RediscoveringWaltDisney

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 fourteenth episode focuses on The Golden Horseshoe Revue, one of the original and longest running attractions in Disneyland history. In it we learn the history of the attraction and meet its long running cast; Wally Boag, Betty Taylor, and Fulton Burley. We also meet Boag's successor Dana Daniels. The Golden Horseshoe Revue was one of the original Disneyland attractions and stemmed from Walt's childhood love of Vaudeville. The original headliners of the Revue were Wally Boag and Betty Taylor. Boag was an experienced stage performer who had over twenty years of stage experience and worked in film. After auditioning for Walt he was originally booked for a two week run at Disneyland but it turned into the rest of his career. Boag became known as the Clown Prince of Disneyland and was the only person other than Walt Disney who often stayed overnight in the park. He had a dressing room in over Aunt Jemima's and would usually head down to breakfast there in the mornings. Sometimes Wally would make surprise appearances around the park as a pirate or a cowboy or any other "character" where he could get a laugh interacting with guests. He also wrote a regular column in the Disneyland newsletter where he'd pretend to be writing about a serious topic but was always satirical. When other writers complained Wally wasn't writing serious news, he wrote a satirical column about that! Walt did everything he could to further Wally's career and often gave him cameo's in his films. He appeared in such films as The Absent Minded Professor and Son of Flubber. He made appearances on the Mickey Mouse Club and Walt had intended him to be Tigger in the Winnie the Pooh featurettes. Because he was a favorite of Walt's, after Walt died Wally's cameos in Disney films ceased with The Love Bug and he remained a stage performer. (his voice was deemed "too zany" to be Tigger and the role was recast.) Boag was also the mentor of comedian Steve Martin, who started at Disneyland as a news paperboy and finally worked his way up to the Magic Shop. Martin has commented on how he studied Boag's timing and type of humor that inspired his own standup routine a few decades later. Betty Taylor was also cast from the start. Her career in show business began on the stage by age 12 and at 18 she was headlining her own band, Betty and Her Beaus. She appeared on stage, in radio and film but her big break came when she answered an audition for a show at the newly opened Disneyland and she was cast as Slue-foot Sue and headlined the Golden Horseshoe Revue until her retirement in 1987. The chemistry between Wally and Betty are what made the show memorable to guests and popular for decades. The content of the show barely changed in its three decade run and it hold's the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest running show in history with over 50,000+ performances. Lucille Ball, who regularly attended the show, marveled at how the cast was able to make it always appear it was the first time they were performing the material each time. Fulton Burley had worked in stage and film for decades. He'd met and worked with Wally Boag at MGM in the 1940's. He started with the Golden Horseshoe Revue in 1962 when one of the main players became ill. Wally called him asking if he could fill in. Walt loved his performance and wouldn't let him leave. Burley's various vaudeville routines became a staple of the show and with Boag, the two co-wrote and appeared as characters in Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room. He stayed with the show until the Revue closed in the 1987. He passed away in 2007. Wally Boag, Betty Taylor, and Fulton Burley were named Disney Legends in 1995. Burley passed away in 1997. Both Taylor and Boag passed away within 24 hours of each other in June 2011. Dana Daniels started with the Revue when Boag retired in 1982 where he kept the tradition alive for several years. After the attraction shut down in 2003, Daniels continued doing comedy and magic. He's known as one of the clean comedians and performs and act with a psychic parrot. You can book him for your events through his website. The Golden Horeshoe Revue was a favorite attraction of Walt Disney's. He had his own special box in the theater and often caught the show or brought his own special guests to see the show from his box when they visited Disneyland. In 1962 the 10,000th performance of The Golden Horseshoe Revue was filmed for Walt's TV Show. That broadcast is in this archive. Original air date July 1, 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 fifteenth episode focuses on Disney animator Ollie Johnston. 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. Thomas was known for the personality relationships of the characters in his animation. He often collaborated with his best friend Frank Thomas. Ollie started at Disney animating shorts as an assistant but eventually graduated to features with Pinocchio. It was Ollie's approach to the personality of Pinocchio as a naive little boy that influenced the other animators on how to handle the character. Other characters Ollie handled were Bambi & Thumper, Peter in Peter & the Wolf, the Stepsisters, Alice, Merlin, Baloo & Mowgli, Prince John & Sir Hiss, and more. Mr Smee is a self caricature of Ollie. Johnston had a model train in his backyard that people could ride on. This inspired Walt to build a similar train of his own in his backyard too. In the 1970's, Ollie began mentoring the next generation of animation artists. After retiring, he co-wrote the definitive textbook on hand drawn animation with Frank, The Illusion of Life. The two friends wrote a series of animation books together. In 1995 he was the subject of a documentary film, Frank & Ollie, created by Frank's son Theodore. Frank and Ollie also had cameos in the Brad Bird films The Iron Giant and The Incredibles. In 1989 Ollie Johnston was named a Disney Legend along with the other Nine Old Men and Ub Iweks. They were the bedrock of the animation studio. Thomas passed away in 2008. He was the last of the Nine Old Men to die. Original air date August 4, 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 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.

