The “Grey’s Anatomy” star and race car driver takes the mantle from “Captain America” star Chris Evans, who was 2022’s selection. The pick was revealed on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Tuesday night.

“I’ve always been the bridesmaid!” Dempsey, 57, told the magazine about his initial reaction. “I’d completely forgotten about it and never even contemplated being in this position. So my ego is good.”

The actor stars in the upcoming Michael Mann film “Ferrari.” He told The Associated Press last year that he did all the driving himself, calling it “the best role I’ve ever had.”

Dempsey has driven in several professional races, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and is part of the Wright Motorsports racing team, according to its website.

Dempsey said his three children are bound to tease him about his People magazine selection and “pick on me and figure out every reason why I shouldn’t be.”

The People edition with Dempsey’s cover story will be out Friday.

Dempsey achieved heartthrob status as Dr. Derek Shepherd — nicknamed “McDreamy” — on “Grey’s Anatomy,” appearing in more than 250 episodes.

He plays Italian race car driver Piero Taruffi in “Ferrari,” which arrives in theaters later this year. The film has received a waiver so that its stars can promote it without breaking rules in the ongoing actors strike.

Other Sexiest Man Alive recipients include Michael B. Jordan, John Legend, Paul Rudd, Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford and Mel Gibson, who was the magazine’s first recipient in 1985.

Tyler Christopher, an actor known for his roles on “General Hospital” and “Days of Our Lives,” has died. He was 50.

Christopher’s representative Chi Muoi Lo told CNN in a statement that the actor died Tuesday morning.

“This news was incredibly shocking, and I am devastated by his loss. He was a very gifted actor, and more importantly, an amazing friend. My heart goes out to his friends and family who loved him so much,” the statement read.

Christopher’s “General Hospital” co-star Maurice Bernard also shared a tribute to the actor on Tuesday, writing, “Tyler was a truly talented individual that lit up the screen in every scene he performed and relished bringing joy to his loyal fans through his acting.”

“Tyler was a sweet soul and wonderful friend to all of those who knew him,” he added.

In 2008, Christopher married ESPN reporter Brienne Pedigo, with whom he shared two children. According to People, the pair ended their marriage in 2021. He was previously married to actress Eva Longoria from 2002 to 2004.

Christopher was best known for his role playing the popular character Nikolas Cassadine on the long-running daytime soap opera “General Hospital.” He starred as Cassadine at various points between 1996 and 2016, earning one Daytime Emmy win and four additional nominations for his performance along the way.

In a 2017 interview with Soap Opera Digest, the actor said he’d left “General Hospital” to take a “personal leave,” and ultimately did not end up returning to the show. He went on to star as Stefan DiMera in the NBC soap opera “Days of Our Lives” between 2018 and 2019, a performance for which he also earned a Daytime Emmy nomination.

Outside of his celebrated career as an actor, Christopher dealt with various hardships toward the end of his life.

In 2019, he reportedly underwent craniotomy surgery after he fell in his bathroom at his home and injured his head. His sister, according to an interview Christopher participated in with Bloomberg Law in July, petitioned to be his legal guardian during his recovery. The guardianship ended in 2021.

In May, the actor was arrested at the Hollywood-Burbank airport on suspicion of public intoxication, according to the LA Times.

“Tyler was an advocate for better mental health and substance use treatment who openly spoke about his struggles with bipolar depression and alcohol,” Bernard wrote in his Instagram post Tuesday. “We are beyond devastated by the loss of our dear friend and pray for his children and his father.”

“The Nightmare Before Christmas” is, today, a proud Disney property. You can find its spindly hero Jack Skellington across Disneyland during Halloween and Christmastime, and his skeletal smile adorns everything from pillowcases to backpacks to Build-a-Bear stuffed creatures. It’s one of the company’s most unique artistic achievements and a proven moneymaker, even 30 years on.

In 1993, though, a Halloween-Christmas film hybrid starring a slightly demented but well-meaning skeleton in a bat bowtie who nearly gets Santa killed was no easy sell. Worried the film would frighten young viewers used to “The Little Mermaid” and “Aladdin,” Disney released the film under its Touchstone Pictures banner, reserved for titles with more mature themes than standard Disney fare (a few years earlier, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” got the same treatment).

The film made a modest box office dent upon release. But many viewers who found the film over the years, usually on home video, appreciated its impressive puppets, offbeat rhythm and many seasonal earworms. Audience support led to multiple rereleases, elevating the film from a cult classic to a must-watch movie during both Halloween and Christmas.

Thirty years later, Disney has wholeheartedly embraced “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” The company has incorporated the film’s characters into its Haunted Mansion attraction at Disneyland in California. It’s re-released the film several times. And no longer are Jack Skellington and his motley crew of undead dreamers relegated to Hot Topics and novelty shops — now, “Nightmare” characters are sold as stuffed animals and figurines alongside Ariel and Mickey Mouse.

