This just in from Bruce Bohner:

[ I ran across this photo of Walt in a book about my city, Lakewood, Ohio and thought I would share it with you.

The caption is:

"17784 Beach Road

Walt Disney visiting the Clifton Park summer home of Cleveland businessman Vernon Stouffer in 1961. Disney was in Cleveland to advise the zoo on new exhibits, and Stouffer was the president of the Cleveland Zoological Society. Image courtesy of Cleveland State University. Michael Schwartz Library. Special Collections."]

We are about to leave on a long deserved vacation to Burma (Myanmar). There will be one automatic update of the blog on Monday (a great shot of Walt which I had never seen before). The blog will then be silent until March 1st.

Please note that I will probably have little or no access to emails until that date.

It looks as if both the long-awaited Disney Sketchbook and the Poster Art of the Disney Parks book will finally be released this year by Disney Editions.

Just announced on Amazon: Walt Disney Animation Studios The Archive Series: Walt Disney's Nine Old Men: The Flipbooks. Pete Docter is listed as author of the book.

Walt in Argentina (1941)



I believe some of you will enjoy those rare images of Walt in Argentina, which I bought from a friend recently.

When Jim Korkis saw this clip last week he realized right away that this video had been included as part of the bonuses of the Three Caballeros Laser Disc.

Speaking of which: Would any of you own the Three Caballeros, Alice in Wonderland, Snow White and Pinocchio laser discs? Do you have a way to transfer the bonuses to a DVD? If that is the case, could you please email me?

Do not miss today:

- Televisionary - this 1941 piece of art lives up to its name by David Lesjak
- The Carousel of Progress Cast by Jim Korkis

This could definitely become a good read when it is released.

Do not miss today:

- Where Walt Was: March 30, 1957 by Michael Barrier
- WALT AND ELIAS by Paul F. Anderson
- Disneyland Canon: 1957 by Todd James Pierce
- Patricia Disney (1935-2012) by Jerry Beck
- How Much is a Ward Kimball Painting Worth? by Amid Amidi

VERY IMPORTANT

Tragedy has just struck Børge Ring. You can read the reports on CartoonBrew, Hans Perk's site and Michael Barrier's website. I have just donated through Paypal to help the Ring family. I would strongly encourage you to do so too if you can.

Since I am still researching Disney's wild-life productions, I just discovered those two books which some of you might enjoy. Tom McHugh's The Time of the Buffalo, contains a full chapter about his work for Disney on The Vanishing Prairie, while the biography of Morley Nelson discusses his work on some of the animal movies created for Disney's TV programs.

I am still gathering material about Walt's 1935 trip to Europe and I believe most of you will enjoy this extremely rare article I stumbled upon recently from the English magazine Life and Letters Today (September 1935). The author met Walt in his suite in London.

Do not miss today:

- Summer Magic in Town Square by Jim Korkis
- Børge Ring on Stan Green by Michael Barrier
- "I don't think we can continue" by Michael Barrier

The contents of the Spring 2012 issue of the magazine Twenty-Three have just been announced. What the official page does not say is that some of the best Disney historians are contributing to this issue, including David Gerstein and Greg Ehrbar contributed articles to this issue.

I had the pleasure of being asked to write an article about Kay Kamen for that issue, and I believe most of you will enjoy it since it contains several never-released-before stories about Kay and since, thanks to the help of Joe Campana, Michael Barrier and Charles Kenney, the account of Kay's early days is now more complete and precise than ever.