This is Making Of special is a bit of an anomaly because there's nothing about it online. It's not the same one that aired on The Disney Channel in 1995 and may have been produced for the international english speaking market. Actor David Ogden Stiers hosts this look behind Walt Disney Feature Animation's 33rd animated feature Pocahontas. He portrayed both Wiggins and Governor John Ratcliffe in the film and also hosted the Disney Channel Making Of for Beauty & the Beast. Pocahontas was designed to be the Romeo & Juliet of the Disney animation canon. An earlier version of the story was in development that was more in the tradition of Walt Disney animated features where the animals talked and there was more comedy. When Beauty & the Beast was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, the film was rebooted to be more serious in tone in hopes of tailor making a Best Picture winner. John Candy and Stephen Fry had recorded dialog for animal characters in that version but it was all tossed aside for this new approach. In this making of we meet many of the filmmakers and get the typical PC spin that surrounded the film at the time. We meet some of the animators, the executives, the actors, the songwriters, and more but this documentary is unique from others for a few reasons. One aspect that makes this documentary a valuable resource is because the animators discuss how they collaborate to have their characters interact together in a scene. In Walt's era one animator who handle all the characters in a scene alone. In the Eisner era one animator mostly handled only their character in a scene. Each method has his merits but are very different ways of working. No other documentary gets into this aspect of a hand drawn performance. Another aspect no other making of covers is how Disney animated features are dubbed into other languages. This may be the only Disney documentary that covers how precise this process was done at the time. Also worth noting is during the segment on the songs, if you listen close you will hear Alan Menken singing a deleted song called Powerful Magic. This demo has never been officially released while many others from the film have. When Pocahontas was released, while it was more successful than The Little Mermaid, Beauty & the Beast, and Aladdin, it did not top The Lion King, which had been the most successful animated feature ever up to that time. Because of that, Pocahontas is believed to be a flop. It wasn't. It's a beautifully made film and the first of the string of animated epics Disney would make in the late 1990's. It didn't garner the awards that had been anticipated and it quickly faded away. Even today, very few people cite it as their favorite Disney film. Disney had also followed every PC edict of the "experts" on how they handled the American Indians in this film. This same crowd now claims the film is "racist" under their woke ideology. Perhaps Disney would have been better off just producing the best film they could without trying to force things into it. Original airdate Summer 1995 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

Perhaps no other Walt Disney film has had more TV specials devoted to it than Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs. This one tied in with the 1983 rerelease and is hosted by comedy star and character actor Dick van Patten. He was in several sitcoms in his career but may be best known to today's audiences for his numerous cameos in Mel Brookes comedy feature films. This TV special only aired once on CBS. This documentary was filmed by 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. He went on to make The Walt Disney Family Album after this. What makes this TV special unique is we see so many of the people involved with the film. This may be the only TV special on Snow White where many of them ever appeared. We hear from legendary Disney artists including Ken Anderson, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Woolie Reitherman, Ward Kimball, and Eric Larson. We also see a brief interview with Adriana Caselotti and Harry Stockwell who played Snow White and the Prince. Disney voice actors Paul Winchell and Clarence "Ducky" Nash also have a few comments. Wayne Allwine demonstrates some of the sound effect props that Jimmy MacDonald used in the original film at the Los Angelos Childrens Museum. We also see several very young Disney artists very early in their careers such as Glen Keane, John Lasseter, Phil Nibbelink, and Cyndee Whitney. We also see a comment from Joseph Bottoms who portrayed Major Effects in the infamous episode from Walt's TV show. There's also contemporary 1980's stars of time as well as vintage footage of Walt from the time of the film's original release. This is an important record of Walt Disney history and we're blessed it was produced at all. Original air date May 28, 1983 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

