The man behind Mickey and the theme parks

I wasn’t sure what to expect from an institution that sprang from the desire of Disney’s children to honor the man and separate him from the company he created. But the museum somehow avoids being a staid, sanitized trip through the family photo album. At its best, the eclectic collection succeeds as a singular and revealing meeting of personal memorabilia, pop-culture artifacts, and diaries of technical innovation.

We are taken through Disney’s early life in Chicago and Kansas City, and we even get a peek at his old schoolbook doodles: a drawing of a long-beaked character in boots, circa 1917; sketches of ladies in hats. As a teenager, he hung out in a Kansas City barbershop and drew everyone in sight. In exchange for his caricatures of locals, he got free haircuts.

Some of Disney’s first hits were a mix of live action and animation - “The Alice Comedies’’ feature a live-action little girl who frolicked in a cartoon world. As the 1920s wore on, the creator became more interested in animation, resulting in more screen time for the cartoon characters and less room for Alice.

In 1928, a mouse was born, and by the early 1930s, the mouse was famous. The 1933 “Mickey’s Gala Premier’’ even pokes fun at the character’s incredible popularity. The short showcases a parade of the era’s stars - including Greta Garbo, Laurel and Hardy, Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, all in cartoon form - as they arrive at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre for Mickey’s new movie release (it was called “Galloping Romance’’).