Walt Disney Family Album

The Walt Disney Family Album was a monthly series on the recently launched Disney Channel that showcased the people Walt Disney collaborated with on many of his creations. The development of this series was a perfect storm. The brand new Disney Channel needed new content, there were a bunch of young people recently starting out at the studio learning from these masters, and many of these people were working on the lot or retiring and wanted to share their stories with the world. At the time people had their entire careers at Walt Disney Productions. Not so today. The series was produced on a shoestring budget. Pretty much the crew was sent out with cameras to interview various people and put these shows together. It was a pet project of former Disney CEO Card Walker who'd been at the studio since the 1938 when he started as a mail clerk and personally knew all of these people and their important contributions to the studio. Walker cared very much about history and understood the importance of the Walt Disney legacy being preserved. Walt's friend and Disney Legend Buddy Ebsen narrates the series. He starred in several Walt Disney films including Davy Crockett and The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. He was also the first live action reference model for what became audioanimatronics. The theme song was written by future film score composer John Debney. His father had been a producer on the lot for decades and John started out his music career with Disney. The opening title was put together by John Lasseter in one of his final projects for Walt Disney Feature Animation. He was trying to get computer animation in at Walt Disney Productions and was eventually fired for he. He would eventually become one of the driving forces behind Pixar and would return to head Walt Disney Feature Animation in 2006. In the long run, the Walt Disney Family Album proved to be a tremendous historical record as many of these people passed away shortly after being interviewed. There were plans to continue this series but when the Eisner regime took over, they shut it down because it was a Card Walker project. It's a great tragedy because who's stories never got to be told because they were robbed of this opportunity...There needs to be a revival of this series to chronicle the careers of the people at Disney in the 80's and 90's as they're retiring and could be gone in the coming decades. The Walt Disney Family Album aired on the Disney Channel in reruns off and on up through the early 2000's when it aired on Vault Disney. It hasn't been seen since but sometimes interviews have been excerpted in other documentaries. This debut episode centers on Clarence Ducky Nash who was the original Donald Duck. It premiered on the Disney Channel on Donald Duck's 50th birthday. There are several versions on how Clarence Nash was cast as Donald Duck. Besides the version told here, another account is that when Nash was a milk man, he stopped at the Walt Disney Studios during his route to apply for a job and Walt hired him. It's agreed that the voice that became Donald started out as a goat. Nash was sort of the Disney answer to Mel Blanc in that he provided several voices for the studio. Besides Donald, he was the original voice for Daisy, Huey, Dewy, & Louie, Figaro, and various other animals. When Cliff Edwards passed away in 1971, he also took over for a time as Jiminy Cricket. Throughout the episode you'll see cameos of many Disney legends such as Frank Thomas, Joe Ranft, Dave Smith, Jack Hannah, and others. We also get to see Nash performing with one of the Donald Duck ventriloquist dummies that the Studio Character Model Dept built for him. Nash would travel making personal appearances with this dummy but the design was later updated. Nash's final appearance as Donald Duck was in Mickey's Christmas Carol. Not only is there a focus in this episode on the careers of Nash and Donald Duck but Donald's upcoming 50th Birthday. Nash passed away the following year so it's a tremendous gift that he got to have this experience before the Lord called him home. In 1993 Clarence Nash was named a Disney Legend. Original air date June 9, 1984 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

The Walt Disney Family Album was a monthly series on the recently launched Disney Channel that showcased the people Walt Disney collaborated with on many of his creations. The development of this series was a perfect storm. The brand new Disney Channel needed new content, there were a bunch of young people recently starting out at the studio learning from these masters, and many of these people were working on the lot or retiring and wanted to share their stories with the world. At the time people had their entire careers at Walt Disney Productions. Not so today. The series was produced on a shoestring budget. Pretty much the crew was sent out with cameras to interview various people and put these shows together. It was a pet project of former Disney CEO Card Walker who'd been at the studio since the 1938 when he started as a mail clerk and personally knew all of these people and their important contributions to the studio. Walker cared very much about history and understood the importance of the Walt Disney legacy being preserved. Walt's friend and Disney Legend Buddy Ebsen narrates the series. He starred in several Walt Disney films including Davy Crockett and The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. He was also the first live action reference model for what became audioanimatronics. The theme song was written by future film score composer John Debney. His father had been a producer on the lot for decades and John started out his music career with Disney. The opening title was put together by John Lasseter in one of his final projects for Walt Disney Feature Animation. He was trying to get computer animation in at Walt Disney Productions and was eventually fired for he. He would eventually become one of the driving forces behind Pixar and would return to head Walt Disney Feature Animation in 2006. In the long run, the Walt Disney Family Album proved to be a tremendous historical record as many of these people passed away shortly after being interviewed. There were plans to continue this series but when the Eisner regime took over, they shut it down because it was a Card Walker project. It's a great tragedy because who's stories never got to be told because they were robbed of this opportunity...There needs to be a revival of this series to chronicle the careers of the people at Disney in the 80's and 90's as they're retiring and could be gone in the coming decades. The Walt Disney Family Album aired on the Disney Channel in reruns off and on up through the early 2000's when it aired on Vault Disney. It hasn't been seen since but sometimes interviews have been excerpted in other documentaries. This second episode focuses on Disney animator and imagineer Ward Kimball. Kimball was one of Walt's legendary Nine Old Men. Most of the Nine started with the studio in 1934/35 at the height of the Great Depression. These became the core group of animators Walt would rely on from the 1940's on. Each one specialized in a different type of animation performance. Ward was known for his zany comedy sequences and gags. One of his more well known gags is when the Dwarfs' noses pop over the bed in Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs. After his animation