Episode 1

S1, E101: Walt Disney - never has a person held such a commanding place in American life. Yet as familiar as his work was to young and old alike, Disney himself was something of an enigma. To his fierce defenders, Disney was a visionary artist and entrepreneur who had changed American popular culture for the better, grounding it once again in a spirit of hopeful promise and shared values. To his detractors, Disney represented everything that was wrong with American culture, from its saccharine sentimentality and simplification of history to its redirection of our attention from reality to fantasy. His life and legacy are unravelled in this intimate biography.