This Disney Channel TV special was created for the 1993 rerelease of Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs. While not as in depth as the making of documentaries they'd produce for the contemporary films, the reason this program is so valuable is because it features some of the last interviews ever conducted from the people who made this film. We hear from Snow White's voice Adriana Caselotti and several of the Nine Old Men including Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Marc Davis, and Ward Kimball. There's also a few soundbites from Roy Disney, Jr and animation historian Charles Solomon. There's lots of historical footage and we also get a segment on the restoration of the film as well as a few clips of both celebrities and average Americans discussing how they feel about the film. It's interesting to note just how diverse the audience is and they all universally praise the film. It's a shame this documentary has never been officially released on one of Snow Whites DVD releases. It's an important record of Walt Disney History. *Quality note - This is the best quality print of this film that could be located and opening is missing. If a better quality/complete print ever surfaces we will replace it in this archive. Original air date June 10, 1993 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

This is an interview tying in with the 1995 theatrical release of the documentary film Frank & Ollie about the animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. It was filmed at the Sundance Film Festival, where the film, made by Frank's son Theodore, debuted. Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston were two of Walt Disney's Nine Old Men. These were the core group of animators he primarily relied on from the early 1940's through his death in 1966. Collectively, they were known as Frank and Ollie to the point many people thought "Frankenollie" was one person. College friends in art school, the pair formed a lifelong friendship closer than brothers, (they even bought connecting lots where they built their family homes.) Starting at the Walt Disney Studios together in the mid 1930's, they oversaw numerous animated characters over their over five decades with the studio. After their retirement, they continued to mentor the younger generation starting their own careers at the Walt Disney Studios. They also co-authored several books on animation together so all they'd discovered would be lost. These books are highly sought after animation textbooks today. In this short interview the pair talk about their career with Walt Disney. It's a shame this interview isn't longer. The documentary film Frank & Ollie is a historical record of the pair's friendship and how it shaped Walt Disney Feature Animation. It was put out in wide release in October of 1995 and was later released to VHS and DVD. Original air date January 1995 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

Movie Magic was a Discovery Channel TV series that ran from 1993-1997. It showcased how special effects in film were achieved in both classic and then contemporary films by all film studios. This entire episode is about how the flying effects were achieved in the Walt Disney Pictures film Hocus Pocus. We also get to see a few examples from other Disney films such as The Absent Minded Professor, Mary Poppins, Bedknobs & Broomsticks, and Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken. This documentary explores the different flying rig techniques as well as the use of puppets to create the illusion of flight in the analog days of film and it's fascinating. Most Disney alum have said that across the board the year 1993 is when things at the company began the shift away from Walt Disney's values to the more PC culture. This was the year everything from traditional Independence Day celebrations and Nativity Christmas observances were removed as well as the insertion of political correctness, micro-managing, and other layers of bureaucracy throughout the company. Hocus Pocus was part of this shift. 1993 saw the release of two Halloween theme films from Walt Disney Pictures, Hocus Pocus and The Nightmare Before Christmas. While both are now considered classics, both films were overwhelmingly rejected by audiences at the time and bombed at the box office. While originally intended to be a Walt Disney Pictures release, The Nightmare Before Christmas wasn't even originally released under the Walt Disney Pictures label due to backlash but was a Touchstone Pictures release. It only because a Walt Disney Picture decades later after it was "safe." Hocus Pocus began as a proposed film in the 1980's called The Halloween House conceived by David Kirschner, creator of the Childs Play horror franchise series. At the time, Walt Disney Productions was making a series of darker films that included titles like Watcher in the Wood, The Black Cauldron, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. These films were not a successful market for Disney and The Halloween House was shelved. (The Nightmare Before Christmas began around this time as well.) It kicked around the Walt Disney Studios for nearly a decade until Bette Midler, who was under contract to the studio, took interest in it. The film was then fast tracked into production. In the original script, which was shot, there were several darker elements that were removed from the film in the editing. In one example, the reason the witch played by Kathy Najimy is able to sniff out children is because her biological father is a dog and she's the product of beastiality. This is why her nose resembles a dog's snout and she barks like a dog throughout the film. Similar occult elements were also removed as well as some of the sacred. The reason the witches could transform the boy into a cat in the prologue was because the crucifix around his neck fell off when he tumbled down a hill. This footage was shot but also removed. Like The Nightmare Before Christmas, Hocus Pocus lost money for the Walt Disney Company upon its initial release but both films became cult classics through decades of perennial