scene in Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs was cut, the infamous Soup Sequence, Walt made Ward the lead animator on a main character in the next film, Pinocchio. That character was Jiminy Cricket. Some of Ward's other famous performances include the crows in Dumbo, the title song in the Three Caballeros, Pecos Bill, the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum, the Indians in Peter Pan, the mice in Cinderella, and many others. Like all of the Nine Old Men, Ward did scenes in Song of the South as well and, like most of the Nine, he animated Professor Ludwig von Drake (one of the few characters most of the Nine had a hand in.) Interestingly, many of Ward's scenes are the ones the woke most frequently target today. In his day, Ward was regarded as being a radical liberal yet that term didn't mean then what it means today. Ward was also the leader of a jazz band comprised of Disney artists, the Fire House Five Plus Two. They frequently played at studio events and functions but were a legitimate popular mainstream band for over two decades. Often Ward would sleep in his office all week then quickly bang out his animation on Fridays, much to the resentment of his fellow artists. Ward was talented enough that his animation always came out great as he burned the candle at both ends. He was the only person Walt Disney ever called a genius but they could have a love/hate relationship at times. Ward was also an expert on transportation history. In this, he was a kindred spirit with Walt Disney in having a foot in the past and a foot in the future. Ward and his wife, Betty, were the first private citizen to own a real working locomotive engine and railroad in their backyard. They called it the Grizzly Flats Railroad. (In the 2000's, some of this railroad was bought and incorporated into the railroad on John Lasseter's property.) They also owned numerous other forms of antique transportation vehicles. Ward sometimes rented his machines out to the studio for the live action films, much to the disgust of Walt Disney. In the 1950's, Walt put Ward in charge of a series of films about Man in Space that aired on the Disneyland TV series. It was because of these films NASA was able to get the momentum to launch the space program and eventually go to the moon. Ward was set to direct Babes in Toyland when a studio conflict had him removed from the picture. After Walt passed away, Ward kicked around the studio for a few years before retiring in the early 1970's. It was no fun for him anymore and he'd made too many enemies. Always the practical joker, it was Ward who originated the urban legend that Walt Disney was cryogenically frozen. This persistent rumor has stuck to this day. Ward was asked to return to the studio to work with the imagineers on a History of Transportation attraction for the under construction EPCOT Center. Both his knowledge of the history and his skill as a gag man provided some humorous scenes in the ride. In 1989 Ward Kimball was named a Disney Legend along with the other Nine Old Men and Ub Iweks. They were the bedrock of the animation studio. Ward passed away in 2002. Original air date July 1, 1984 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

The Walt Disney Family Album was a monthly series on the recently launched Disney Channel that showcased the people Walt Disney collaborated with on many of his creations. The development of this series was a perfect storm. The brand new Disney Channel needed new content, there were a bunch of young people recently starting out at the studio learning from these masters, and many of these people were working on the lot or retiring and wanted to share their stories with the world. At the time people had their entire careers at Walt Disney Productions. Not so today. The series was produced on a shoestring budget. Pretty much the crew was sent out with cameras to interview various people and put these shows together. It was a pet project of former Disney CEO Card Walker who'd been at the studio since the 1938 when he started as a mail clerk and personally knew all of these people and their important contributions to the studio. Walker cared very much about history and understood the importance of the Walt Disney legacy being preserved. Walt's friend and Disney Legend Buddy Ebsen narrates the series. He starred in several Walt Disney films including Davy Crockett and The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. He was also the first live action reference model for what became audioanimatronics. The theme song was written by future film score composer John Debney. His father had been a producer on the lot for decades and John started out his music career with Disney. The opening title was put together by John Lasseter in one of his final projects for Walt Disney Feature Animation. He was trying to get computer animation in at Walt Disney Productions and was eventually fired for he. He would eventually become one of the driving forces behind Pixar and would return to head Walt Disney Feature Animation in 2006. In the long run, the Walt Disney Family Album proved to be a tremendous historical record as many of these people passed away shortly after being interviewed. There were plans to continue this series but when the Eisner regime took over, they shut it down because it was a Card Walker project. It's a great tragedy because who's stories never got to be told because they were robbed of this opportunity...There needs to be a revival of this series to chronicle the careers of the people at Disney in the 80's and 90's as they're retiring and could be gone in the coming decades. The Walt Disney Family Album aired on the Disney Channel in reruns off and on up through the early 2000's when it aired on Vault Disney. It hasn't been seen since but sometimes interviews have been excerpted in other documentaries. This third episode focuses on Walt Disney's right hand songwriting team Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman, better known as the Sherman Bros. The Sherman Bros were the sons of Tin Pan Alley songwriter Al Sherman. Tin Pan Alley was where the musical publishing industry was located in New York City at the turn of through the mid the 20th century. Al was a very popular songwriter at the time working with many of the greatest performers of the era. Some of his biggest hits were for such artists as Bing Crosby and Eddie Cantor. In 1938, Al relocated to Hollywood with his family to take a job composing for films. Bob Sherman wrote how billboards for Walt Disney's Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs greeted them all along the way on the family's cross country trip as if Walt was always watching over them. When Al got the Hollywood, the executive who'd hired him had suddenly died. Overcoming a career setback was one of the first lessons he'd taught his songs by example. In the 1950's the Sherman Bros started out as rock and roll composers and composed a handful of hits. Eventually this brought them to writing several songs for Walt's first teen star, Annette Funicello. After writing several hit songs for the former Mouseketeer, they were asked to write a song for her next film, The Horesmasters. When they had to present the song to Walt, he started talking to them about a different film he had the works about two twin girls separated at birth getting their parents back together. After liking their new Annette song, Walt offered