The Serbian Mika Mis issue 54.

This just in from Jim Korkis:

[Even though I have quite a collection of Walt photos including some that are very out of the ordinary, when I saw this photo advertised on eBay, I knew I wanted it even if it meant I had to eat candy bar lunches for a week. As a kid, in order to get extra money to buy comic books on the way home from school, I would only use enough of the lunch money my parents had given me to buy a candy bar to sustain my energy through the day so I could use the rest to buy reading material.

I think most people will look at this photo and see Walt standing on the uncompleted hill of the Storybook Land boat attraction at Disneyland. However, when I look at the photo, especially the way it has been cropped, I see the huge word "Story" that is larger even than Walt himself. Walt is standing up for the importance of story in the overall picture. Notice that the only area that is completed is the section where Walt is standing. Walt is also gazing off past the horizon, his eyes wrapped in thought about the next step as well as the final vision. All the other elements in the picture from the background to the foreground are minimized and gray. Once the Story is completed and strong, it will bring those other elements into better focus. I knew I wanted this by my computer when I churned out articles to remind me about Walt and his belief in the importance of storytelling. I make no apologies for being a sentimental Disney Geek who still gets a kick out of things like this picture.]

Do you love Pinocchio like I do? You must be having a ball these days! Hans Perk is posting the animation drafts to the film, Mark Mayerson is creating a Mosaic detailing who the animators are for the entire film and today Michael Sporn started posting the photostats of the storyboards.

The Serbian magazine Mika Mis number 53.

Two requests for help today:

- Would anyone have access to the article Why I Did Peter Pan by Walt Disney published in the magazine Brief? (A friend of mine is looking for a copy of it).

- Would anyone know how to contact the wife of the late Jack Speirs or one of his heirs?

Cartoonbrew mentioned two days ago an exhibition that is currently taking place at Disneyland featuring Disney Western Publishing book illustrators from the 1950s and 60s, including John Hench, Al Dempster, Retta Scott Worcester, Campbell Grant, Al White, Dick Kelsey, and several others.

I have heard recently that a book might be in preparation on that very subject. Is there any truth to that rumor? Would any of you know?

Two beautiful pieces of artwork being sold at the moment by Van Eaton Galleries: a fantastic watercolor Storyboard Panel from the "Lake Titicaca" sequence of Saludos Amigos and a Mary Blair concept paiting from the "Two Silhouettes" sequence of Make Mine Music. I love to start my day discovering two pieces like this.

Don't miss today Just the Disney Facts, Ma'am by Wade Sampson and the new posts by David Lesjak on ToonsAtWar.

An other politically very incorrect postcard from Belgium found today on ebay.

Speaking of ebay, Mark Sonntag just told me that there is a copy of the Alice in Cartoonland flyer I posted a few days ago that is currently for sale on ebay (search for item number 300091208703).

David Lesjak just sent me this photo with the following caption: "Circa 1956, William and Louise Rast visit with Walt Disney at the Studio in Burbank."

William Rast was one of Walt's childhood friends. David also sent me an interview he conducted with him and his wide 15 years ago that will be included in a following volume of Walt's People. Here is a preview:

"I was staying in California once. Walt picked me up at the hotel. We ate dinner together then went up to his house. Lillian wasn’t there. She was out with some of her friends. He asked if I wanted to go swimming. I said sure. He couldn’t find any swim suits. Lillian had squirreled them away somewhere. He said we could jump in with the lights off. We jumped into the pool naked and swam around. All of a sudden the lights went on – Lillian and some of her friends had returned. I remember Walt introducing me to them, pointing his finger at each one. Luckily, we were in the water well enough to be protected."

I was glad to receive yesterday more great Serbian Disney magazines including this one, Mika Mis 51 which contains one instalment of the locally produced story Mickey and Donald on Travel.

Just found this morning on ebay this politically very incorrect postcard produced in Belgium in 1935 (non-authorized by Disney) and showing Mickey during his visit to the Belgian Congo (currently known as Democratic Republic of Congo).