Halloween airings. This later resulted in a sequel in 2022 where more woke elements were explored and Christians were made into a mockery. The witches who were villains in the original film were now also treated as heroes. Occult items tying in with the film such as tarot cards and ouiji boards have also been marketed as merchandise. While the original film is a great example of building a mythology, let's make no mistake on what this film has become; a bridge to the very real occult and to mock traditional values. That's why this film is an important part of Walt Disney history. It not only demonstrates how things shifted at the Walt Disney Company but it also provides an example on how this has been built on to further move away from the ideals Walt had when he founded and built his company. Original airdate 1993 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

Although Walt had devoted glimpses at animated films in production on his TV shows since his very first Christmas specials, this was the first time a formal Making of documentary was ever produced for a Disney animated project. Mickey's Christmas Carol was an ambitious project for the time. It was produced largely by the team of young animators who came to work at the studio in the late 1970's and early 80's. Some of them you see in this film and they both revered the past and were seeking to prove themselves. We even see a few shots filmed in the studio morgue where the original artwork from the films were kept. Although such documentaries are commonplace today, this was very unusual for the time and was produced for the brand new Disney Channel. Mickey's Christmas Carol was conceived as Mickey's return to the big screen for the first time in over 30 years but the real star is Scrooge McDuck. It had originally been intended for the TV special market after its theatrical run and so it had to be a shorter running time than other Disney featurettes from the past. As a result, some scenes were left on the cutting room floor that involved Pluto and Minnie Mouse. The entire concept is based on a 1974 LP co-written by Alan Young who also provided the voices of many of the characters. Although there are some differences between the LP and the animated film, there are passages that are similar. Disney legend Burny Mattinson led this project. He started at Disney in 1953 with Floyd Norman and started out as an animator but primarily worked in the story dept until his death in 2023. When he wanted off The Black Cauldron, at the urging of his wife, Burny approached CEO Ron Miller with the idea and the LP. The project was immediately greenlit. The plan was to release the film in 1982 and a comic strip tying in was released that Christmas, but due to an industry wide animation strike the film was delayed until 1983 with the first reissue of The Rescuers. Burny co-directed The Great Mouse Detective after this. In many ways, Mickey's Christmas Carol is a historic film. Aside from being Mickey's return to theater screens, it marked the first time Wayne Allwine voiced Mickey in a theatrical project. He took over from Jimmy MacDonald and would remain Mickey's voice until his death in 2009. This was the final film featuring Clarence "Ducky" Nash as Donald Duck. He'd originated the character in 1934 and would pass away shortly after its release. In fact, the film was tied in with Donald's 50th birthday. This also marked the first time Alan Young provided the voice of Uncle Scrooge McDuck in animation. He had supplied the voice in the original 1974 LP. In this documentary he talks about how he got to also portray the voice in animation. He would voice the character across the board until his death in 2016. Hal Smith and Will Ryan are also interviewed. Smith was a prolific character actor and voice artist. He's perhaps best known as Otis the Drunk on The Andy Griffith Show. In Mickey's Christmas Carol he portrays Goofy. He'd also appeared as multiple characters on the original LP. Will Ryan portrays multiple characters in Mickey's Christmas Carol but the most prominent are Willie the Giant and Pegleg/Black Pete. Ryan was a talented voice artist of the time being part of the primary voice cast of multiple Disney Afternoon shows in the 1980's, a regular on the Focus on the Family radio series Adventures in Odyssey, but he may be best known at that time as the voice of Grubby in the Teddy Ruxpin toy line and animated series. Mickey's Christmas Carol was also the first major project made up of the next generation of animators without the Nine Old Men. Glen Keane animated Goofy and Willie the Giant. He would go one to be one of Disney's top animators. Mark Henn animated Mickey and he also went on to be the lead animator for many of Disney's princesses in the forthcoming animated features. The other animator interviewed is David Block. He was a lesser known animator of the Eisner era because he spent much of his career at Walt Disney Television developing animated series for TV and direct to video cheapquels before returning to Walt Disney Feature Animation. For decades Mickey's Christmas Carol was broadcast on network TV as a Christmas special and has aired on all three major networks (CBS, NBC, and ABC.) It was often paired with vintage Disney cartoon shorts with a winter theme and a behind the scenes segment on the latest animated feature from the studio. It's become a perennial favorite but this behind the scenes documentary is rarely seen. Also of note is this documentary features interviews originally shot for the Disney Channel series The Walt Disney Family Album. Original airdate December 1, 1984 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