them the Parent Trap. From there the Shermans contributed songs to many Walt Disney films and albums. Among their Disney output include the animated features and featurettes The Sword in the Stone, the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, The Jungle Book, A Symposium of Popular Songs, and The Aristocats. They sometimes wrote songs for Walt's live action films such as The Absent Minded Professor, That Darn Cat, In Search of the Castaways, The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, The Gnome Mobile, Follow Me, Boys!, and many others. For Disneyland they composed songs for The Enchanted Tiki Room, The Golden Horseshoe Revue, The Carousel of Progress, Small World, and others. They wrote songs for Walt's TV show including a new show theme, the 10th Anniversary song for Disneyland, and songs for Professor Ludwig von Drake. The Shermans proved to have a fantastic story sense with the songs they'd written for The Parent Trap and little did they know that Walt was looking for staff composers after the disastrous results of Babes in Toyland. When Walt assigned them to another film, it became the musical Summer Magic. Seeing their story skill, Walt asked them to work on Mary Poppins, a project he'd hoped to make for over twenty years. Their initial work on that film earned them their position of studio composers and when the film was released their score won them Oscars. Walt came to refer to them as "the Boys" and a documentary about them used that title. Mary Poppins is perhaps the project they're most known for, but the Shermans wrote several other musicals for Walt as well. These included The Happiest Millionaire, Bedknobs & Broomsticks, and The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. After Walt died, the Shermans stopped getting called for assignments. The studio became heavily political with different factions after Walt was gone and because the Shermans were among his favorite collaborators there was a lot of resentment toward them. This led to their finally leaving the Studio. On their own the Sherman Bros worked on such films as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Snoopy, Come Home, Charlotte's Web, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, The Slipper & the Rose, and many others. They also wrote a few stage musicals such as Busker Alley, Over Here!, and Dogs, They continued being nominated and winning awards for their work. In the early 1980's, the Shermans were asked to write some songs for many of the attractions for the soon to be opened EPCOT Center in hopes of giving the new park a Disney feel. Many of these songs defined the park for a generation but their stand out song from the collection was One Little Spark for the Journey Into the Imagination attraction with Figment and Dreamfinder. The Shermans continued working for the Walt Disney Company off and on over the next two decades. They worked on such projects as Welcome to Pooh Corner and and The Tigger Movie. In fact, it was because of their songs that this film went from a direct to video to a theatrical release. After Bob's wife Joyce passed away he relocated to the UK in 2002 and the Sherman Bros partnership slowly came to an end. Their final major project was expanding the score to their film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for an elaborate stage production. Dick continued to write songs alone for such projects as Christopher Robin and Iron Man 2. Bob passed away in 2012 at age 86. Dick followed in 2024 at age 95. He was one of the final surviving connections to Walt. In 1990 the Sherman Bros were named a Disney Legend. They also received dozens of other honors and awards throughout their careers. A lot of people ask about the Shermans and to wade through the urban legends we suggest the following. Their joint autobiography Walt's Time is their story, Bob's autobiography Moose is his story, the documentary The Boys is Dick's version, and the Walt Disney Pictures film Saving Mr Banks is the fictional Disney version. Original air date August 1, 1984 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

The Walt Disney Family Album was a monthly series on the recently launched Disney Channel that showcased the people Walt Disney collaborated with on many of his creations. The development of this series was a perfect storm. The brand new Disney Channel needed new content, there were a bunch of young people recently starting out at the studio learning from these masters, and many of these people were working on the lot or retiring and wanted to share their stories with the world. At the time people had their entire careers at Walt Disney Productions. Not so today. The series was produced on a shoestring budget. Pretty much the crew was sent out with cameras to interview various people and put these shows together. It was a pet project of former Disney CEO Card Walker who'd been at the studio since the 1938 when he started as a mail clerk and personally knew all of these people and their important contributions to the studio. Walker cared very much about history and understood the importance of the Walt Disney legacy being preserved. Walt's friend and Disney Legend Buddy Ebsen narrates the series. He starred in several Walt Disney films including Davy Crockett and The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. He was also the first live action reference model for what became audioanimatronics. The theme song was written by future film score composer John Debney. His father had been a producer on the lot for decades and John started out his music career with Disney. The opening title was put together by John Lasseter in one of his final projects for Walt Disney Feature Animation. He was trying to get computer animation in at Walt Disney Productions and was eventually fired for he. He would eventually become one of the driving forces behind Pixar and would return to head Walt Disney Feature Animation in 2006. In the long run, the Walt Disney Family Album proved to be a tremendous historical record as many of these people passed away shortly after being interviewed. There were plans to continue this series but when the Eisner regime took over, they shut it down because it was a Card Walker project. It's a great tragedy because who's stories never got to be told because they were robbed of this opportunity...There needs to be a revival of this series to chronicle the careers of the people at Disney in the 80's and 90's as they're retiring and could be gone in the coming decades. The Walt Disney Family Album aired on the Disney Channel in reruns off and on up through the early 2000's when it aired on Vault Disney. It hasn't been seen since but sometimes interviews have been excerpted in other documentaries. This fourth episode focuses on Disney sound man and special effects wizard Jimmy MacDonald. Jimmy was born in Scotland and his family legally immigrated to America when he was less than a month old. As an adult, he became a musician often working on the steamship circuit. Because the original cartoon sound effects artists were musicians with their instruments, Jimmy was called into the Walt Disney Studios in the mid 1930's to work on Walt's cartoon sounds. After he broke his leg, Walt asked him to come to the studio full time on staff to create a sound effects dept. (Because of radio, Sound Effects was a burgeoning field just perfect for animation and later spilled over into live action film.) Over