The blog will be updated again next week.

I am very curious about this upcoming book....

The Art of Inside Out is now available for pre-order on Amazon. I can't wait for this movie to be released.

Truly spectacular auction coming soon. You can order the catalog here or download it here.

The movie trailer looks horrible and I have a feeling that the movie is un-watchable, but I know that some of you will want to know that it has been released on DVD.

This just in from Garry Apgar:

[Currently on the D23 website is an interactive map of "Walt Disney's Hollywood" with pop-up pics of sixteen structures or places intimately associated with the master. Among Walt's "old Hollywood haunts" are three of the four houses he lived in between 1923 and the early 1950s. The fourth and final Disney domicile on Carolwood Drive, in Holmby Hills, has been torn down. But "Walt's Barn," originally situated on the estate, is on the map (#16).

The artwork includes a nifty caricature of Walt and one of the better modern-day, studio-sanctioned, "on model" images of the classic Mickey Mouse. The drawing on the map (#11) standing in for the Burbank studio depicts the whimsical, post-Walt Team Disney Building, designed by Michael Graves, and featuring caryatids (as on an ancient Greek temple) in the form of the Seven Dwarfs.

Here's the link: http://cdn.media.d23.com/html/waltshollywood/html/index.html]

Looking forward to the new issue of Disney Twenty-Three, especially to the article about Herman Schultheis and his lost notebook...

I was extremely sad to learn last week that editor and Disney historian Edward Summer had passed away. Some of his interviews will Disney artists will appear in future volumes of Walt's People.

R.I.P.

I just discovered last week this catalog of a 2011 exhibition of Disney cels and thought that some of your might want to know that it exists. Really not a "must have". Only cels in here, nothing more exciting.

The blog will be updated again on Monday, November 17.

The beautiful catalog of the Italian Mondo Paperino auction is now available for download. You can also puchase a physical copy by following this link.

This just in from Garry Apgar:

[This year marks the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

On November 10, 1989, one day after the Wall was first breached, a young American physicist, James Le, who was studying in Germany at the time, spray-painted Mickey Mouse on the barrier near Checkpoint Charlie, one of the most chilling symbols of the Cold War. The picture bore the caption, “Willkommen in Ost Berlin.”

The next day — by happy coincidence, the anniversary of Armistice Day, November 11th — something extraordinary happened in terms of the intersection of global politics and culture. With James Le’s Mickey looming over his shoulder, the Russian émigré Mstislav Rostropovich celebrated the historic occasion with an impromptu performance of Bach’s Suites for Cello, culminating in the solemn fourth movement or Sarabande from Suite No. 2.

Rostropovich must have delighted in the company of Walt Disney’s cheery exemplar of freedom. He could easily have repositioned his chair if he didn’t wish to be seated or be seen near that iconic emblem of America and the American spirit, Mickey Mouse.

Further proof of Rostropovich's affection for the United States came just three months later. In February 1990, the maestro was invited to conduct concerts in Moscow and Leningrad. As reported in the Washington Post, the program at the Moscow venue was “filled with sad music, including Shostakovich’s anguished Fifth Symphony, which was written at the height of the Stalinist purges in 1937.” For Rostropovich’s

"final encore, he chose an American classic, John Philip Sousa's rousing 'Stars and Stripes Forever,' the traditional finale of the National Symphony’s annual Fourth-of-July concert on the West Lawn of the Capitol in Washington. The Moscow audience responded with a standing ovation. Later, amidst bear hugs and vodka toasts at a post-concert reception at the U.S. Embassy, Rostropovich was asked why he’d picked the 'Stars and Stripes Forever.' The idea, he said, came 'from the heart.'"

Just as, one may suppose, the idea of combining Bach and the liberation of East Berlin with Mickey Mouse came from the heart.

Below is a photograph of Rostropovich at the Wall. For video of the performance, see: http://vimeo.com/35946240

Walt's People - Volume 15 has just been released by Theme Park Press.


As you will see by checking out the table of contents below, it contains some extremely exciting interviews! Whether you are fan of animation, of the comic books or of the parks, I believe you will all enjoy it.

[Foreword: Mindy Johnson

Dave Smith: Bob Cook
John Culhane: Grim Natwick
Michael Barrier: Clair Weeks
Bob Casino: Willis Pyle
Didier Ghez: Charlene Sundblad about Helen and Hugh Hennesy
Göran Broling: Preston Blair
Cartoonist PROfiles: Preston Blair
Steven Hartley: The Life and Times of Cy Young
Michael Barrier: Lynn Karp
Autobiography of Basil Reynolds
Alberto Becattini: The Life and Times of Riley Thomson
John Culhane: Ward Kimball
John Culhane: Wilfred Jackson
Jim Korkis: Ham Luske’s children
Michael Broggie: Stormy Palmer
EMC West: Guy Williams Jr.
EMC West: Buddy Van Horn
EMC West: Suzanne Lloyd
George Sherman: Roger Broggie
Jim Korkis: Karl Bacon & Ed Morgan
Dave Smith: Bill Martin
Jay Horan: Bill Evans
John Culhane: Card Walker
Didier Ghez: Mike Peraza]

The weirdest Disney-history-related book that I have heard of in recent years must be the new French novel Constellation by Adrien Bosc, which recently won the very prestigious Grand Prix du Roman de l'Académie Française. The novel is centered around the crash of the Air France plane Constellation on October 27, 1949 and the passengers that were on board. One of them, of course, was none other than Kay Kamen (with his wife). I have not yet read the book, but I will do so, obviously. (Thanks to Sebastien Durand for the heads up).

This just in from Garry Apgar:

[“Record Disney Songs”

Motion Picture Daily, August 17, 1937, p. 8

HOLLYWOOD, Aug. 16.—Numbers from seven of the latest Walt Disney Silly Symphony cartoons have been recorded in Spanish at the RCA-Victor studios on discs for the foreign market. The Disney Spanish recordings hit a high volume in Latin-American sales.]

Finally a book about the early days of Technicolor, which apparently will also study the early relashionship of Technicolor and Disney. The book should be released in February next year according to Amazon.

The long awaited biography of Gustaf Tenggren by Lars Emanuelsson (in Swedish) will finally be released in two weeks. I can't wait to get it to enjoy the illustrations. An English version might be released in a few years, but there are no concrete plans for the moment.

I will be discussing quite a few off-the-beaten-path books this week, starting with George Gallup in Hollywood. You can't study the history of Disney from the '50s onwards without encountering the concept of research about upcoming movies conducted for Disney by ARI (Audience Research Institute). A good friend made me discover recently George Gallup in Hollywood, which contains a 20-page chapter about the history of ARI and Disney based on documents that I had never heard of before. This is clearly a book for specialists, but if the subject interests you, this is a "must-have."

Another really beautiful day with the release by Michael Barrier of his second interview with Frank and Ollie. Getting access to Mike's interviews is revolutionary and promises to help us understand Disney History as never before.