By this time in the run of Walt's TV show, very few new episodes were being produced. This was one of the rare exceptions. To commemorate the release of the recently published book The Illusion of Life written by legendary Nine Old Men members Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, this episode hosted by Disney favorite Hayley Mills was produced. Although there had been books written about the Walt Disney Studios going back to the 1930's, their book came during a surge of books written about the Walt Disney Studios and became the standard textbook on animation principles. Not only do we get to hear from most of the surviving Nine Old Men including Frank, Ollie, Ward Kimball, Eric Larson, Marc Davis, Milt Kahl, and others, but we also get to witness rare behind the scenes footage on the making of films like The Fox & the Hound and The Black Cauldron. In one sequence, actress Pearl Bailey records the song Best of Friends for the soon to be released The Fox & the Hound. Besides hearing anecdotes from most of the Nine Old Men, we also get to see a very young John Musker caricaturing Hayley. He would become one of the top directors of the 80's and 90's co-directing such classics as The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and others with Ron Clemons. Musker became legendary for his caricature around the studio. Animator Glen Keane also makes an appearance discussing how animators look to the past to create the future. His father was Bil Keane, creator of the Family Circus comic strip and inspired by real life situations from the Keane family. Glen was the lead animator on such characters as Ariel, the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Tarzan, and others. He was known as one of Disney's Nine Young Men. Another animator who was part of the Nine Young Men is animator Andreas Deja. We get a glimpse of him with some of his Black Cauldron character designs. He would become the lead animator on such characters as Gaston, Jafar, Scar, Hercules, and others. In the final segment Hayley Mills goes on an audition for The Black Cauldron. This was the first public announcement of the forthcoming film. This episode was created at a time of transition at the Walt Disney Studios and it captures that. This was what the animation studio was like before the Eisner regime took it over in 1984. That makes this film an important part of Walt Disney history. This was also one of the few episodes ever released to the early home video rental market shortly after it aired. Original airdate April 26, 1981 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

Monstanto Presents was a short lived TV variety show in the spring/summer of 1776. They produced one episode set in the Disney parks tying in with the bicentennial celebration. At the time, the Walt Disney Company had a huge celebration of American history in both of their parks. It was the first time both parks shared the same parade. This TV special uses footage shot in both Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Monsanto also had a long relationship with Disneyland having sponsored several attractions in Tomorrowland including the House of the Future. Comedian Red Skelton was chosen to host this TV variety special. Today he may be obscure but he had been a popular entertainment figure for decades on par with Bob Hope and Lucille Ball. In this TV special, which he co-wrote, he plays many of his popular characters such as Freddie the Freeloader, Sheriff Deadeye, Grandpa, and others. He also does his routine explaining the Pledge of Allegiance. Skelton was particularly known for doing this in numerous appearances of his acts. We also get several songs from the Disney parks performers. This is a great time capsule of what the parks were like during the bicentennial. Footage note: Due to the age of this broadcast, and it only aired once, and the unusual run time of this footage, this may not be the complete broadcast. It's all the footage that can be located online. If more surfaces this video will be updated. Original air date April 3, 1976 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

In December 1990, Walt Disney Feature Animation worked out a deal where the TV news magazine 20/20 on the ABC Network would do a segment on the production of their latest film Beauty & the Beast. This footage is cited in the Making Of book that came out at the time but has rarely been seen since it initially aired once in November of 1991. Here is that segment to catch a snapshot of this period in Walt Disney history. Although some of these specific scenes may have been created for the camera, they capture the flavor of the process very well. In these segments you'll see such modern Disney legends as Glen Keane, Nik Ranieri, Will Finn, Roger Allers, David Pruiksma, Brenda Chapman, and others. You also see the directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale as well as producer Don Hahn. Jeffery Katzenberg dominates this segment and you get the idea of what kind of a producer he was. Many animation figures from this time who were still at Disney in recent years have commented on back then they only had to answer to Jeffery. Now there's dozens of Jefferys micro managing productions. Beauty and the Beast was the most successful animated feature up to that time. It was the first animated film to win the Golden Globe for Best Picture and is still the only hand drawn animated film to ever be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. It lost to Silence of the Lambs. (It's nomination eventually led to the creation of the Best Animated Feature category of the Oscars.) It's still a classic on par with anything produced in the Walt era and it's fantastic to peak behind the curtain in this segment to see how it was made. Original airdate November 1991 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