Russell Merritt's and J.B. Kaufman's Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies book is a pure delight. The only slight disapointment are the illustrations. I would have loved to see concept art of more unusual documents related to the Silly Symphonies. There are a few visual documents, though that match the stunning quality of the text and the research. One of those is a photo of the Russian Three Little Pigs poster.

The shorts The Three Little Pigs, Peculiar Penguins and The Band Concert were shown in the mid-'30s at Moscow's Art Film Theatre. The Three Little Pigs even received a special award at the Moscow Film Festival in 1935.

While Russell and JB show the poster, I believe what I am displaying here is the full program was given to people attending the Moscow Film Festival. Or is it? Can one of the visitors of this site speak Russian and give me more information about this extremely rare document that has been part of my collection for years?

This just in from David Lesjak:

[Regarding Walt Disney and DeMolay. Disney had one of his artists create an insignia for the Grand Council of the Order of DeMolay in March 1945. I do not have an image of the design, but my Disney WW II insignia database makes reference to the image as that of a "running turtle." The Disney Archives has a photograph of the design, which I saw there around 15 years ago while conducting research on war-era insignia.]

From Mark Sonntag's collection comes the front and back of this great FBO flyer. This original is in Mark's collection. FBO took over distribution of the WINKLER product just prior to the OSWALD contract with UNIVERSAL.

Watch out! Devyn Marseilles has just released the second part of the Peter Pan sweatbox session notes.

(The above drawing of Peter is currently being sold by Van Eaton Galleries)

Guess where this letter from Walt which was printed in THE ARIZONA DAILY STAR on Saturday July 9, 1938 comes from? Mark Sonntag's collection indeed.

Beautiful Pinocchio storyboard drawing featuring Gideon sold on Van Eaton at the moment. Why am I showing it? Just because I love it.

Do not miss Wade Sampson's fascinating article titled Walt and Demolay this morning on Mouseplanet!

And Jim Korkis adds:

[One of the exciting things about Disney history is that no matter how well researched an article or book is, there is always more to the story. Here is some additional information about Walt and DeMolay that didn't appear in Sampson's article:

When Walt picked up the De Molay Legion on Honor in October 1931, apparently it was a degree corresponding to that of a 33rd degree in Masonry, the highest attainable . When asked about it at the time, Walt responded: "This reception rather bewilders me although I know the DeMolays always do everything in fine shape. I am proud to receive the Legion of Honor, but I feel as though I haven't done anything to merit it . "

At the Founder's Conference in July 1936, Walt was there to participate in the installation of 100 new members in the Legion of Honor of the Order of DeMolay, the same award he had received in 1931. It was reported that this was the very first public speech that Walt Disney had ever made because he hated speaking in public. The Kansas City Star wrote, "Although Mr. Disney's voice has been heard by millions of persons as the voice of his Mickey and other animated cartoon characters, he never before has consented to speak before an audience." Walt told the reporter, "I can't talk. It frightens me."]

Talk about a great entry to the Disney history competition! Here is the photo I received from Joe Campana this morning with the following email:

[Hi Didier,

I'll bet you haven't seen this one before! Clowning around on Kingswell Avenue, summer 1925.



The Harman brothers and Rudy Ising had recently arrived at the studio and this is a photo taken by Walt the same day he snapped the studio staff portrait in front of the "Disney Brothers Studio" at 4649 Kingswell Ave. The staff portrait appears in several books -- see Merritt and Kaufman' s "Walt in Wonderland" (page 85)]

By the way, Joe also noticed that one can distinguish the reflection of Walt on the door in the photo of Rudy Ising and Adolph Kloepper that I posted last week.

Are Myklebust just sent me this great entry for the Disney history competition which will last until the end of March (you can win a copy of my art-book Disneyland Paris: From Sketch to Reality by entering it).

This item was sold in an auction that took place in June 2006. Its caption read:

[TLS signed “Walter E. Disney” on the final page, four pages, 8.5 x 11, Walt Disney Productions letterhead, June 7, 1950. A letter of agreement between Disney and writer Cameron Shipp, who was to write a serialized biography of Disney for the Saturday Evening Post. Countersigned by Shipp on the final page. In fine condition, with light toning, scattered mild wrinkling, marginal file holes at edges (one within loop of “y” in “Disney,” though not touching signature itself), and staple holes and paperclip impressions to top edges.]

