The Disney Books Network was updated this weekend.

The final galleys of They Drew As They Pleased - The Hidden Art of Disney's Musical Years have arrived and they look spectacular. Scheduled release date: September 2016 :-)

Sadly: Jack Lindquist (1927 -2016)

The blog will be updated again on February 28.

Ruth Shellhorn was the first landscaper of Dsneyland and a few of us are really looking forward to reading the exciting biography about her written by Kelly Comras. Can't wait!

The latest issue of The Carl Barks Fan Club Pictorial has just been released.

This just in from Harald Nast:

[I just wanted to sent you a short (well...) note about an interview with Walt Disney I never heard of and did not find any other references other than the magazine article I initially stumbled upon.

 

Check: http://www.dix-project.net/item/2203/hollywood-u-s-a-paula-stone-interviews-walt-disney for a link to the interview and a transcript.

 

Some time ago I found an article from The Radio Life magazine (1945-10-07; http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Radio-Life/40s/45/Radio-Life-1945-10-07.pdf#page=30) which mentions an interview which radio MC Paula Stone had done at some point in time before the article was published. While searching the net for the interview or other information on this matter I discovered an archive entry at the Rocky Mountain Online Archive (RMOA; http://rmoa.unm.edu/docviewer.php?docId=wyu-ah06012.xml#idp56080) which lists an audio tape with an Paula Stone/Walt Disney interview. With the great support of the archive's staff I was able to get a digitized copy of the interview.

Although the archive doesn't have any other information about the audio file, its content suggest some clues about it's origins - and it's not the 1945 interview but another interview which was conducted some years later.

From the interview:
- Cinderella and Alice and Wonderland in production: 1948-1950
- The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad released/to be released: 1949
- Walt Disney to travel to England for the production of Treasure Planet: 1949
    => boarded "Queen Elizabeth" in New York in June 1949
- Motion Picture Daily 1949-06-09 (p.2) https://archive.org/stream/motionpicturedai65unse#page/n733/mode/1up
    "Walt Disney will sail from here next Wednesday for Europe"
    => 1949-06-16
- Motion Picture Daily 1949-06-17 (p.2) https://archive.org/stream/motionpicturedai65unse#page/n777/mode/1up
    "[...], Walt Disney and Mrs. Disney [...] are en route to Europe on the S.S. Queen Elizabeth"

So the interview was probably recorded in May or June of 1949 just before Walt traveled to New York.

Another hint gives the audio snipped "USA" at the very beginning of the recording. Paula Stone hosted a radio show name "Hollywood U.S.A." for Mutual Broadcasting System which aired starting from fall 1949.

So I'm still searching for the 1945's interview but this one is also quite interesting. The 'Cinderella Work Song' reference for instance is great.]

Some drawings by Ferdinand Horvath which I had never seen before were auctioned off yesterday on ebay. I could not pick them up but I thought you would enjoy seeing the photos that were posted online.

Michael Barrier has just published his second interview with Jack Kinney, which is an even more fascinating read than the first one. This made my day!!

A few upcoming books that blog reader David Peake just noticed:

- The Art of Zootopia by Jessica Julius

-  The Art of Finding Dory

- Windows on Disney's Main Street, U.S.A.: Stories of the Talented People Honored at the Disney Parks by Chuck Snyder

- The Disney Park Maps by Kevin Neary

Quite a few wonderful pieces of concept art by Andreas Deja from The Black Cauldron released earlier this week by Van Eaton Galleries. Definitely worth checking out!

The blog will be updated again on February 11.

This great photo just in from Julie Svendsen:

[Sharing an old photo with you. On the back of the photo my mom wrote, "Detroit Group, 1957".  Pictured are from left: Mrs. Clemmons, Betty Kimball, Ward Kimball, Carol Svendsen, Julius Svendsen, Larry Clemmons.]

UPDATE: Todd James Pierce believes that this might be the "magic highway" research group.

Russell Schroeder has done it again: he has just self-published a great selection of Disney sheet music from some of the Silly Symphonies and other Disney cartoons. You will find all of the ordering information in the bottom image (click on it to enlarge it).

I am really looking forward to those two upcoming books whose cover were released last week on Amazon: Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies: A Companion to the Classic Cartoon Series and The Walt Disney Studios: A Lot to Remember.