During the Roaring Twenties--from 1921 through 1928--Walt Disney and his friends made more than ninety silent cartoons, turning them out as often as one or two per month. Years before Mickey Mouse, the young entrepreneur recruited and nurtured an extraordinary array of talented people. Drawing on interviews with Disney's coworkers, Disney's business papers, promotional materials, scripts, drawings, and correspondence, the richly illustrated Walt in Wonderland reconstructs Disney's silent film career and places his early films in critical perspective. "A scholarly and entertaining book that is a combination of film critique, studio history and oral history illustrated with wonderful original animation drawings, storyboards and rare photos."--John Canemaker, New York Times Book Review "Merritt and Daufman have delved deep into the business of the art as well as into the art itself ...They show us genius emerging by trial and error, not in a puff of Aladdin's lamp."--Simon Louvish, Sight and Sound " Merritt and Kaufman's enthusiasm is infectious and they point out much that is new and important about the early work." --Robin Allan, Animation Journal "Scholarship has rarely been so engaging and charming as in Merritt and Kaufman's detailed study of the silent film animation of Walt Disney. The work is, simply, wonderful."--Choice "The whole fascinating 8-year period predating Mickey is chronicled in [this] meticulously researched book ...The authors point out interesting links to the work of other animators (of such characters as Felix the Cat and Krazy Kat) and also demonstrate parallels to the routines of such silent clowns as Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Charlie Chaplin."--Linda Rosencrantz, Miami Herald