the next five decades, that's what Jimmy did and remained with the studio the rest of his life. Most of his sound effects devices were discovered or built by Jimmy himself. He was like the Ub Iwerks of Walt Disney audio. His innovative sound effects gave Walt's films and theme park attractions their distinctive sound. This episode showcases how Jimmy invented the devices for many of these sound effects. It's surprising how innovative was. Jimmy also sometimes played instruments or provided voices for some of Walt's characters. He was the yodeling for the 7 Dwarfs, and was the voices for Chip & Dale, Pluto, the mice in Cinderella, the dormouse, Humphrey the Bear and various other animals including bears, mules, alligators, wolves, and others. He also created sound effects with personality when it came to providing the "voice" for several insects in Walt's films such as Spike/Buzz-Buzz the Bee. His achievement of this skill was Evinrude in The Rescuers. Sometimes Jimmy had cameos in Walt's live action films, such as the Circus Band Drummer in Toby Tyler. He also played off and on with the band the Firehouse Five Plus Two for their entire run. This jazz band was made up of Disney artists. When Walt became too busy to do the voice of Mickey Mouse, he gave the role to Jimmy. (Although Walt still occasionally still provided the voice of Mickey in special cases, just as Jimmy did after his formal retirement in 1976.) We also get to see Wayne Allwine, Jimmy's successor. Allwine became the 3rd voice of Mickey Mouse but when the Eisner regime took over he no longer did sound effects. He remained Mickey's voice until he passed away in 2009. Many of the sound effects Jimmy created are still used today, in sound effects libraries or have been released to CD. His final project was providing the sound effects for Splash Mountain. In 1993 Jimmy MacDonald was named a Disney Legend. He passed away in 1991. Original air date September 5, 1984 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

The Walt Disney Family Album was a monthly series on the recently launched Disney Channel that showcased the people Walt Disney collaborated with on many of his creations. The development of this series was a perfect storm. The brand new Disney Channel needed new content, there were a bunch of young people recently starting out at the studio learning from these masters, and many of these people were working on the lot or retiring and wanted to share their stories with the world. At the time people had their entire careers at Walt Disney Productions. Not so today. The series was produced on a shoestring budget. Pretty much the crew was sent out with cameras to interview various people and put these shows together. It was a pet project of former Disney CEO Card Walker who'd been at the studio since the 1938 when he started as a mail clerk and personally knew all of these people and their important contributions to the studio. Walker cared very much about history and understood the importance of the Walt Disney legacy being preserved. Walt's friend and Disney Legend Buddy Ebsen narrates the series. He starred in several Walt Disney films including Davy Crockett and The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. He was also the first live action reference model for what became audioanimatronics. The theme song was written by future film score composer John Debney. His father had been a producer on the lot for decades and John started out his music career with Disney. The opening title was put together by John Lasseter in one of his final projects for Walt Disney Feature Animation. He was trying to get computer animation in at Walt Disney Productions and was eventually fired for he. He would eventually become one of the driving forces behind Pixar and would return to head Walt Disney Feature Animation in 2006. In the long run, the Walt Disney Family Album proved to be a tremendous historical record as many of these people passed away shortly after being interviewed. There were plans to continue this series but when the Eisner regime took over, they shut it down because it was a Card Walker project. It's a great tragedy because who's stories never got to be told because they were robbed of this opportunity...There needs to be a revival of this series to chronicle the careers of the people at Disney in the 80's and 90's as they're retiring and could be gone in the coming decades. The Walt Disney Family Album aired on the Disney Channel in reruns off and on up through the early 2000's when it aired on Vault Disney. It hasn't been seen since but sometimes interviews have been excerpted in other documentaries. This fifth episode focuses on Disney animator Milt Kahl. He was one of Walt's legendary Nine Old Men. Most of the Nine started with the studio in 1934/35 at the height of the Great Depression. These became the core group of animators Walt would rely on from the 1940's on. Each one specialized in a different type of animation performance. Milt was known for being the best draftsman at the studio, perhaps in the entire industry. Milt's big breakthrough was when Pinocchio shut down for six months due to the unappealing nature of the title character. The animators had relied on puppets for inspiration but Kahl made him more of a little boy who happened to be a puppet. As a reward, Milt became supervising animator of the Pinocchio character. Milt would become the character designer for most of Walt's films because he understood what was animatable. He often translated the concept art of Bill Peet and Ken Anderson into what would work for a feature film. This was a role he provided up through The Black Cauldron. Because he was the studio's master draftsman, Kahl was usually assigned the princes as the human male is the hardest type of characters to animate. He also did a range of characters such as Tigger, Merlin, Shere Kahn, King Louis, supporting characters, leads, and more. Unlike today, animators had to be able to draw a variety of characters rather than specialize in only one. Milt had quite a range. Milt was an outdoorsman and a rugged individualist. This part of his personality is why he's regarded as the Michelangelo of animation. Some found his high standards to be impossible to reach and his competitive nature to be off putting but he just wanted to do quality work. It was because of his high standard that he was one of the few people who could refuse Walt on orders. You can see Milt's influence in the animation of people who mentored under him like Don Bluth, Richard Williams, Glen Keane, Brad Bird, and others. Milt's first wife was said to have killed herself in a suicide with a gun Milt had bought her for protection. It was a tragedy in his life he never accepted believing it must have been an accident. Milt's final character was Madame Medusa in The Rescuers. He based the character on his second wife who was also Walt's niece. The divorced a year after the film was released. His third wife stayed with him the rest of his life. In 1989 Milt Kahl was named a Disney Legend along with the other Nine Old Men and Ub Iweks. They were the bedrock of the animation studio. Kahl passed away in 1987. Original air date October 2, 1984 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

