Walt Disney famously said, “…it was all started by a mouse,” but Disney Animation began years before the birth of Mickey, with a four-year-old girl from Kansas City, Missouri, named Virginia Davis. Today marks the 100th anniversary of “Alice’s Day at Sea” – the very first film released by what is now The Walt Disney Company. This was also the first of the Alice Comedies, a series of 56 silent films that featured an innovative blend of live-action and animation to place a live actress in a cartoon wonderland. The previous year, Walt had sent out an unfinished pilot film, “Alice’s Wonderland,” to cartoon distributors, and the signing of the contract to distribute the “Alice” series, on October 16, 1923, is considered the beginning of the Disney company. This lobby card, behind-the-scenes photo of Virginia Davis (the first of four actresses to play Alice), and theatrical poster from the waltdisneyarchives collection capture the innovation and magic of our Company’s early creative founda...