Disney is commemorating the deliciously bizarre film’s 30th anniversary with a theatrical rerelease. Here’s how a small film about a bunch of undead dreamers enchanted viewers — and became an essential offering among Disney’s holiday entertainment.

‘Nightmare’ wasn’t an immediate hit

“Nightmare” was masterminded by Henry Selick and Tim Burton, who got their start as animators at Disney in the 1980s. They found it hard to nail Mickey and other Disney stalwarts, preferring to sketch off-kilter characters: “We weren’t the typical Disney people,” Selick told A.frame, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ digital magazine, earlier this month.

Burton’s first iteration of “Nightmare” was a poem, populated by ghoulish characters who tried their hand at Christmas. Disney didn’t bite at the time. But after the “Beetlejuice” filmmaker departed the studio and proved his success in helming his first “Batman” film, Disney returned to the project. With Burton directing a “Batman” sequel, Selick was brought on to lead the meticulous stop-motion film, whose production would stretch to over three years, he said.

The beefed-up story saw Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King and beloved resident of Halloween Town, yearn for a chance to do something other than scare trick-or-treaters. He finds his chance when he stumbles upon Christmas Town, the cheery center of Santa’s operation. He decides to give the man in red the year off, with disastrous results — the evil Oogie Boogie gets his hands on “Sandy Claws” and puts Christmas in peril. Meanwhile, the living rag-doll Sally, who pines for Jack from afar, helps save Christmas — and Jack’s undead life.

Even though Disney execs tapped Selick to bring Burton’s dark-but-big-hearted vision to life, they didn’t expect the film to be a huge hit, Selick told IGN in 2006, ahead of the film’s 13th anniversary rerelease. They feared its cast of murderous child sidekicks, warty witches and a “clown with a tearaway face” would prove too scary for young audiences.

“They never felt (“Nightmare”) was a Disney film,” Selick told IGN. “Their biggest fear, and why it was kind of a stepchild project, was they were afraid of their core audience hating the film and not coming.”

“Nightmare” got a wide release on October 29, 1993, without Disney’s name attached. It made $50 million at the US box office in 1993, a mild success (meanwhile, the highest-grossing film of the year and another dark but crowd-pleasing classic, “Jurassic Park,” made over $357 million in its domestic release). It also earned an Oscar nomination for best visual effects, losing to the aforementioned “Jurassic Park.”

“​​(It was this initial) small success,” Selick told The Hollywood Reporter in 2018 for the film’s 25th anniversary. “It made double its money, and they made a few toys and it went away. And then it slowly became this other thing.”

‘Nightmare’s’ popularity grew with at-home viewers

In the years after its release, “Nightmare” was embraced by audiences at home who found the film on VHS and, later, DVD. It connected with people, even and perhaps especially young viewers, who felt, like Jack, that they were misunderstood or destined for more than their circumstances allowed.

Roger Ebert said as much in his glowing three-and-a-half star review of the film in 1993: “This is the kind of movie older kids will eat up; it has the kind of offbeat, subversive energy that tells them wonderful things are likely to happen.”

Disney warmed to the film in the years after its release: In October 2001, Disneyland debuted Haunted Mansion Holiday, a “Nightmare”-themed overlay of the classic Haunted Mansion attraction that featured Jack and company redecorating the spooky home for Christmas.

Jack and Halloween Town denizens were also mainstays at stores like Hot Topic, which catered to customers with alternative tastes, where “Nightmare” merchandise was sold year-round. And in 2006, Disney finally released the film under the Walt Disney Pictures banner, this time in 3D, earning more than $8.7 million in the US.

“Disney didn’t know what they had, but eventually they figured it out,” Selick told A.frame.

Its cult success also set the stage for other macabre animated children’s films like “Corpse Bride,” also by Burton, “Paranorman” and the Henry Selick-directed “Coraline” — proving, Selick said, that kids’ fare can be dark and age-appropriate.

“It wasn’t too dark, too scary,” Selick told IGN. “Kids love to get scared … Even little, little kids, as young as three, a lot of them love (“Nightmare”) and respond well to it.”

The latest rerelease has earned over $7 million, and “Nightmare” remains a marquee title on Disney+, where it’s highlighted among family-friendly scares and Christmas classics. Selick and Burton have fended off rumors of a sequel for years, and though Selick has expressed some openness to the idea, he’s content with what he’s made — and the comfort it’s brought to proud weirdos the world over.

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NEW YORK — Richard Moll, a character actor who found lasting fame as an eccentric but gentle giant bailiff on the original “Night Court” sitcom, has died. He was 80.

Moll died Thursday at his home in Big Bear Lake, California, according to Jeff Sanderson, a publicist at Chasen & Company.

After “Night Court” ended, Moll contributed his trademark gravelly voice to various video games and comic book projects like “Batman: The Animated Series” as Harvey Dent and appeared in horror films like “Ghost Shark” (2013) and “Slay Belles” (2018).

