Looking forward to this off-the-beaten-path book by David Bossert.

Disneyland Paris is about to celebrate its 25th birthday on April 12 this year. To celebrate, the park just released a new book, written by Jeremie Noyer.

I am fascinated by the history of the Disney commercials from the 1950s and They Drew As They Pleased - Volume 4 will discuss the subject in some amount of detail both in the introduction and in the chapter about Tom Oreb, So I was glad to get this link from Are Myklebust to a website which shows some of the commercials produced by Disney in 1953 for March of Dimes (they were aired in 1954).

Here is some information about them I had in my research notes:

[Donald Duck 1954 March of Dimes (60”) – 5544
Animator draft dated: 10/13/1953
Director: Nick Nichols
Layout: Ken O’Connor
Secretary: B. Sweitzer
Animation: Svendsen, Stevens
Talent: Clarence Nash

Mickey 1954 March of Dimes (60”) – 5545
Animator draft dated: 10/13/1953
Director: Nick Nichols
Layout: Ken O’Connor
Secretary: B. Sweitzer
Animation: Svendsen, Stevens, Hathcock, Tanous
Talent: Art Gilmore

Singers: John Rarig, Bill Lee, Max Smith, Bob Hamlin, Betty Allen, Betty Noyes


Prod number created on Sept. 8, 1953]

Jack of All Trades - 99 Cents (Kindle) TEMPORARY PRICE

Bob McLain just let me know that the interview book with Disney Legend, Ken Anderson will temporarily be 99 cents for the Kindle Version (already set) and $9.99 for the paperback (to be set in the morning). This is a great reference book, with fantastic stories.

I am starting to gather material for the 5th volume of They Drew As They Pleased, which will focus on the life and career of Ken Anderson and Mel Shaw.

If you own any original artwork by those two artists, could you please email me at didier.ghez@gmail.com? Thanks in advance.

I am actively looking for in-depth articles about the making of Disney's later animated features, from One Hundred and One Dalmatians to The Black Cauldron. I stumbled upon a great one about Pete's Dragon in an old issue of American Cinematographer, but I am trying to locate others. The movies I am focusing on are:

One Hundred and One Dalmatians
The Sword in the Stone
The Jungle Book
The Aristocats
Robin Hood
The Rescuers
The Fox and the Hound
The Black Cauldron

Any ideas?

I know that this is not directly Disney-related but many of you will want to check out the catalog of this upcoming event by Heritage Auctions focused on Knott's Berry Farm.

Do not miss this post on John Canemaker's new blog:

- Deja View: The Art of Andreas Deja at the Walt Disney Family Museum March 23 – October 4, 2017

I will definitely attend this exhibition next time I am in Los Angeles.

Amazon just released the cover of David Bossert's upcoming book about Oswald. I love it and I especially enjoy this version of Oswald by Eric Goldberg.

I just received my own copy of Paul F. Anderson's new book and love it. As always, Bob McLain from Theme Park Press has done a great job.

Here is the foreword I wrote for the book:

[Ken Anderson’s flurry of inked lines always fascinated me. This is probably why he has remained my favorite Disney artist throughout the years. That and the fact that he designed the characters of all the Disney features that I grew up with: from The Jungle Book, to The Aristocats, Robin Hood and The Rescuers. Ever since I could afford it I decided to collect his original drawings. I never regretted it: looking at them I feel closer to Disney’s creative process than with any other piece of Disney artwork. In other words, I fell in love at a very young age with Ken Anderson’s talent.

Which is why, when I launched the book series Walt’s People, back in 2004, I knew that the first volume needed to contain at least one interview with Ken. And I knew who to talk to, of course: my good friend and fellow Disney historian: Paul F. Anderson.

In the late 1980s, Paul had struck a friendship with Ken, who came to consider him as his adopted son. Helped by this friendship and motivated by his deep interest in Disney history, Paul decided to conduct a long oral history with Walt’s “jack-of-all-trades.” Twenty-one tapes later, in 1993, the oral history was abruptly interrupted when Ken passed away.

I had always dreamed of reading these interviews and of seeing them released in one single place, in book form.

Thanks to the efforts of transcribers Kevin Carpenter, Carol Cotter, Ryan Ehrfurt, Skye Lobell, James Marks, David Skipper, and Julie Svendsen, as well as to the work of my co-editors James Hollifield, Todd James Pierce, and Paula Sigman-Lowery, I am glad to finally see this long-time goal become reality.

You will notice that tape 9 is missing. Despite our best efforts we were unable to locate it. If and when we do so, its content will be released in a future volume of Walt’s People. In the meantime, we hope you will enjoy the fascinating life and time of Walt’s “Jack-of-all-trades,” Disney Legend Ken Anderson.

Didier Ghez

November 2016]

This newsletter dated July 6, 1945 contains some intriguing information about Disney. Read the last paragraph to see what I mean. The last sentence about Bambi and Russia is particularly fascinating from my standpoint.

It looks as if the Walt Disney Family Museum is planning a huge Eyvind Earle exhibition for this summer, and what makes it even more exciting from my standpoint is that they will also release a large catalog by Michael Labrie titled Awaking Beauty: The Art of Eyvind Earle. I will pre-order it now on Amazon.

I have been dreaming of seeing this book in print for years.

I am glad to say that it is finally available!

I can't wait to get my own copy on Monday.

I just received Jim Korkis' new book about the making of The Gremlins and I loved it. It contains a lot of never-released-before information and is full of great quotes from memos and documents that I never knew existed (with Jim quoting all of his sources). This is a "must have".

I spent time this morning reviewing the galleys of Jack Of All Trades - Interviews with Disney Legend Ken Anderson by Paul F. Anderson. The book should be released by Theme Park Press in just a few days. More soon...

The Disney Books Network has just been updated.

 And here are the scans I had promised...

Apologies for the long silence of the last few days. It has been an intense week at work and in the evening I have been writing the chapters of the 4th volume of They Drew As They Pleased...  While checking some details related to the chapter about Tom Oreb, I stumbled upon this model sheet. I am still not sure that Oreb worked on this short, but I was amused to see that, always mindful of synergies with his park, Walt originally thought of The Story of Anyburg, USA as being titled Autopia!