It looks as if 6 years before the famous series of articles "by Diane Disney Miller" appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, Walt was already studying ways to let his biography be published.

Cameron Shipp was a journalist specializing in ghost-writting "autobiographies". He is the author of the "autobiography" of Mack Sennett and of Lionel Barrymore.

6 years after this letter was written, the Saturday Evening Post released a series of articles about the life of Walt Disney as told by his daughter Diane. This series was based on interviews conducted at the time by Pete Martin.

Jim Korkis was kind enough to detail the whole story:

[W. Thornton ("Pete") Martin (who was also a former Post editor) was a "celebrity friendly" writer who did a series of celebrity visits for the Saturday Evening Post in the Forties entitled "I Call On..." (eg. I Call On Bob Hope). Some of this writing was compiled and edited in a book "Hollywood Without Make-Up" in 1948. He would co-write celebrity biographies like "Have Tux, Will Travel" with Bob Hope and "Call Me Lucky" (first published in 1953) with Bing Crosby.

The Saturday Evening Post approached Walt Disney with the proposal to have him write (with the assistance of Pete Martin) his biography in serial form for the magazine. They offered Walt $150,000. Walt was already deeply involved in Disneyland but wanted to help his daughter Diane and her husband Ron get a house and had no money to give them because everything was tied up in his new theme park. So Walt made a counter-proposal that he would be interviewed but that Diane would be credited as the author so that she would receive the money.

Walt had always tried to promote his daughter Diane as a writer. He often brought samples of Diane's writing to the Studio for evaluation by his writing staff. The Post agreed to the arrangement but cut the offer in half to $75,000. Diane remembers spending the Summer by the pool at her dad's house where with planes flying overhead and bird noises and more, Walt spent a couple of days answering questions and remembering his life while Pete Martin recorded it all on reel-to-reel audio tape. Diane contributed some questions and was interviewed as well. Her younger sister Sharon was also involved briefly.

There were rumors at the time that a biography of Walt was in the works so supposedly, Walt decided he would undercut that other project by getting his own version out there first. Martin seemed like a good choice because he was an accessible writer who could put a positive spin on things. When he and Walt discussed the harsh corporal punishment that Walt's father often meted out on young Walt, Martin was able to steer the anecdote to the conclusion that this type of behavior was not unusual for the time but just the way parents including his own did their parenting back then.

Walt wasn't always accurate in terms of exact dates or chronology for certain incidents and that material was never cross-checked and corrected before the articles and the book were published.

Obviously, from this document submitted by Are, Walt had discussions with the Saturday Evening Post years before the series known to us Disney fans.

The "My Dad, Walt Disney" series of articles began in the Saturday Evening Post on November 17, 1956. The other seven parts appeared Nov. 24, 1956, Dec. 1, 1956, Dec. 8, 1956, Dec. 15, 1956, Dec. 22, 1956, Dec. 29, 1956 and the conclusion Jan. 5, 1957. These articles were later compiled/expanded/edited and appeared in a hardcover book in 1957 from Henry Holt entitled "The Story of Walt Disney". There were at least four foreign editions: Italy, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. (I have the British and German editions and there are different photos or photos cropped differently in them.) There was also a Dell paperback released shortly afterwards.

In celebration of Disneyland's 50th anniversary, a special limited hardcover edition (with an index of corrections from Disney Archivist Dave Smith and a short introduction by Diane where she claims not to have written one word of the book) was released and sold at Disneyland.]

One last note about Walt and the Saturday Evening Post, this one by Michael Barrier:

[There was a two-part article about Walt's career published in the SEP in October-November 1953, but it was written by Jack Alexander, and it's not an as-told-to piece. I don't know of any connection with the Shipp project.]