He voiced Scorpion on the 1990s’ “Spider-Man: The Animated Series” and had small parts in 1994’s “The Flintstones,” the Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy “Jingle All the Way” and “Scary Movie 2.”

The towering actor — he was 6-foot-8 — did not join the reboot of “Night Court” starring Larroquette. The original “Night Court” finale ended with his character being abducted by aliens who needed someone tall to reach the things on their highest shelves.

Moll is survived by his children, Chloe and Mason Moll; ex-wife, Susan Moll; and stepchildren Cassandra Card and Morgan Ostling.

Now a new documentary filled with a who’s who list of hip-hop stars dives deep into the art of freestyle rapping.

“Generally rappers think of freestyle as being improvisation, working with the moment, the crowd, whatever is in front of you,” said Frank Meyer, who directed “Freestyle 101: Hip-Hop History,” which streams on Amazon Prime Video, Google Play and YouTube starting Tuesday, Oct. 24.

The documentary is narrated by Chuck D of Public Enemy and traces the evolution of freestyle rap, which is often compared to improvisational jazz for its spontaneous nature, from its roots in 1970s New York to modern day freestylers waging lyrical battles on the East and West coasts.

“Essentially you’re judged based on the crowd reaction and how hard you hit the other guy, how smooth you were with your execution and your performance because there’s a certain amount of theatrics,” Meyer said.

His film includes interviews with stars like Ice-T, RZA of the Wu Tang Clan, The Game, Chali 2na of Jurassic 5, Sean Kingston and Ras Kass, a member of the hip-hop ensemble groups The HRSMN and Golden State Warriors.

“It’s what gave me my first opportunity, period,” Kass said. “It’s about having the witticism to turn on a dime and be able to captivate the crowd and get people excited and reacting,” he added.

And while not every rapper comes from a freestyle background, and it’s not a prerequisite for being in the music business, Kass said freestyle skills definitely earn rappers respect.

“It’s like if you meet Gretzky and all of the sudden he’s like ‘I don’t really ice skate,’ well it’s like you don’t play hockey,” Kass said.

Meyer, who besides being a film director is a well-known punk rock veteran as the guitarist and frontman of The Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs and other bands, came up with the idea of the documentary while he was a host of a music show on G4 TV, an online channel owned by NBC.

“I talked to rappers the way you would talk to guitar players in terms of their technique and their influences and how they use their instruments and how they were doing this amazing thing,” he said.

The documentary is not only a history lesson in the artform, but also a look forward as it follows New York battle rapper Iron Solomon and L.A. indie rapper Open Mike Eagle as they use their freestyle skills in local battles and to navigate through today’s music industry.

“I really hope to shine a light on all the amazing artists in this movie and there are some famous ones like Ice-T and The Game, and Cypress Hill and Wu Tang Clan. But there are a lot of underground artists who are just as incredible who people may not have heard about,” Meyer said.

The film comes during a milestone year for hip-hop as the genre celebrates its 50-year anniversary. It all started at a New York party in the Bronx in the summer of 1973 when Dj Kool Herc used two turntables to switch back and forth between two records to isolate and extend the most danceable parts of the song, or the break beat.

And just as hip-hop was born so was freestyling.

“People were freestyling before they were even putting together rap songs,” Meyer said. “In that sense freestyling is one of the foundations of hip-hop,” he said.

The free Oct. 29-31 event will take place at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood where the streaming platform will create several scare zones based on horror films like “Annabelle,” “The Boogeyman,” “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” and shows like “Goosebumps” and “American Horror Story.”

People will be able to walk through the scare zones and through scenes and sets inspired by the films and shows. The zones are divided into different levels of fear so for those who can’t handle true terror there’s the Scary Zone where people can walk through the haunted Biddle house from the “Goosebumps,” series. There will be a jump scare, a photo moment, unexpected special effects and mysterious sounds.

Then there’s the Very Scary Zone inspired by FX’s “American Horror Story,” series. In this zone people will move along dark walls filled with costumes and accessories from AHS characters. Look out for the Rubber Man, Twisty the Killer Clown and other creatures.

For the truly brave there’s the Very, Very Scary Zone which is inspired by truly scary films like “Annabelle,” “The Boogeyman,” and “The Exorcism of Emily Rose.” So watch out for terrifying dolls, dark rooms where the Boogeyman may be watching you and expect to get chased out by a possessed creature who will come after you.

Huluweeen: Now Screaming

When: 4-10:45 p.m., Oct. 29-31

Where: Pacific Design Center. 8687 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood

Cost: Free but reservations encouraged. There will be a standby line for those without reservations

Information: feverup.com

LOS ANGELES — Burt Young, the Oscar-nominated actor who played Paulie, the rough-hewn, mumbling-and-grumbling best friend, corner-man and brother-in-law to Sylvester Stallone in the “Rocky” franchise, has died.