The Walt Disney Family Album was a monthly series on the recently launched Disney Channel that showcased the people Walt Disney collaborated with on many of his creations. The development of this series was a perfect storm. The brand new Disney Channel needed new content, there were a bunch of young people recently starting out at the studio learning from these masters, and many of these people were working on the lot or retiring and wanted to share their stories with the world. At the time people had their entire careers at Walt Disney Productions. Not so today. The series was produced on a shoestring budget. Pretty much the crew was sent out with cameras to interview various people and put these shows together. It was a pet project of former Disney CEO Card Walker who'd been at the studio since the 1938 when he started as a mail clerk and personally knew all of these people and their important contributions to the studio. Walker cared very much about history and understood the importance of the Walt Disney legacy being preserved. Walt's friend and Disney Legend Buddy Ebsen narrates the series. He starred in several Walt Disney films including Davy Crockett and The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. He was also the first live action reference model for what became audioanimatronics. The theme song was written by future film score composer John Debney. His father had been a producer on the lot for decades and John started out his music career with Disney. The opening title was put together by John Lasseter in one of his final projects for Walt Disney Feature Animation. He was trying to get computer animation in at Walt Disney Productions and was eventually fired for he. He would eventually become one of the driving forces behind Pixar and would return to head Walt Disney Feature Animation in 2006. In the long run, the Walt Disney Family Album proved to be a tremendous historical record as many of these people passed away shortly after being interviewed. There were plans to continue this series but when the Eisner regime took over, they shut it down because it was a Card Walker project. It's a great tragedy because who's stories never got to be told because they were robbed of this opportunity...There needs to be a revival of this series to chronicle the careers of the people at Disney in the 80's and 90's as they're retiring and could be gone in the coming decades. The Walt Disney Family Album aired on the Disney Channel in reruns off and on up through the early 2000's when it aired on Vault Disney. It hasn't been seen since but sometimes interviews have been excerpted in other documentaries. This sixth episode focuses on Walt Disney's Jack of All Trades Ken Anderson. Ken was a trained architect and started at the Walt Disney Studios in 1933 where he applied his talents to a variety of aspects for the Silly Symphonies. He did everything from animation to layout to art direction and more. He eventually became one of the most important artists at the studio with his influence seen in most of Walt's animated films. Walt came to rely on Ken to represent his vision in different areas just as Walt relied on Ub Iwerks for technical innovations. This episode leaves out Ken collaborating with Ub Iwerks on many of these projects such as the blending of live action/animation in Song of the South and the Xerox process developed for 101 Dalmatians. Ken also worked on creating the inspirational artwork for a proposed traveling exhibit of miniature scenes known as Disneylandia. This project eventually developed into Disneyland, for which Ken worked on many of the original attractions. Besides layout, one of Ken's greatest contributions to the Walt Disney Studios were his inspirational sketches for scenes and character designs. This was something he continued to do well after Walt had died. He not only selected projects like Robin Hood (which he'd originally intended to set in the American south) but he later developed designs for early Walt Disney Productions TV shows such as Dumbo's Circus, The Wuzzles, and The Adventures of the Gummi Bears. For some, his last animation hurrah was in designing Elliot the dragon for the original Pete's Dragon. One of the projects he developed toward the end of his career at Disney was an animated feature based on the Catfish Bend books by Ben Lucien Burman. This film had been intended for a late 1980's release and would have likely been made if the Eisner regime had not taken over. In the early 1980's Ken helped redesign Fantasyland as well as several attractions at EPCOT Center. He was one of Walt's most loyal artists although he's lesser known today than figures like Mary Blair and the Nine Old Men. In 1991 Ken Anderson was named a Disney Legend. He passed away from a stroke in 1993. Original air date November 5, 1984 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

The Walt Disney Family Album was a monthly series on the recently launched Disney Channel that showcased the people Walt Disney collaborated with on many of his creations. The development of this series was a perfect storm. The brand new Disney Channel needed new content, there were a bunch of young people recently starting out at the studio learning from these masters, and many of these people were working on the lot or retiring and wanted to share their stories with the world. At the time people had their entire careers at Walt Disney Productions. Not so today. The series was produced on a shoestring budget. Pretty much the crew was sent out with cameras to interview various people and put these shows together. It was a pet project of former Disney CEO Card Walker who'd been at the studio since the 1938 when he started as a mail clerk and personally knew all of these people and their important contributions to the studio. Walker cared very much about history and understood the importance of the Walt Disney legacy being preserved. Walt's friend and Disney Legend Buddy Ebsen narrates the series. He starred in several Walt Disney films including Davy Crockett and The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. He was also the first live action reference model for what became audioanimatronics. The theme song was written by future film score composer John Debney. His father had been a producer on the lot for decades and John started out his music career with Disney. The opening title was put together by John Lasseter in one of his final projects for Walt Disney Feature Animation. He was trying to get computer animation in at Walt Disney Productions and was eventually fired for he. He would eventually become one of the driving forces behind Pixar and would return to head Walt Disney Feature Animation in 2006. In the long run, the Walt Disney Family Album proved to be a tremendous historical record as many of these people passed away shortly after being interviewed. There were plans to continue this series but when the Eisner regime took over, they shut it down because it was a Card Walker project. It's a great tragedy because who's stories never got to be told because they were robbed of this opportunity...There needs to be a revival of this series to chronicle the careers of the people at Disney in the 80's and 90's as they're retiring and could be gone in the coming decades. The Walt Disney Family Album aired on the Disney Channel in reruns off and on up through the early 2000's when it aired on Vault Disney. It hasn't been seen since but sometimes interviews have been excerpted in other documentaries. This seventh episode focuses on the Disneyland Designers. Here we get to meet Herb Ryman, John Hench, Bill Evans, and Tony Baxter. They