I had the pleasure of being interviewed recently by Tim Callaway from The Mouse Castle. In the podcast which Tim just released I discuss the Walt's People project, the upcoming book Disney's Grand Tour and several other Disney History related matters. Enjoy!

I learned with great sadness a few minutes ago of the passing of Disney artist Ron Dias, this morning at 7.30.

I just can't resist stories about early Mickey Mouse costumes and events. Those two articles are simply great and put a huge smile on my face (Thanks to Mark Mayerson for the heads up):

- A Rat Patrol Was Upon Us!
- Follow-Up To Yesterday ...

The latest issues of Tomart's Disneyana Update and Disney Twenty-Three have just been released. I love the article about vintage Norwegian tobacco cards in the Tomart's and am looking forward to the articles about Marty Sklar and about Roger Rabbit in Disney Twenty-Three.

Do not miss today:

- Herb Ryman and Family Memories one Daveland
- Home Movies of the Disney Studio (1962) by Todd James Pierce 
- UPDATE: The Disneyland Monorail That Almost Was by Todd James Pierce
- Walt Disney, P.L. Travers, and the Battle Over Mary Poppins - Part One by Jim Korkis

Lots and lots of new projects by Jim Korkis to come in the next few weeks, starting with this new initiative from Theme Park Press for Kindle addicts. The Vault of Walt Sampler is a cheap way to get a taste of some of Jim's best stories.

Interesting photo found on ebay last week. The caption just says "March 1964."

One of then most important Disney History books to be released in 2014, Mickey Mouse: Emblem of the American Spirit by Garry Apgar, is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

I have just spent a large part of this weekend reading an advance copy of Marty Sklar's autobiography, Dream It! Do It!

This is a must-have, of course, especially if you are intested in the history of the Disney parks from the New York 1964 World's Fair to Hong Kong Disneyland.

This is also a very problematic book, unfortunately, for many reasons. The main one is that the content is way too sketchy. Granted, it would have taken a minimum of ten volumes of the same size for Marty to recount more than 50 years working for Disney, and one is bound to be disappointed by how short the book is. But what makes things much worse are two huge issues in the book:

- Marty spends a lot of time re-explaining many facts that are obvious to anyone who has read even the most basic books about the history of the Disney parks and reminding us of well-known stories told often already.

- What is even worse, Marty quotes at length (and I really mean at length), in several chapters, from autobiographies of various of his colleagues, including Jack Lindquist, Michael Eisner, John Hench, etc. To say that this is puzzling would be an understatement. (On a side note, in the Disneyland Paris section of the book, Marty quotes from an interview which I conducted more than 10 years ago with Tom Morris and introduces that quote as "Tom Morris speaking to D23" - since the quote was used in my recent article about DLP in Disney Twenty-Three this is technically correct but nonetheless frustrating.)

Don't get me wrong, there are quite a few new stories in the book, especially in the World's Fair and EPCOT sections, and I was pleasantly surprised by how candid Marty was when it comes to discussing some of the politics between Dick Nunis and him, or Paul Pressler and Cynthia Harris.  And the three photo sections are pure delight.

I hope that Marty will not consider this book as his final contribution to Disney History but will soon grant an interview to one or to several historians equipped to conduct lengthy oral histories with him (even if those interviews were to be released only "after Marty.")

If the book serves as a starting point, then it will serve its purpose well.

Jerry Beck's website, Cartoon Research, is definitely worth checking every day. I have now added it to the permanent links on the right.

This just in from Gunnar Andreassen:

[Here's another caricature, by Henry Major - probably not one of his best - published in a book "Hollywood", 1938.]

Do not miss today:

- JOURNAL OF A DISNEY HISTORIAN~The Disneyland Construction Edition by Paul F. Anderson
- DHI Podcast Goes Live! by Todd James Pierce
- Beyond Lincoln - Walt’s Vision for Animatronics in 1965 by Todd James Pierce
- Splash Mountain Double Anniversary by Jim Korkis

Snow White - Book Chapter

As you know, last year I rated JB Kaufman's book about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as the best Disney History book of 2012. At the time, I mentioned that we can almost never exhaust a subject matter when it comes to Disney History. I have just become aware of the fascinating research conducted by music composer David Johnson about Snow White. David conducted over the years interviews with dozens of the artists who worked on the movie, some of whom he was the only one to locate. I had a chance to read the manuscript which came out of that research and would love to see it in print at some point. One can always dream.

In the meantime, David has allowed me to offer the chapter about Ink and Paint for download on the Disney History Blog. Enjoy!

Small Town Man

 This just in from Gunnar Andreassen.

La Belle au Bois Dormant

Just a short post to let you know that I have now received a copy of Pierre Lambert's lavish book about Sleeping Beauty and this is once again a masterpiece when it comes to artwork and the way it is reproduced.

I especially loved some of the surprises that Pierre includes, like the character studies by Tom Oreb and all of the Kay Nielsen concept art reproduced as it deserves to be for the very first time.

Roy Williams

 This article from American History Illustrated, April 1979 thanks to Robert Spezzano.

Help Needed

Help Needed

A good friend is trying to locate a scan of the article about Disney by Janet Flanner released in Harper's Bazaar from November 1, 1936. Can anyone help?

Jack Campbell

These two great shots just in from Steven Hartley!

[Disney animator Jack Campbell worked at Douglas Aircraft during WW2 as a art designer. There, he designed propaganda posters, and one of his creations was Tokyo Kid, who was a well-known WW2 propaganda character during the war. Here is an example of a poster he designed.

Of course, we may vaguely know his work at Disney, but its great to know what he looks like!

(Photo courtesy of Earl Pickett)]

Quite a few interesting new visual documents released in this recently published Italian catalog (written in Italian by the usual suspects: Luca Boschi, Federico Fiecconi, erc.). If you are interested in Italian Disney comics, you might want to pick up a copy by emailing: info@cart-gallery.com