While it was occasionally done here or there, nobody else had a figurehead like Walt doing it. Jack Warner wasn`t on TV. Walt was the boss, but he had a real public profile and he used it to his advantage. And he became a household face.
The last person to stand still and repeat himself was Walt Disney. He refused to repeat himself. So to think that he`d be making the same kind of film in the year 2001 that he made in 1941 is absurd.