听力第二课
Read the passage and answer this question: How did Disney get the idea for his first cartoon character?
WALT DISNEY
Walt Disney, the great film-maker, was born in Chicago in 1901. Disney's greatest wish was to be a famous artist. When he was a young man, he went to a newspaper office in Kansas City where he was living. He had some friends who worked in the office there. He took along some of his pictures in the hope of getting a job there. However, he had no luck. They looked at his pictures and said, “Sorry, young man. We don't think there is anything of interest in your pictures.”
Disney's friends tried to encourage him. “Don't worry, Walt. We like your pictures. They're very good. We're sure you'll be well-known as an artist before long.”
Disney did not lose heart. He continued to draw lots of pictures. His family was poor and he used to sit in the family garage and draw pictures there. One day a mouse came into the garage and played on the floor. Disney stopped drawing and watched the mouse. The mouse came towards him, so he gave the mouse a piece of bread. Then the mouse came and sat on his desk. Day after day the mouse came back and was given more bread. In this way over several days the artist and his mouse became good friends.
Some years later, Disney moved to the west coast of the USA. He tried to get work as an artist, but still he was unsuccessful. One day he remembered the mouse that used to come out in his father's garage. He picked up his pencil and started to draw. Day after day he experimented and drew different pictures of the mouse that he had known. At last he was pleased with one of his pictures of the mouse. He called it Mickey Mouse.
Disney's success as a cartoon-maker had begun. He soon drew other cartoon characters like Donald Duck and during the 1920s and the 1930s he made scores of cartoons about them. These cartoons were all short ones. Before the days of television, they used to be shown in cinemas all over the country before the main film was shown. Later Walt Disney made longer films. All of them were liked very much by children. Disney died in 1966. But the studios which he started are still busy today, producing more and more interesting films.
Please write notes about Walt Disney's life:
Born: ______
Died: ______
Wish: ______
Work: ______
Cartoon characters: ______
Became well-known: ______
Successes:______
A plays a newspaper reporter. B plays the famous cartoon-maker ---- Walt Disney. A is asking the following questions.
1 May I ask you when and where you were born, Mr Disney?
2 Could you tell me what kind of family you were born in? What was your father's job? What did your mother do?
3 What were you most interested in when you were young?
4 Did you think you would be a famous artist as a young man?
5 When did you become well-known as a cartoon-maker?
6 What's your plan for the future?
Talk about the following pictures in pairs.