This segment of the ABC news magazine 20/20 focus on Oscar winning animator/director Brad Bird. In it, he shares a glimpse of his story on the eve of the premiere of the Incredibles. He completed his first film at age 14 and it earned him an internship at the Walt Disney Studios where he apprenticed under Milt Kahl. Bird was among the first class of students of Walt Disney's art school, Cal Arts, and was at Walt Disney Productions for a time in the late 1970's. He was the first of his class to put the Easter egg of A113 in his films (a reference to the classroom they all met in.) and this has since become a tradition. He quickly earned a reputation for being a rebel and worked on a number of projects away from Disney. These included developing an animated feature based on the Will Eisner comic book The Spirit. He wrote the screenplay Batteries Not Included, was a co-creator of the Amazing Stories episode Family Dog, and he was one of the original animation filmmakers on The Simpsons. He was particularly protective of the character of Krusty. He then made the film The Iron Giant when his sister was gunned down by her estranged husband in a murder/suicide. The premise was what if a gun had a soul. From there he was reunited with his classmate John Lasseter when he joined Pixar to make The Incredibles making him the first outsider brought into the studio. In that film he also voiced Edna Mode. He's also made such films as Ratatoullie, Tomorrowland, and The Incredibles 2. He's currently at Skydance Studio where he's working with John Lasseter again after Lasseter was forced out of Disney and Pixar. Original airdate October 2004 Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.

"Heeeeeeere's Johnny!!" Actually, here's Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. Collectively, they were known as Frank and Ollie to the point many people thought "Frankenollie" was one person. College friends in art school, the pair formed a lifelong friendship closer than brothers, (they even bought connecting lots where they built their family homes.) Starting at the Walt Disney Studios together in the mid 1930's, both were among Walt Disney's legendary Nine Old Men. They oversaw numerous animated characters over their over five decades with the studio. After their retirement, they continued to mentor the younger generation starting their own careers at the Walt Disney Studios. They also co-authored several books on animation together so all they'd discovered would be lost. These books are highly sought after animation textbooks today. Their first book, The Illusion of Life, is what brought them on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Johnny Carson hosted the Tonight Show for over 30 years along with his sidekick Ed Mcmahon. This became the definitive late night talk show to this day. In this short interview, Johnny interviews the pair about their career with Walt Disney, genuinely interested in their book. It's a shame this interview isn't longer. When the stagehand met Frank and Ollie on this appearance. he looked them over and said "So...YOU'RE the guys who shot Bambi's mother..." Original air date May 25, 1982 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 sixteenth episode focuses on Disney animator Marc Davis. He was Walt's renaissance man and one of his 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. Davis was known as "the ladies man" for many of his most memorable animation performances were women. As a boy, Davis' family moved around a lot and he had attended 26 different schools before reaching high school. Since he was always the new kid, he was often bullied but soon learned he could make friends with his drawings. After studying art at three different colleges, Davis was hired at the Walt Disney Studios for his skill at drawing animals. Walt knew he'd need him for Bambi. However, because Marc was so skilled at drawing humans, he soon found himself cast more frequently on those roles. On Cinderella he and Eric Larson did most of the scenes of the title character where they clashed on the approach. Larson wanted her to be more average back home while Davis saw her as more of a sophisticated woman. You can see the different approaches in the final film. Some of Marc's most memorable performances include the animated characters of Song of the South, Alice, Tinkerbell, Cruella deVille, and on Sleeping Beauty he was the lead on both Maleficent and Princess Aurora. The film took so long to make that he was able to do both. After 101 Dalmatians, Marc developed an animated feature with Ken Anderson based on a property Walt had long had in development, Chanticleer & Reynard. The story was about a foolish rooster who believed his crowing made the sun rise while the fox would manipulate the other residents of the barnyard against him. When it came time to make the film, the money people would only allow Walt to make one film at a time and the choice came between The Sword in the Stone and Chanticleer & Reynard. The money people rejected Marc's