''Storytellers'' is a

bronze statue Bronze is the most popular metal for cast metal sculptures; a cast bronze sculpture is often called simply "a bronze". It can be used for statues, singly or in groups, reliefs, and small statuettes and figurines, as well as bronze elements ...

depicting

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...

standing next to his most famous creation,

Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse is an animated cartoon Character (arts), character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime mascot of The Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red sho ...

, which serves as a counterpart to the iconic '' Partners'' statue at Disneyland Park. The statue was commissioned for the overhauled and expanded

Disney California Adventure Disney California Adventure Park, commonly referred to as California Adventure or by its acronym DCA, is a theme park located at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. It is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Park ...

theme park in

Anaheim, California Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-most ...

, where it stands in front of a recreation of the Carthay Circle Theatre on Buena Vista Street. Subsequent recreations of the statue are found at the entrance of

Tokyo DisneySea is a theme park at the Tokyo Disney Resort located in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, just next to Tokyo. It opened on 4 September 2001, at a cost of 335 billion yen. The Oriental Land Company owns the park, and licenses intellectual prope ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

and at the end of Mickey Avenue at Shanghai Disneyland Park in

Pudong Pudong is a district of Shanghai located east of the Huangpu, the river which flows through central Shanghai. The name ''Pudong'' was originally applied to the Huangpu's east bank, directly across from the west bank or Puxi, the historic city ...

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

, China. Unlike ''Partners'', which depicts a more mature and successful Walt Disney, ''Storytellers'' depicts a younger Walt as he might have looked when he arrived in Los Angeles in 1923. Mickey, despite not having existed yet in 1923, is seen in his earlier design from the early 1930s, standing on top of a large suitcase next to Walt. Also unlike ''Partners'', which is elevated, fenced off and surrounded by a bed of flowers, ''Storytellers'' is placed on a street corner at ground level and is accessible to park guests. Two plaques are placed on either side of the statue. The one to the right quotes Walt Disney as saying, "We are just getting started." The plaque to the left uses another, longer quote: "It was July 1923. I packed all of my worldly goods — a pair of trousers, a checkered coat, a lot of drawing materials and the last of the fairy tale reels we had made — in a kind of frayed cardboard suitcase. And with that wonderful audacity of youth, I went to Hollywood, arriving there with just forty dollars. It was a big day the day I got on that Santa Fe California Limited. I was just free and happy!"

Locations

References

{{Shanghai Disneyland 2012 sculptures Animal sculptures in California Animal sculptures in China Animal sculptures in Japan Bronze sculptures in California Bronze sculptures in China Bronze sculptures in Japan Cultural depictions of Walt Disney Disney California Adventure Mickey Mouse in art Sculptures of men Shanghai Disneyland Statues of fictional characters Statues in California Statues in China Statues in Japan