Young died Oct. 8 in Los Angeles, his daughter, Anne Morea Steingieser, told the New York Times on Wednesday. No cause was given. He was 83.

Young had roles in acclaimed films and television shows including “Chinatown,” “Once Upon a Time in America” and “The Sopranos.”

But he was always best known for playing Paulie Pennino in six “Rocky” movies. The short, paunchy, balding Young was the sort of actor who always seemed to play middle-aged no matter his age.

When Paulie first appears in 1976’s “Rocky,” he’s an angry, foul-mouthed meat packer who is abusive to his sister Adrian (Talia Shire), with whom he shares a small apartment in Philadelphia. He berates the shy, meek Adrian for refusing at first to go on a Thanksgiving-night date with his buddy and co-worker Rocky Balboa, and destroys a turkey she has in the oven.

The film became a phenomenon, topping the box office for the year and making a star of lead actor and writer Stallone, who paid tribute to Young on Instagram on Wednesday night.

Along with a photo of the two of them on the set of the first film, Stallone wrote “you were an incredible man and artist, I and the World will miss you very much.”

“Rocky” was nominated for 10 Oscars, including best supporting actor for Young. It won three, including best picture. Young and co-star Burgess Meredith, who was also nominated, lost to Jason Robards in “All the President’s Men.”

Paulie was also an eternal pessimist who was constantly convinced that Rocky was going to get clobbered by his increasingly daunting opponents. His surprise at Rocky’s resilience brought big laughs.

“It was a great ride, and it brought me to the audience in a great way,” Young said in a 2020 interview with Celebrity Parents magazine. “I made him a rough guy with a sensitivity. He’s really a marshmallow even though he yells a lot.”

Born and raised in Queens, New York, Young served in the Marine Corps, fought as a professional boxer and worked as a carpet layer before taking up acting, studying with legendary teacher Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.

On stage, in films and on television, he typically played small-time tough guys or down-on-their luck working class men.

In a short-but-memorable scene in 1974’s “Chinatown,” he plays a fisherman who throws a fit when Jack Nicholson’s private detective Jake Gittes shows him pictures proving his wife is cheating on him.

Young also appeared in director Sergio Leone’s 1984 gangster epic “Once Upon a Time in America” with Robert De Niro, the 1986 comedy “Back to School” with Rodney Dangerfield, and the 1989 gritty drama “Last Exit to Brooklyn” with Jennifer Jason Leigh.

In a striking appearance in season three of “The Sopranos” in 2001, he plays Bobby Baccalieri Sr., an elderly mafioso with lung cancer who pulls off one last hit before a coughing fit leads to him dying in a car accident.

He guest-starred on many other TV series including “M*A*S*H,” “Miami Vice” and “The Equalizer.”

Later in life he focused on roles in the theater and on painting, a lifelong pursuit that led to gallery shows and sales.

His wife of 13 years, Gloria, died in 1974.

Along with his daughter, Young is survived by one grandchild and a brother, Robert.

LOS ANGELES — While screenwriters are busy back at work, film and TV actors remain on picket lines, with the longest strike in their history set to hit 100 days on Saturday after talks broke off with studios. Here’s a look at where things stand, how their stretched-out standoff compares to past strikes, and what happens next.

INSIDE THE ACTORS-STUDIO TALKS THAT FAILED

Hopes were high and leaders of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists were cautiously optimistic when they resumed negotiations on Oct. 2 for the first time since the strike began 2 1/2 months earlier.

The same group of chief executives from the biggest studios had made a major deal just over a week earlier with striking writers, whose leaders celebrated their gains on many issues actors are also fighting for: long-term pay, consistency of employment and control over the use of artificial intelligence.

But the actors’ talks were tepid, with days off between sessions and no reports of progress. Then studios abruptly ended them on Oct. 11, saying the actors’ demands were exorbitantly expensive and the two sides were too far apart to continue.

“We only met with them a couple of times, Monday, half a day Wednesday, half a day Friday. That was what they were available for,” SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher told The Associated Press soon after the talks broke off. “Then this past week, it was Monday and a half a day on Wednesday. And then “Bye bye. I’ve never really met people that actually don’t understand what negotiations mean. Why are you walking away from the table?”

The reasons, according to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, included a union demand for a fee for each subscriber to streaming services.

“SAG-AFTRA gave the member companies an ultimatum: either agree to a proposal for a tax on subscribers as well as all other open items, or else the strike would continue,” the AMPTP said in a statement to the AP. “The member companies responded to SAG-AFTRA’s ultimatum that unfortunately, the tax on subscribers poses an untenable economic burden.”

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, one of the executives in on the bargaining sessions, told investors on an earnings call Wednesday that “This really broke our momentum unfortunately.”

SAG-AFTRA leaders said it was ridiculous to frame this demand as as though it were a tax on customers, and said it was the executives themselves who wanted to shift from a model based on a show’s popularity to one based on number of subscribers.