film and Walt moved him over to Imagineering. Known as a lifelong bachelor, Davis met his wife Alice when he was a professor at Chouinard Art Institute in 1947. Years later, Davis approached her to create a human reference skirt of Briar Rose in Sleeping Beauty that would do the things he needed and the two became a couple and got married. Alice eventually joined her at Disney and would cloth many of the characters he designed to attractions. At WED, Marc added gags to the Jungle Cruise and Mine Train attractions. He also designed characters for the 1964-65 World's Fair attractions, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, The Country Bear Jamboree, America Sings, and others. One of his unproduced projects was for Walt Disney World's Frontierland in the vein of Pirates of the Caribbean but about America's Wild West called Western River Expedition. In 1989 Marc Davis was named a Disney Legend along with the other Nine Old Men and Ub Iweks. They were the bedrock of the animation studio. Davis passed away in 2000. Alice was named a Disney Legend herself in 2004 and passed away in 2022. They're the only married couple named Disney Legends. Original air date October 4, 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 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 thirteenth episode focuses on the WED Imagineers. Here we get to meet Randy Bright, Bill Justice, Tim Delaney, X Atencio and Dave Feiten. They share some of the history behind the Disney park attractions. Some of this episode touches on beloved attractions such as The Enchanted Tiki Room, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, and others. There's also a look ahead to the new EPCOT Center attraction The Living Seas. - Randy Bright started at Disneyland in 1959 and worked his way through the ranks of the company eventually winding up in Imagineering. He became an executive producer and a Manager of Concepts for shows in Disneyland, Walt Disney World, EPCOT Center, and Tokyo Disney. In 1987 he wrote the first definitive book on Disneyland, Disneyland: The inside Story. All further books about the park are based on this book. He also co-produced the TV Special The Disneyland Story which is in this archived collection. In this episode he explains how the Disney Theme Parks experiences are like a film and other philosophies of the parks. Randy Bright was named a Disney Legend in 2005. He passed away in a bicycle accident in 1990. - Bill Justice started with the Walt Disney Studio in 1937 where he developed stories for Walt. He also animated and directed a few shorts as well as drew the artwork for many Walt Disney storybooks. He worked on a total of 19 animated features, 57 short subjects, and several projects that never made it to film such as The Gremlins. In 1960 Walt brought him in to redesign the character costumes at Disneyland to make them an attraction of themselves. Justice stayed on at WED where he applied his animation skills to creating the movements for such animatronics figures as Mr Lincoln, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, and the Country Bears Jamboree among others. He retired in 1979. Bill Justice was named a Disney Legend in 1996. He passed away in 2011. - Tim Delaney started at Walt Disney Imagineering in the early 1980's where he developed The Living Seas for EPCOT Center. He stayed with the company for decades working on attractions in all the parks and new ones under construction. He eventually left Disney after 34 years and started his own company designing architecture and attractions for clients around the world. - Xavier Atencio started at the Walt Disney Studio in 1938 and worked animated features and shorts as diverse as Fantasia to Toot, Whistle, Plunk, Boom. He later worked on the Jiminy Cricket educational shorts for The Mickey Mouse Club before moving on to the Studio's new stop motion animation unit. There he worked on the main titles for films such as The Shaggy Dog and The Parent Trap as well as doing effects sequences in the live action films such as Babes in Toyland and Mary Poppins. In 1965 Walt moved him over the WED where he adapted some of the World's Fair attractions to work in Disneyland. From there he wrote the Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion attractions including their theme songs. He also sometimes voiced characters in the rides such as the talking skull in Pirates of the Caribbean and the live man in the coffin on The Haunted Mansion. He retired in 1984. Xavier Antencio was named a Disney Legend in 1996. He passed away in 2017. - Dave Feiten started out in the Disney Animation Studio in 1981 on The Fox & the Hound. He was mentored by many of the Nine Old Men and eventually ended up at Walt Disney Imagineering. He eventually became the head of all audioanimatronics world wide. Then one day, his classmate, John Lasseter, offered him a job at Pixar and Feiten had a new career where he worked on A Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, and other films. Feiten eventually worked for other animation studios as well as Universal Studios theme parks where he once again programmed and animated animatronics. He still works in animation and special effects to this day. Original air date June 2, 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 eleventh episode focuses on Disney animator Frank Thomas. 