office upon its release on February 23, 1940, because its international releases were prevented due to World War II. The company's next film Fantasia also performed poorly at the box office but during its production, he company made advancements in cinema technology, inventing Fantasound, an early surround sound system, for the film's soundtrack, making it the first commercial film to be shown in stereo. In 1941, Walt Disney Studio experienced a major setback when 300 of its 800 animators, led mainly by one of the company's top animators Art Babbitt, went on strike for five weeks for unionization and higher pay. Walt thought the strikers were secretly communists and he fired many of the studios' animators, including some of its best ones. Roy Disney tried to persuade the company's main distributors to invest in the studio and to secure more production funds for the studio, which could no longer afford to offset production costs with employee layoffs, but was unsuccessful. During the premiere of The Reluctant Dragon (1941), Disney's fourth film, Robert Benchley toured the company's studio; protesters from the strike arrived and the film was $100,000 short of its production cost. While negotiations with the strikers were underway, Walt accepted an offer from the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs to make a goodwill visit, along with some of his animators, to South America, ensuring Disney would be absent during the deal because he knew the results would not be in his favor. During the twelve-week visit, the animators began plotting for films and were inspired by local music. As a result of the strike, Federal mediators compelled the studio to recognize the Screen Cartoonist's Guild and several animators left the company, leaving it with 694 employees. To recover from their financial losses, Disney, hurriedly and with a lower budget, created the studio's fifth animated film Dumbo, which performed well at the box office and made a much-needed financial gain for the company. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, many of the companies animators would be drafted into the army. Later, 500 United States Army soldiers occupied the studio for eight months to protect a nearby Lockheed aircraft plant. While they were there, the soldiers fixed equipment in large soundstages and converted storage sheds into ammunition depots. On December 8, 1941, the United States Navy asked Walt to create propaganda films to gain support for the war. He