“We made big moves in their direction that have just been ignored and not responded to,” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director and chief negotiator, told the AP. “We made changes to our AI proposal. We made dramatic changes to what used to be our streaming revenue share proposal,” Crabtree-Ireland said.

The studios said just after the talks broke off that the per-subscriber charge would cost them $800 million annually, a figure SAG-AFTRA said was a vast overestimate.

The AMPTP later responded that the number was based on a union request for $1 per customer per year, which was lowered to 57 cents after SAG-AFTRA changed its evaluation to cut out non-relevant programming like news and sports.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT IN THE ACTORS STRIKE?

The actors are in unscripted territory, with no end in sight. Their union has never been on a strike this long, nor been on strike at all since before many of its members were born. Not even its veteran leaders, like Crabtree-Ireland, with the union for 20 years, have found themselves in quite these circumstances.

As they did for months before the talks broke off, members and leaders will rally, picket and speak out publicly until the studios signal a willingness to talk again. No one knows how long that will take. SAG-AFTRA says it is willing to resume at any time, but that won’t change its demands.

“I think that they think that we’re going to cower,” Drescher said. “But that’s never going to happen because this is a crossroads and we must stay on course.”

The writers did have their own false start with studios that may give some reason for optimism. Their union attempted to restart negotiations with studios in mid-August, more than three months into their strike. Those talks went nowhere, breaking off after a few days. A month later, the studio alliance came calling again. Those talks took off, with most of their demands being met after five marathon days that resulted in a tentative deal that its members would vote to approve almost unanimously.

HOW DID PREVIOUS ACTORS STRIKES PLAY OUT?

Hollywood actors strikes have been less frequent and shorter than those by writers. The Screen Actors Guild (they added the “AFTRA” in a 2011 merger) has gone on strike against film and TV studios only three times in its history.

In each case, emerging technology fueled the dispute. In 1960 — the only previous time actors and writers struck simultaneously — the central issue was actors seeking pay for when their work in film was aired on television, compensation the industry calls residuals. The union, headed by future U.S. President Ronald Reagan, was a smaller and much less formal entity then. The vote to strike took place in the home of actors Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, the parents of current SAG-AFTRA member and vocal striker Jamie Lee Curtis.

Mid-strike, the actors and studios called a truce so all could attend the Academy Awards — a move forbidden under today’s union rules. Host Bob Hope called the gathering “Hollywood’s most glamorous strike meeting.”

In the end, a compromise was reached where SAG dropped demands for residuals from past films in exchange for a donation to their pension fund, along with a formula for payment when future films aired on TV. Their 42-day work stoppage began and ended all within the span of the much longer writers strike.

A 1980 strike would be the actors’ longest for film and television until this year. That time, they were seeking payment for their work appearing on home video cassettes and cable TV, along with significant hikes in minimum compensation for roles. A tentative deal was reached with significant gains but major compromises in both areas. Union leadership declared the strike over after 67 days, but many members were unhappy and balked at returning to work. It was nearly a month before leaders could rally enough votes to ratify the deal.

This time, it was the Emmy Awards that fell in the middle of the strike. The Television Academy held a ceremony, but after a boycott was called, only one acting winner, Powers Boothe, was there to accept his trophy.

Other segments of the actors union have gone on strike too, including several long standoffs over the TV commercials contract. A 2016-2017 strike by the union’s video game voice actors lasted a whopping 11 months. That segment of the union could strike again soon if a new contract deal isn’t reached.

WHAT’S HAPPENING TO MOVIES AND TV SHOWS?

The return of writers has gotten the Hollywood production machine churning again, with rooms full of scribes penning new seasons of shows that had been suspended and film writers finishing scripts. But the finished product will await the end of actors strike, and production will remain suspended many TV shows and dozens of films, including “Wicked,” “Deadpool 3” and “Mission Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part 2.”

The Emmys, whose nominations were announced the same day the actors strike was called, opted to wait for the stars this time and move their ceremony from September to January, though that date could be threatened too.

The Oscars are a long way off in March, but the campaigns to win them are usually well underway by now. With some exceptions — non-studio productions approved by the union — performers are prohibited from promoting their films at press junkets or on red carpets. Director Martin Scorsese has been giving interviews about his new Oscar contender ” Killers of the Flower Moon.” Star and SAG-AFTRA member Leonardo DiCaprio hasn’t.

The company that now owns Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel and massive theme parks almost failed from the start.

On Oct. 16, 1923, Walt Disney and his brother Roy Disney founded the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in Hollywood when Walt Disney was 21. The Disney brothers were born in Chicago and then moved to Kansas City at a young age. Walt Disney drew cartoons for various publications and became interested in cel animation while working for the Kansas City Film Ad Company.

Starting with bankruptcy

Walt Disney’s first business venture with animation was called Laugh-O-Gram Studio, where some of the greats in the field worked. After a series of shaky deals with distributors, the business went bankrupt in 1923. Walt Disney sued and won, but the compensation was too little to save the company.

