Walsh developed the show basically by himself, with little input from Disney, who was more concerned with developing Disneyland. The show turned out to be The Mickey Mouse Club (1955). His first few projects were resounding successes, and when Disney made a deal with ABC Television to invest in its Disneyland amusement park in exchange for Disney developing a TV series, Walsh was named the series' producer. Walt Disney, who at first saw television as basically a tool to promote his films, was impressed with Walsh's publicity savvy and chose him to head the studio's television division. Walsh brought his former client Edgar Bergen to Disney to narrate some cartoons and TV shows. One of his jobs was to write jokes for the syndicated Mickey Mouse comic strip (he continued doing that on a voluntary basis for more than 20 years, long after he left those departments). Walsh joined Walt Disney Studios in 1943, working for both the Publicity and Story departments. He wound up working as an agent for a publicity agency, one of his clients being ventriloquist Edgar Bergen. In 1933 he joined the stock touring company of husband / wife team Barbara Stanwyck and Frank Fay as a writer, but the couple divorced the next year and Walsh found himself stuck in Hollywood with no job and no prospects. In his teen years he lived with relatives in Cincinnati, OH, and later attended the University of Cincinnati. Bill Walsh was born in New York to immigrant parents (father from Canada, mother from Ireland).
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