It was a holiday in Spain yesterday, hence my silence. I will usually not post on weekends, holidays and while travelling for business. But there might be exceptions.
This being said, let me share the email I received yesterday from Are Myklebust, which will help you start your day with great historical material:
"Hi Didier!
In the latest issue (August 11, 2006) of Scoop there is an interesting notice about an article in “Motion Pictures Herald”, from October 1, 1932 related to Mickey Mouse and the Walt Disney Studios – including scans of the magazine pages.
What’s really the exciting stuff here (at least for me) is the ad with the listing of Walt’s staff in 1932 (including the Comic Strip Department)!
Are Myklebust"
There is a press book that was produced for Mickey's 7th birthday in 1935. The softcover mimeographed booklet is loaded with publicity ideas as well as newspaper advertisement copy. There was a large number of black and white publicity photos featuring absolutely great art that was generated for this campaign as well as a celluloid pinback button. The one thing that has often puzzled me is that Mickey's birthday in the early days is always listed as being in September. Later, the company pegged the mouse's birthday as being November 18th - the date he premiered at the Colony Theater in New York. (By the way, I had an actual newspaper with the first review for Steamboat Willie when it premiered on the 18th). I've always wondered if there was some sort of copyright issue regarding the switch in dates from September to November.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I remember from my discussions with people at the Archives, it was never a copyright issue that justified this but a sort of marketing decision. It was close to impossible to know which exact day in September the short had been finalized, whereas knowing the release date was extremely straightforward.
ReplyDeleteWould you be willing to scan the review for the blog?