Moving west

Walt Disney moved to Los Angeles, where Roy Disney was recovering from tuberculosis, rather than New York, where animation was big business. Walt Disney created a live-action and animated short produced by Laugh-O-Gram called “Alice’s Wonderland.” The brothers founded their company and persuaded both Virginia Davis, who played Alice, and their collaborator, Ub Iwerks, to join them in Hollywood where they had a contract to make six more films of the franchise.

The “Alice’s Wonderland” series was a success, but Walt Disney wanted to focus more on pure animation instead of mixing it with live action. He developed a character named Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and after losing control of the character, he began work on his most famous creation.

His wife named him Mickey

To replace Oswald, Walt Disney and Iwerks developed Mortimer Mouse, but Walt Disney’s wife, Lillian, thought it too pompous and suggested Mickey instead. Iwerks revised Walt Disney’s provisional sketches to make the character easier to animate.

Mickey had appeared in a few short films, but became a worldwide sensation in 1928 with the release of “Steamboat Willie.” The eight-minute animated film was the first to have synchronized sound. It was an enormous success and led to more Mickey cartoons and the “Silly Symphony” series.

A nervous breakdown

In 1931, Walt Disney and his brother felt they were not receiving their rightful share of profits from their distributor. Walt Disney struggled to keep his team together and fought for a greater share of the profits to no avail, which led to a breakdown. He and his wife took an extended vacation to recover.

Folly or fantastic?

In 1933, Walt Disney produced “The Three Little Pigs,” a film credited as the most successful short animation of all time. This made Walt Disney believe they could do a feature-length film, and in 1934 work on “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” commenced.

The masterpiece was created by more than 750 Disney artists who worked on the film from 1934 to 1937. The production included 25 background artists, 65 special effects animators and 158 inkers and painters and countless production staff.

The project, which some dubbed “Disney’s Folly,” went 400% over budget, but the final product was a smash hit when it debuted on Dec. 21, 1937.

“Snow White” was the first American feature-length animated film and the first animated feature film in Technicolor. It cost an estimated $1.5 million during the depths of the Depression but earned $8 million in its first release, which is more than $174 million today.

Other Disney facts

Both brothers met their wives in Missouri. Walt Disney married Lillian, and Roy Disney married Edna. They were married until death.

Walt Disney tried to enter the Army in World War I but was denied because he was too young. He lied about his age to become an ambulance driver for the Red Cross. The war was about over when he got to Europe.

In 1947, Walt Disney testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee where he claimed several people were communist agitators.

The feature films of Walt Disney

1. 1937: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (G)
2. 1940: “Pinocchio” (G)
3. 1940: “Fantasia” (G)
4. 1941: “The Reluctant Dragon”
5. 1941: “Dumbo” (G)
6. 1942: “Bambi” (G)
7. 1943: “Saludos Amigos”
8. 1943: “Victory Through Air Power”
9. 1945: “The Three Caballeros” (G)
10. 1946: “Make Mine Music”
11. 1946: “Song of the South” (G)
12. 1947: “Fun and Fancy Free”
13. 1948: “Melody Time”
14. 1949: “So Dear to My Heart” (G)
15. 1949: “The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad” (G)
16. 1950: “Cinderella” (G)
17. 1950: “Treasure Island” (PG)
18. 1951: “Alice in Wonderland” (G)
19. 1952: “The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men” (PG)
20. 1953: “Peter Pan” (G)
21. 1953: “The Sword and the Rose” (PG)
22. 1953: “The Living Desert”
23. 1954: “Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue”
24. 1954: “The Vanishing Prairie”
25. 1954: “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” (G)
26. 1955: “Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier” (PG)
27. 1955: “Lady and the Tramp” (G)
28. 1955: “The African Lion”
29. 1955: “The Littlest Outlaw”
30. 1956: “The Great Locomotive Chase”
31. 1956: “Davy Crockett and the River Pirates”
32. 1956: “Secrets of Life”
33. 1956: “Westward Ho the Wagons!”
34. 1957: “Johnny Tremain”
35. 1957: “Perri” (G)
36. 1957: “Old Yeller” (G)
37. 1958: “The Light in the Forest”
38. 1958: “White Wilderness”
39. 1958: “Tonka”
40. 1959: “Sleeping Beauty” (G)
41. 1959: “The Shaggy Dog” (G)
42. 1959: “Darby O’Gill and the Little People” (G)
43. 1959: “Third Man on the Mountain” (G)
44. 1960: “Toby Tyler, or Ten Weeks with a Circus” (G)
45. 1960: “Kidnapped”
46. 1960: “Pollyanna” (G)
47. 1960: “The Sign of Zorro”
48. 1960: “Jungle Cat”
49. 1960: “Ten Who Dared”
50. 1960: “Swiss Family Robinson” (G)
51. 1961: “101 Dalmatians” (G)
52. 1961: “The Absent-Minded Professor” (G)
53. 1961: “The Parent Trap”
54. 1961: “Nikki, Wild Dog of the North” (G)
55. 1961: “Greyfriars Bobby”
56. 1961: “Babes in Toyland”
57. 1962: “Moon Pilot”
58. 1962: “Bon Voyage”
59. 1962: “Big Red”
60. 1962: “Almost Angels”
61. 1962: “The Legend of Lobo” (G)
62. 1962: “In Search of the Castaways” (G)
63. 1963: “Son of Flubber” (G)
64. 1963: “Miracle of the White Stallions”
65. 1963: “Savage Sam”
66. 1963: “Summer Magic”
67. 1963: “The Incredible Journey” (G)
68. 1963: “The Sword in the Stone” (G)
69. 1963: “The Three Lives of Thomasina” (PG)
70. 1964: “The Misadventures of Merlin Jones” (G)
71. 1964: “A Tiger Walks”
72. 1964: “The Moon-Spinners” (PG)
73. 1964: “Mary Poppins” (G)
74. 1964: “Emil and the Detectives”
75. 1965: “Those Calloways” (PG)
76. 1965: “The Monkey’s Uncle”
77. 1965: “That Darn Cat!” (G)
78. 1966: “The Ugly Dachshund”
79. 1966: “Lt. Robin Crusoe U.S.N.” (G)
80. 1966: “The Fighting Prince of Donegal”
81. 1966: “Follow Me, Boys!” (G)
82. 1967: “Monkeys, Go Home!”
83. 1967: “The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin”
84. 1967: “The Happiest Millionaire” (G)
85. 1967: “The Gnome-Mobile” (G)
86. 1967: “The Jungle Book” (G)

