As promised, here is a last document related to the 4th of July.

As my friend mentioned: [I don't think Ward Kimball thought of the Cheshire Cat as a red, white and blue character. This is for a Disney cast member event on July 4th.]

One more "4th of July" related material (sort of) sent by a friend with the following note:

[July 4th is the perfect excuse to remind readers to visit toonsatwar.com to see Walt Disney at his patriotic best. Here is an image I don't remember seeing at the site yet.

This image comes from Readers Digest issue Sept 1941]

This comment by Pete Emslie is too good to get lost in the comment section. His idea sounds brillant to me, if Disney Toons can come up with story artists at least half as good as those who worked on the featurettes. No easy, of course, as Ben and Me's story artist was none other than Bill Peet. But certainly doable.

["Ben and Me" is not only a fine topic for a July 4th post, but also ties in very nicely with the release this past weekend of "Ratatouille". Both films share the theme of a human acting as a front for a rodent with exceptional abilities. I have always loved "Ben and Me" since first seeing it on the Disney Sunday TV show back in the 60's. Actually, I would hold up "Ben and Me" as a shining example of the type of cartoon that Disney Toons should now set out to create, now that John Lasseter has wisely decreed that there will be no more sequels to the animated classics forthcoming. There must be tons of great little stories out there that are just perfect for adapting as 20 to 40 minute featurettes. Is Disney Toons up to the challenge?]

Happy 4th of July to all our American readers!

An old friend of mine sent me last week a bunch of 4th of July related material that I will post until Friday. Enjoy!

[July 4th is a huge holiday in the United States and certainly there is no lack of interesting articles on Disney and early American history.

Walt Disney gave his youngest daughter, Sharon, a small role in the film "Johnny Tremain" so she could get into the Screen Actor's Guild and do commercials. Sharon can be seen during the mob scenes delivering her one-word line: "Yes."

While there will probably be several nice articles at the popular websites celebrating Walt's patriotism, it is important to remember that many of these same websites have terrific articles forgotten in their archives. Here is a nice little piece on one of Walt Disney's popular animated cartoons, "Ben and Me" at this link.]