This just in from Jim Korkis:

[Here is a great site devoted to artist Jesse Marsh and is the best coverage of his time at the Disney Studio including working on Don Quixote. I never cared for his stylized artwork on DELL comic books. I much preferred Russ Manning's version of Tarzan to Marsh's and yet Manning wrote a wonderful essay on how amazing Marsh was, especially on Tarzan. I guess Marsh is an acquired taste or my artistic sensibilities aren't sharpened enough to appreciate what he was attempting in his art.]

The new Peter Pan Platinium edition DVD is being released today. For the occasion collector Devyn Marseilles was kind enough to send us this scan of a great Peter Pan storyboard from her own collection. Here is Devyn's description:

"It's an undated storyboard of a scene that was only, in very small part, used in the film. It includes an unused musical sequence, and different dialog. Also note the "Roll" that Smee refers to with the names of some key animators on it. I think it's a great piece and I haven't come across any duplicates on other sites.

I have included the stamp and notations on the back side of the storyboard. The stamp is in that typical purple ink they used back then, but my scanner only picked it up as gray after numerous tries. "

[Additional note: I would also highly recommend checking out the sweatbox meeting notes that Devyn posted on her site!]

Start your morning with a smile by checking out both Floyd Norman's article about Sleeping Beauty and The Orlando Sentinel's excellent review of Michael Barrier's upcoming biography of Walt.

Don't miss today also the excellent podcast organized by Jesse Obstbaum on Mousepod featuring a great interview with WWII expert and Disney History blog contributor David Lesjak.

I just discovered through Michael Barrier the existence of this excellent article about The Disney-Von Braun Collaboration and Its Influence on Space Exploration. Michael also reminds us of the in-depth article by Jim Korkis on the same subject published on Jim Hill 4 years ago.

I was working this weekend on the transcript of a conference that Ollie Johnston gave in the 70s at CalArts and that will appear in a future issue of Walt's People thanks to Darrell Van Citters (who taped it and sent it to me) and Nancy Beiman (who transcribed it). I found this excerpt about the creation of Baloo fascinating:

[This next slide of Baloo... we hadn't arrived at a real personality yet. He's still just any bear. We thought this would give him kind of a nice, exciting feeling (to make him a yellow bear). Walt didn't go for it. So we tried a brown bear and he didn't like that, either. He said, "Why don't we try a grey bear?" We tried the grey bear and he thought that fit better into the jungle setting. So that's what we went with. Originally, the bear was only going to be in a very small part of the picture… just a cameo role. We had tried several different kinds of voices on the guy. It's very difficult to find a voice to fit the real character. We tried kind of a bungling comedian who we thought wasn't too bad. We tried kind of an Ed Wynn type voice. Then we thought maybe if we get some of these UCLA exchange students who have been to India, we might find something unusual in them that would give a different quality to the bear. Well, we tried that and it didn't work out. Then one day Walt said, "Say, I talked to Phil Harris at a cocktail party, and I told him I'd like him to come out and try for this."

Phil Harris came out. We were kind of horrified at that thought, but we decided to go along with it. Phil Harris said, “Gee, I can't do this. You want me to go 'Doobie, doobie, Doobie?' That's not my stuff and besides, I don't know how to be a bear!"
Anyway, we got him to try a few lines. We told him not to worry about being a bear but to just be himself. He did, and we animated a few scenes to his voice. When he came back he looked at it and said, "Gee, this'll make me immortal." In a way, it did. He never had any kids interested in him before. It was always the drunks who would come up to him on the streets. Now the kids come up and grab him by the arm because he brought a character to life. I think one of the big reasons was that he had a way of saying things that was his own. He didn't just read off our dialogue. He changed it into his own vernacular and made it sound like this character was really thinking. That's very important.]

The Disney Family Museum site was update this weekend. Also check the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Project Blog for some great animal studies by Disney artist Clair Weeks.

Speaking of ebay, here are three publicity photographs that are sold there at the moment and that I do not believe I had ever seen before. The one above seems to be taken at Disneyland. The one below features Shirley Temple and the final one includes Roy Rogers.