Top-grossing Walt Disney animated features domestic gross adjusted for inflation:

1. “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937)

Walt Disney’s first feature-length animated film still reigns as the top-grossing animated film, adjusted for inflation at $1,021,330,000.

2. “101 Dalmatians” (1961)

The original 101 Dalmatians, released in 1961, has an adjusted gross of $936,225,101. It was made into a live adaptation starring Glenn Close as Cruella de Vil and followed by “Cruella” in 2022, starring Emma Stone.

3. “Fantasia” (1940)

When first released, it was ahead of its time but has proven to be financially viable, with an adjusted gross of $778,117,595.

4. “The Jungle Book” (1967)

It was the last film that Walt Disney worked on. Its adjusted gross totals $690,380,663. Its live-action/computer-animated remake in 2016 earned more, totaling $966,550,600.

5. “Sleeping Beauty” (1959)

Not sleepy at the box office with $680,974,120 adjusted gross.

Source: Allears.net (2020)

Sources: The Associated Press, Walt Disney Company, Allears.com, Silentfilm.org, Library of Congress, movies.disney.com, History.com

Images from Walt Disney Company except the Roy, Walt and Mickey line art by KURT SNIBBE, SCNG

On one hand, fright fans witnessed the release of one of the most thrilling horror films in years.

But on the other hand, viewers got a bunch of sequels — including a goodly number worth watching — as well as some fairly fresh takes on old ideas.

And on yet the other hand — since we are taking horror here and monsters can have as many hands/claws as they want — there was a seemingly never-ending parade of (at best) macabre mediocrity and (more often than not) horribly bad films.

I’ve combed through a huge number of these flicks and have come up with a list of some of the top horror releases from 2023. Try mixing some of these new offerings in with your old favorites (“Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “Let the Right One In,” “Zoltan Hound of Dracula,” etc.) during your own scary movie marathons in the days and nights leading up to Halloween.

I limited my picks to ones that are all available to stream/rent/download, which means some of the more recently released gems won’t be found here. Also, the picks are ranked from (very, very) best to, yeah, possibly still worth your time if you don’t have any other plans.

1. “Talk to Me”

I simply can’t get enough of this low budget Australian horror film, having already seen it a record (for me) five times in theaters and looking forward to even more viewings via streaming in the near future.

Obviously, I’m not alone, as “Talk to Me” — which premiered at the Adelaide Film Festival in October 2022 — has been a surprise hit at the box office.

Everything about this film works – from the writing and acting to the special effects and convincing scares – in this tale of a group of teenagers who find they can contact the dead with the use of a freaky embalmed hand.

The result is more than just the finest horror film of 2023. It’s simply one of the best horror movies of all time.

2. “M3GAN”

Although the film premiered back in December 2022 (obviously for Oscar consideration purposes), it wasn’t released theatrically until early January and, thus, is fair game for this list.

“M3GAN” is a wonderful update on the “Chucky” premise, as a child in need of a forever friend is given an extraordinary doll with a taste for blood. Only this time around, the resulting killing spree can’t be credited to a serial killer who has transferred his soul (via voodoo, of course) into a doll, but rather must be blamed on faulty programming.

