Disney had failed. His Laugh-O-gram Films was headed for bankruptcy and, with little prospects left in Kansas City, Missouri, he was pulling up stakes. Hollywood was his...
We are saddened to hear of the passing of Disney historian Jim Korkis. Jim interviewed Diane Disney Miller many times for his projects, and Diane shared, "I have not hesitated to correspond with Jim...
In October 1966, Walt Disney filmed an introduction for a special invitational screening of Follow Me, Boys! (1966)—a live-action film notable for being the acting debut of future Disney Legend Kurt...
Throughout his life, Walt Disney was dedicated to giving back to his community and generously supported many charities, especially those that benefitted children. From Toys for Tots to the Jules Stein...
“The greatest wealth a man may acquire is the wisdom he gains from living. And sometimes, out of the small beginnings, come the forces that shape a whole life.”
These words invite visitors of The Walt Disney Family Museum into the main galleries, setting the stage for the story of Walt Disney’s birth and early life and, as Diane Disney Miller has said, “explain the purpose of our museum better than I ever could.”
They were written by screenwriter John Tucker Battle, for the opening scene of one of Walt Disney’s favorite films,
So Dear to My Heart
(1949).
Two years before Mickey Mouse debuted in color in The Band Concert (1935) and several years before his iconic redesign popularized by his turn as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice in Fantasia (1940), he starred in a black-and-white short film that encapsulated where The Walt Disney Studios was in the development of animation as an American art form. Ye Olden Days it was, in more ways than one.
Legendary artist Burny Mattinson passed away recently at the age of 87. Born in San Francisco, he had moved to the San Fernando Valley later in childhood, and first wandered up to The Walt Disney...
As Walt Disney himself said, “You can design, create, and build the most wonderful place in the world… but it requires people to make the dream a reality.” The Disney community has lost yet another of...
The Walt Disney Company, now celebrating its 100th anniversary, began with a deal made with Margaret J. Winkler for the distribution of Walt’s first series, the Alice Comedies . Producer and...