One of the commercials created by Disney in the '50s was one for Mohawk Carpets, featuring the Disney-designed character Tommy Mohawk. Through sheer coincidence Tommy is on sale at the moment on ebay.

Howard Lowery has two more splendid storyboard drawings from the un-produced short Pilgrim Mickey for sale on ebay.

Both Paula Sigman-Lowery and Jeff Kurtti sent me their take about the photo of "Wacky Walt" from Mark Sonntag's collection that I posted yesterday.

They believe that the photo might be from an RKO convention, likely held at the Hyperion Studio (The louver window awnings on the background building makes Jeff thinks that it is the Animation Building - now Shorts at Burbank - on Hyperion).

Considering that RKO became Disney's distributor in 1937, and from the look of Walt. Paula and Jeff conclude that the photo must have been taken between 1937 and 1939.

Don't miss Michael Barrier's post from March 1, 2007. The interviews that Michael is referring to will appear in a future volume of Walt's People.

TINKERBELL PETER PAN PEANUT BUTTER 1955

I just found one more :-)

Disney produced commercials

I have been posting recently quite a few of the Disney produced commercials that I found on Youtube and elsewhere. Do anyone of you know how many were produced and which ones? Until now, here is what we have found:

- Jimminy Cricket and Nash Cars
- Soaky Toys with Donald Duck (and Porky Pig!)
- Song of the South and American Motors
- Donald Duck and the Hudson Hornet
- Alice in Wonderland and Jello
- Bucky Beaver in Ipana toothpaste commercial (below)
- Cheerios Kid

We also know from both Jim Korkis' and Amid Amidi's research that along with Bucky Beaver and Cheerios Kid, the Studio created some Trix Cereal commercials, the Tommy Mohawk character featured in the Mohawk carpets commercials, and Fresh-Up Freddie in some 7-Up commercials. There was also a commercial for Peter Pan Peanut Butter featuring Tinker Bell, and one for Instant Chocolate Flavored Mix featuring Jimminy Cricket. Finally, I remember having seen once a commercial for an American Motors car (which one?) featuring Alice.

[Jeff Kurtti notes: Mouseketeer Jimmie Dodd does the intro lines to the Iapana commercial, too.]

What else?

ALICE IN WONDERLAND JELLO TV COMMERCIAL 1954

Will you be in Austria between March 25, 2007 and November 4, 2007? In that case you should try to check out the exhibition of Barks artwork that will take place during those dates at the Karikaturmuseum in Krems.

The Show "Die Ente ist Mensch geworden das zeichnerische Werk von Carl Barks" consisted of more than 400 original art works, 290 from the collection of Gottfried Helnwein.

It looks as if a catalog will be released and I will post more information about this when I get it.

I was mentioning a few days ago a series of conferences by Disney and Warner old-timers given at CalArts in the '70s that I will be releasing in Walt's People thanks to Darrell Van Citters.

I was wondering if anyone of you might have the transcripts or recordings of three of these conferences that seems to have been lost: Virgil Ross, Mel Shaw and Frank Thomas.

Where? When? Why? Can anyone help give a caption to this splendid shot provided by Mark Sonntag?

I hate typos. Unfortunately when one publishes any book, even when 10 different people have edited the manuscript, one has to learn to live with those annoying remaining typos.

Walt's People is no exception. Here are the most annoying ones I (and some readers) have caught to date:

- In Volume 3, the two titles of the Art Babbitt interviews give 1992 as the year of his death. The correct date is 1991, of course.

- In Volume 4, I mentioned that Brian Sibley's book about the making of the Mary Poppins musical is already in print. It is not. It will be released at the end of this year (to my defence, when I finalized the manuscript it was scheduled to be released in November 2006).

- And then there are the innacuracies one catches only after publication in some of the answers or some of the questions. Darrell Van Citters noticed one of those in Joe Adamson's interview with Dick Huemer in Volume 4. Huemer mentioned Frank Thomas working on Sorcerer's Apprentice. It does not appear to have been the case, as Frank had already started working on Bambi by then.

Dont't miss the post Marc Davis Designs for Cruella de Vil by Amid Amidi on Cartoon Modern.