So 2023, right?

The film is fun, clever and menacing, with a killer doll who already seems to have achieved icon status. Further following in Chucky’s footsteps, M3GAN seems destined to be a highly successful horror movie franchise.

3. “Meg 2: The Trench”

Nobody beats up sharks — especially deadly prehistoric sharks that are roughly the size of 18-wheelers — quite like Jason Statham.

And he’s back at it again in this sequel that’s even better than the original model from 2018. OK, maybe it’s not technically better — in terms of quality writing, fine acting and all those other things that aren’t all that important in a film like this. But it’s certainly more fun — and way more over the top — and that translates to a shark tale that is very worth your time this Halloween season.

4. “Viking Wolf”

The title is reminiscent of one of those goofy Syfy channel numbers — like “Ghost Shark” or “Ice Spiders” — where you spend more time scoffing at the special effects than actually being afraid.

Yet, “Viking Wolf” is anything but a laughing matter. Instead, this Norwegian horror film — which was released on Netflix in early 2023 — ranks as one of the most chilling werewolf epics to come around in years.

The story kicks off more than a thousand years in the past, when Vikings discover a wolf cub during a raid in Normandy. They decide to take the cub with them back to Norway — a decision that proves costly for generations to come.

The feature grows increasingly intense as the rest of the tale unfolds, doubling down on cool creature moments and big scares. Yet, “Viking Wolf” is also a film with a ton of heart — which is what’s really likely to stick with viewers long after the end credits roll.

5. “The Boogeyman”

The film is wonderfully unsettling, slowly building a nightmare scenario that feels both surreal and right around the corner. It’s based on a 1973 Stephen King short story of the same name. And when it comes to the wildly varying quality of King adaptations, “Boogeyman” is closer to “It’ than “Dreamcatcher.”

It’s not, however, recommended late-night viewing for all parties, given that the film might leave you questioning whether you’re actually hearing something moving in your bedroom closet as you turn off the light and rethinking whether you need to check under the bed just one more time.

I actually got a bit of the shivers just from writing that last paragraph, which further underscores the effectiveness of this Rob Savage-directed supernatural horror flick addressing the thing “that comes for your kids when you’re not paying attention.”

6. “The Blackening”

I tend to steer clear of the intentionally funny horror-movie lampoons — including most of the “Scary Movie” flicks — preferring instead to get laughs from horror films that aren’t trying to be funny. That’s why “Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest” is by far my favorite in that franchise.

Yet, this lampoon, specifically skewering how Black people have long been portrayed in horror films, is a definite keeper. The film, which tells of a reunion of friends for a Juneteenth getaway in a cabin the woods, is smart, funny, well-acted and produces more legitimate scares than one typically gets in these types of horror lampoons.

7. “Evil Dead Rise”

I’m part of the camp that will always have a hard time with any “Evil Dead” film that doesn’t star the great Bruce Campbell. Yet, I still enjoyed this latest chapter in the seemingly never-ending tale of the dastardly Deadites.

It’s a wholly intense film, which gets off to a incredibly strong start and then just continues to ratchet up the menace, blood and gore as we move from a lakeside cabin to the home of what’s about to be a very unhappy family.

Ellie, the possessed mom played by Alyssa Sutherland, is nothing short of the stuff of nightmares.

8. “Cocaine Bear”

“Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” were quite likely the only films in 2023 to scare up more advance buzz than “Cocaine Bear,” which brought the Internet to its knees with its amazing coming attractions trailer.

The Elizabeth Banks-directed film then lived up to its advance hype, offering up equal amounts of ludicrous humor and horror as it tells the story of a forest creature who is certainly willing to fight for its right to party.

It’s worth seeing for many reasons, not the least of which being the chance to witness the late great Ray Liotta — in one of his last performances — do what only Ray Liotta could.

9. “Renfield”

There’s something to be said about having low expectations, which is exactly what I had after watching just a few seconds of Nicholas Cage overact (yet again) in the trailer for this film. Yet, I try to be somewhat of a horror completist, and I had a few hours to kill in Los Angeles before going to see Phish at the Hollywood Bowl, so I plopped down the money for a matinee screening.

It turned out to be a very good idea, given that the Chris McKay-directed film is a really fun action/horror/comedies. Nicholas Hoult is superb in the title role, playing a supernaturally powerful servant to Dracula who is looking to make a career change. And, yes, Cage overacts in the role of Dracula – but in all the right ways.

10. “Scream VI”

Did we need another “Scream” movie? Absolutely not. But I’m still glad we got one as fun as this sixth installment, which now finds Ghostface terrorizing folks in New York City. Most of the main characters from the classic run of “Scream” films are now gone, except for unstoppable talk show host Gale Weathers (played by Courteney Cox), but the new crew — introduced in the previous “Scream” flick — and some old friends help move the story forward in a way that does justice to Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson’s creation.