share some of the history behind building and maintaining Disneyland. - Herb Ryman is one of the primary founding fathers of Disneyland. He was the first primary illustrator of the Disneyland that was built. His roots at the Walt Disney Studios go back to the late 1930’s when he was made art director on several of Walt’s animated features. Prior to that, Herb had been an art director for many live action films at MGM where he also worked on the Wizard of Oz. Herb was one of the artists on the Federal Government Goodwill Tour Walt was sent on that resulted in the Latin American animated features. He left Walt’s studio for several years to work on live action films at 20th Century Fox and for a tour with the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus where he did paintings capturing circus life. Even though Herb was away from the studio, Walt stayed in touch with him. In 1953 Walt made an urgent call to Herb begging him to help create a prospectus map of Disneyland over a weekend so Walt’s brother Roy could present it to the bankers that Monday morning. The two men worked around the clock developing Disneyland on this piece of art and with it Roy was able to secure the funding to build the park. Walt immediately hired Herb back at the company where he continued designing Disney theme park attractions until his death in 1989. Among his work included developing Disneyland, the New York City World’s Fair, Walt Disney World, EPCOT Center, Tokyo Disneyland and Euro Disneyland. He was the primary designer of both Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland and Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World. A foundation was founded in his honor to guide young artist to art school. Herb Ryman was made a Disney Legend in 1990. He passed away in 1989. - John Hench was the longest continuously employed Walt Disney employee of all time employed with the company in various capacities for over 65 years. He started with the studio in 1939 hoping to work on Fantasia. He worked on several animated films in story, animation, effects, art direction, and more. Recognizing that Hench was one of the studios most talented artists, Walt teamed him with famed artist Salvador Dali on a film called Destino. While the film was not completed at the time, decades later Roy Disney Jr revived the project and with Hench completed a version of it in 2003. Hench continued working in the animation dept until Cinderella. From there, he found himself in the live action special effects unit where he helped to perfect the giant squid in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Eventually he became one of the first Imagineers designing Disneyland and other attractions. From there he helped on 1960 Winter Olympics where he redesigned the Olympic Torch, a design all subsequent torches are based on. He worked on the 1964/64 New York World's Fair and was instrumental in designing Walt Disney World and EPCOT Center. He was also Mickey Mouse's official portrait artist, supplying paintings of him for every milestone. Hench continued working on attractions for the Walt Disney Company for the rest of his life. His motto was "Art is what makes us human." John Hench was made a Disney Legend in 1990. He passed away in 2004. - Bill Evans was a third generation horticulturist whom Walt had hired to landscape his home so that his railroad didn't interfere with his wife's flowerbeds. When Walt had to turn an 80 acre orange grove into Disneyland, he asked Evans and his team to do the job. Evans soon became the first landscape artist of Disneyland. When money ran tight, Bill salvaged trees being removed from about to be constructed freeway routes. He also came up with creative solutions to get the results Walt wanted such as planting orange trees upside down to get the effect of tropical jungle vines in the Jungle Cruise attraction. He also found ways to quickly create topiaries to Walt's specifications, something that would have taken decades to do naturally. He would later go on to be the landscape engineer of Walt Disney World as well. Although he retired in 1975, Bill continued to consult on the landscaping for EPCOT Center, The Disney/MGM Studio, Animal Kingdom, and many of the locations and hotels at the Walt Disney World Resort. He also selected plants used in EuroDisney and TokyoDisney. Bill Evans was named a Disney Legend in 1992. He passed away in 2002. - Tony Baxter was viewed as the first of the next generation of Walt Disney Imagineers. He started with the company in 1965 as an ice cream scooper while he was going to art college. He later moved on being the operator of various attractions to gain experience. For his senior project he created a mock up for a Mary Poppins ride that so impressed WED Imagineering that he was offered a job. At Imagineering, Baxter worked on attractions like Space Mountain and developed new ones such as Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Splash Mountain, the 1983 redesign of Fantasyland, Journey into the Imagination, and more. In this episode we seen him briefly discuss the never built Discovery Bay that elements of would be built in EuroDisney and what would become Splash Mountain. He also worked such innovative attractions as Captain EO, Star Tours, Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye, and others. He eventually became the leader of Walt Disney Imagineering. For a generation, Baxter became a figure who represented the legacy of Walt Disney in Walt Disney Imagineering. It's fantastic to get a glimpse of him on the cusp of his greatest successes. Tony Baxter was named a Disney Legend in 2013 when he retired from the company. He still consults for the company and refused to stay on Tiana's Bayou Adventure. Original air date December 2, 1984 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

The Walt Disney Family Album was a monthly series on the recently launched Disney Channel that showcased the people Walt Disney collaborated with on many of his creations. The development of this series was a perfect storm. The brand new Disney Channel needed new content, there were a bunch of young people recently starting out at the studio learning from these masters, and many of these people were working on the lot or retiring and wanted to share their stories with the world. At the time people had their entire careers at Walt Disney Productions. Not so today. The series was produced on a shoestring budget. Pretty much the crew was sent out with cameras to interview various people and put these shows together. It was a pet project of former Disney CEO Card Walker who'd been at the studio since the 1938 when he started as a mail clerk and personally knew all of these people and their important contributions to the studio. Walker cared very much about history and understood the importance of the Walt Disney legacy being preserved. Walt's friend and Disney Legend Buddy Ebsen narrates the series. He starred in several Walt Disney films including Davy Crockett and The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. He was also the first live action reference model for what became audioanimatronics. The theme song was written by future film score composer John Debney. His father had been a producer on the lot for decades and John started out his music career with Disney. The opening title was put together by John Lasseter in one of his final projects for Walt Disney Feature Animation. He was trying to get computer animation in at Walt Disney Productions and was eventually fired for he. He would eventually become one of the driving forces behind Pixar and would return to head Walt Disney Feature Animation in 2006. In the long run, the Walt Disney Family Album proved to be a tremendous historical record as many of these people passed away shortly after being interviewed. There were plans to continue this series but when the Eisner regime took over, they shut it down because it was a Card Walker project. It's a great tragedy because who's stories never got to be told because they were robbed of this opportunity...There needs to be a revival of this series to chronicle the careers of the people at Disney in the 80's and 90's as they're retiring and could be gone in the coming decades. The Walt Disney Family Album aired on the Disney Channel in reruns off and on up through the early 2000's when it aired on Vault Disney. It hasn't been seen since but sometimes interviews have been excerpted in other documentaries. This eighth episode focuses on Disney animator Eric Larson. He was Walt Disney's Keeper of the Flame. Larson was one of Walt's legendary Nine Old Men. Most of the Nine started with the studio in 1934/35 at the height of the Great Depression. These became the core group of animators Walt would rely on from the 1940's on. Each one specialized in a different type of animation performance. Eric was known for his sincerity in character personality sequences and we have him to thank for passing the touch on to the next generation. What Eric is known for is the sincerity in his animated characters. Although he was often cast on different animal characters, he always gave them human personality traits so that the audience could relate to him. Some of his more memorable characters are Figaro and Cleo, Thumper and Friend Owl, the Aracuan Bird, Little Toot, Peter from Peter & the Wolf, the Caterpillar and Queen of Hearts, Peg, Merlin and Archimedes, Bagheera, and many others. In 1973 it was realized that a new generation of artists would need to be trained soon or the knowledge discovered at the Walt Disney Studios would die and Eric was put in charge of this training program. A low point for Eric was when he'd developed the Small One to be a featurette to train the young animation staff on and it was taken away from him without a word and given to Don Bluth. After his wife, Gertrude, passed away in 1975, it was the animation training students at the studio that almost became like his family. Passing the flame on to the next generation is what he's most remembered for today. You get to see some of his students here. Among them are future director Robert Minkoff who'd go on to do the Lion King, Stewart Little 1 and 2, Peabody & Sherman, and others. Mike Gabiriel (the student talking about the animation test with the dog putting on his pants) would be the future co-director of such films as The Rescuers Down Under and Pocahontas. Ace Storyman Joe Ranft who worked on a plethora of animated features and was one of the foundations of the Pixar Animation Studios. Larson was the perfect member of the Nine Old Men for this position to teach because he genuinely cared about his students as people and they genuinely loved him. When the Eisner regime took over Walt Disney Productions and made it into the Walt Disney Company, the animators were kicked off the lot from the building Walt had built from them. Eric was upset by the new management and concerned for his young students warning them that in the long run these changers were bad for the studio and these executives were not their friends. He was proven to be correct. He stayed on to consult on animated films through The Great Mouse Detective before retiring in 1986. Some say he left with a broken heart over what was happening to the studio and to the students who'd come to be like his family. In 1989 Eric Larson was named a Disney Legend along with the other Nine Old Men and Ub Iweks. They were the bedrock of the animation studio He passed away in 1988. He didn't live to see the heights his former students would eventually achieve but his mentorship was instrumental in the animation renaissance of the early 1990's. Original air date January 7, 1985 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

The Walt Disney Family Album was a monthly series on the recently launched Disney Channel that showcased the people Walt Disney collaborated with on many of his creations. The development of this series was a perfect storm. The brand new Disney Channel needed new content, there were a bunch of young people recently starting out at the studio learning from these masters, and many of these people were working on the lot or retiring and wanted to share their stories with the world. At the time people had their entire careers at Walt Disney Productions. Not so today. The series was produced on a shoestring budget. Pretty much the crew was sent out with cameras to interview various people and put these shows together. It was a pet project of former Disney CEO Card Walker who'd been at the studio since the 1938 when he started as a mail clerk and personally knew all of these people and their important contributions to the studio. Walker cared very much about history and understood the importance of the Walt Disney legacy being preserved. Walt's friend and Disney Legend Buddy Ebsen narrates the series. He starred in several Walt Disney films including Davy Crockett and The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. He was also the first live action reference model for what became audioanimatronics. The theme song was written by future film score composer John Debney. His father had been a producer on the lot for decades and John started out his music career with Disney. The opening title was put together by John Lasseter in one of his final projects for Walt Disney Feature Animation. He was trying to get computer animation in at Walt Disney Productions and was eventually fired for he. He would eventually become one of the driving forces behind Pixar and would return to head Walt Disney Feature Animation in 2006. In the long run, the Walt Disney Family Album proved to be a tremendous historical record as many of these people passed away shortly after being interviewed. There were plans to continue this series but when the Eisner regime took over, they shut it down because it was a Card Walker project. It's a great tragedy because who's stories never got to be told because they were robbed of this opportunity...There needs to be a revival of this series to chronicle the careers of the people at Disney in the 80's and 90's as they're retiring and could be gone in the coming decades. The Walt Disney Family Album aired on the Disney Channel in reruns off and on up through the early 2000's when it aired on Vault Disney. It hasn't been seen since but sometimes interviews have been excerpted in other documentaries. This ninth episode focuses on Disney matte painters and special effects wizards Peter Ellenshaw and his son Harrison Ellenshaw. After World War II, when Walt had to spend funds earned in the UK that were frozen in that country there, he started making live action films he could export back to America. Peter Ellenshaw was a matte painting artist working at the UK studio where Treasure Island was filmed at. Peter had been trained under one of the pioneers of matte painting, W Percy Daily and Walt, who'd never heard of matte painting before, was intrigued in how it opened up the scope of his films while staying under budget. Over the next several years, Peter continued to work on all of Walt's films shot in the UK. When Walt left the UK and had given Peter an open invitation to join his studio in America, Peter sold everything and moved to America with his family. When he arrived at the Walt Disney Studios Walt wasn't expecting him and hadn't anticipated his arrival so soon but put him to work on Disneyland. Peter painted the first map brochure used in the park. From there, starting with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Walt had begun making films in America regularly and Peter was the matte painter on nearly all of them. From historical epics such as Johnny Tremain to Toby Tyler to fantasy films like Darby O'Gill & the Little People and Mary Poppins, Peter Ellenshaw's matte paintings were largely responsible for the Walt Disney live action film look. Peter became the master matte painting artist in Hollywood sometimes incorporating special effects that were developed by Ub Iwerks into the shots. No other matte painter did the sorts of things Peter did. He continued to work at Disney before his retirement in the late 1970's but occasionally returned now and then. His final film was Dick Tracy in 1990. Peter's son, Harrison, sometimes worked with him having grown up on these film sets since he was a boy. By the time he was a young adult, Harrison was already a seasoned matte artist. He began working at the Walt Disney Studios where he contributed to such films as The Apple-dumpling Gang, Pete's Dragon, Tron, and the Black Hole. He also began a collaboration with George Lucas working on the original Star Wars trilogy. Harrison continued working in the film industry for decades, often consulting his father's experience on how he achieved some of the special effects shots he'd been a part of. Peter Ellenshaw remained immensely loyal to Walt Disney his entire life. Walt looked over Peter like a surrogate son, as he often seemed to with his favorites. Walt even encouraged and sponsored Peter and his wife to become American citizens. His autobiography Ellenshaw Under Glass" Going to the Matte For Disney was published in 2003. Peter continued doing paintings of both Disney and non-Disney subjects for the rest of his life. They're highly sought after by collectors today. Peter Ellenshaw was named a Disney Legend in 1993. He passed away in 2007. Harrison has not been named a Disney Legend but he should be. Original air date February 3, 1985 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

The Walt Disney Family Album was a monthly series on the recently launched Disney Channel that showcased the people Walt Disney collaborated with on many of his creations. The development of this series was a perfect storm. The brand new Disney Channel needed new content, there were a bunch of young people recently starting out at the studio learning from these masters, and many of these people were working on the lot or retiring and wanted to share their stories with the world. At the time people had their entire careers at Walt Disney Productions. Not so today. The series was produced on a shoestring budget. Pretty much the crew was sent out with cameras to interview various people and put these shows together. It was a pet project of former Disney CEO Card Walker who'd been at the studio since the 1938 when he started as a mail clerk and personally knew all of these people and their important contributions to the studio. Walker cared very much about history and understood the importance of the Walt Disney legacy being preserved. Walt's friend and Disney Legend Buddy Ebsen narrates the series. He starred in several Walt Disney films including Davy Crockett and The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. He was also the first live action reference model for what became audioanimatronics. The theme song was written by future film score composer John Debney. His father had been a producer on the lot for decades and John started out his music career with Disney. The opening title was put together by John Lasseter in one of his final projects for Walt Disney Feature Animation. He was trying to get computer animation in at Walt Disney Productions and was eventually fired for he. He would eventually become one of the driving forces behind Pixar and would return to head Walt Disney Feature Animation in 2006. In the long run, the Walt Disney Family Album proved to be a tremendous historical record as many of these people passed away shortly after being interviewed. There were plans to continue this series but when the Eisner regime took over, they shut it down because it was a Card Walker project. It's a great tragedy because who's stories never got to be told because they were robbed of this opportunity...There needs to be a revival of this series to chronicle the careers of the people at Disney in the 80's and 90's as they're retiring and could be gone in the coming decades. The Walt Disney Family Album aired on the Disney Channel in reruns off and on up through the early 2000's when it aired on Vault Disney. It hasn't been seen since but sometimes interviews have been excerpted in other documentaries. This tenth episode focuses on Disney animator Woolie Reitherman. He was one of Walt's legendary Nine Old Men. Most of the Nine started with the studio in 1934/35 at the height of the Great Depression. These became the core group of animators Walt would rely on from the 1940's on. Each one specialized in a different type of animation performance. Woolie was known for his action scenes and sequences. He was a master at creating power and tension in his animation. Some of his stand out performances include Monstro the Whale, the Dinosaur Fight in Fantasia, the Headless Horseman chase, Jaq and Gus climbing up the stairs with the key in Cinderella, Alice growing to gigantic size in Alice in Wonderland, Captain Hood with the Crocodile in Peter Pan, the stray dog fight in Lady & the Tramp, the dragon fight in Sleeping Beauty, and others. After the extravagant cost of Sleeping Beauty, there was pressure from Walt's brother Roy to shut down the animation studio. Walt refused believing he owed it to these people to keep the doors open. Walt turned to Woolie to help keep things under budget so everyone remained employed. Starting with The Sword in the Stone, Woolie directed all the animated features for nearly two decades. This was also when the budget reducing practice of reusing animation from previous films began being used in order to keep costs down and satisfy the money people. All three of his sons ended up voicing characters in the 1960's (King Arthur, Christopher Robin, and Mowgli.) After Walt Disney passed away, it was Woolie's leadership that was one of the driving forces behind the animation studio. He stayed on to consult on The Fox & the Hound before retiring. What forced Woolie out was how political the studio had become. He'd been removed as director from The Fox & the Hound and had developed several projects to direct but none of them were greenlit in favor of The Black Cauldron. In 1989 Woolie Reitherman was named a Disney Legend along with the other Nine Old Men and Ub Iweks. They were the bedrock of the animation studio. He passed away in a car accident in 1985. Original air date March 1, 1985 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.