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. Thomas was known for the personality relationships of the characters in his animation. He often collaborated with his best friend Ollie Johnston. Frank started out on the animated shorts but quickly moved into the animated features. He animated the dwarfs crying over Snow White in the funeral scene, a breakthrough for animation. No one had ever cared for a cartoon character anymore. He also did some some other scenes with the Dwarfs adding the hitch-step to Dopey. Other notable moments in Walt Disney animation animated by Thomas include the ice skating sequence in Bambi, the spaghetti dinner sequence in Lady & the Tramp, the Wizards Duel in The Sword in the Stone, the Penguins dancing with Dick van Dyke, and others. Characters animated by Thomas include Pinocchio, Ichabod Crane, Captain Hook, Merlin, Lady Tremain, the Queen of Hearts, the three fairies in Sleeping Beauty, and others. With his best friend, Ollie Johnston, it's estimated that they animated more than half of The Jungle Book between them. Thomas was also the piano player for the Dixieland jazz band made up of Disney artists called The Firehouse Five plus Two. The band was active for over two decades. In the 1970's, Frank began mentoring the next generation of animation artists. After retiring, he co-wrote the definitive textbook on hand drawn animation with Ollie, The Illusion of Life. The two friends wrote a series of animation books together. In 1995 he was the subject of a documentary film, Frank & Ollie, created by his son Theodore. Frank and Ollie also had cameos in the Brad Bird films The Iron Giant and The Incredibles. In 1989 Frank Thomas was named a Disney Legend along with the other Nine Old Men and Ub Iweks. They were the bedrock of the animation studio. Thomas passed away in 2004. Original air date April 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 twelfth episode focuses on many of the Disney voice artists behind our favorite Walt Disney characters. This episode is dedicated to the memory of Clarence "Ducky" Nash the voice of Donald Duck who had recently passed away and was the subject of the very first episode. He was named a Disney legend in 1993. Here are who we meet and what characters they voiced. - Pearl Bailey was Big Mama in The Fox & the Hound. This footage can be seen in full on The illusion of life episode hosted by Hayley Mills in this archive. Bailey had been a popular jazz artist and Broadway actress in the golden and silver age of both areas of the performing arts. - Walt Disney was the original voice of Mickey Mouse. People never think of him as being the original cartoon voice actor but he was. - Jimmy MacDonald was the voice of Mickey Mouse after Walt couldn't do it anymore. He also voiced numerous rodents and animals in various animated films. He was named a Disney Legend in 1993. - Wayne Allwine took over as the voice of Mickey Mouse and remained Mickey until his death in 2009. In the early 1980's he also provided other voices in such films as Mickey's Christmas Carol and The Great Mouse Detective before being Mickey full time. He was named a Disney Legend in 2008. - Phil Harris was Baloo in The Jungle Book, Little John in Robin Hood, and Thomas O'Mally in The Aristocats. He was a friend of Walt's who brought him in on The Jungle Book and whom the animators kept around on the next two animated features as a voice. While not a Disney Legend, he should be. - Eva Gabor was both Duchess in The Aristocats and Miss Bianca in The Rescuers. While not a Disney Legend, she should be. - Paul Winchell was the original voice of Tigger and he also voiced Zummi Gummi in the first few seasons for The Adventures of the Gummi Bears. For Hanna-Barbera he was also Dick Dastardly and Gargamel. He was the vantriloquist of Jerry Mahony and is co-inventor of the artificial heart. While not a Disney Legend, he should be. - Sterling Holloway is perhaps most famous for being the original voice of Winnie the Pooh but he was also Mr Stork in Dumbo, the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland, Kaa in the Jungle Book, Amos the Mouse in Ben & Me, Roquefort the Mouse in The Aristocats, and narrated several Disney animated short cartoons and LP records. He was named a Disney Legend in 1991. - Will Ryan started with Disney in the early 1980's and he was the voice of Willie the Giant, Black/Pegleg Pete, Tigger, and Rabbit during this period. He was also part of the voice cast on several of the very first Disney Afternoon shows. While not a Disney Legend, he should be. - Hal Smith was the voice of Goofy during this period as well as a few other characters including the original Owl in Winnie the Pooh. He was also part of the voice cast on several of the very first Disney Afternoon shows. While not a Disney Legend, he should be. - Alan Young, starting with Mickey's Christmas Carol, was the main voice for Uncle Scrooge McDuck for decades. He was also the voice of Hiram Flaversham in The Great mouse Detective. While not a Disney Legend, he should be. - Adriana Caselotti was the voice of Snow White. She also sang in the Wizard of Oz and It's a Wonderful Life. She was named a Disney Legend in 1994. - Dickie Jones was the voice of Pinocchio. He'd been a child actor of the time in everything from the Yearling to Mr Smith Goes to Washington. People today don't realize he was one of the major child actors of the time. He was named a Disney Legend in 2000. - Kathryn Beaumont was the voice of both Alice in Alice in Wonderland and Wendy in Peter Pan. She was named a Disney Legend in 1998. - John Byner was Gurgi in The Black Cauldron. He was a well known comedian and voice impressionist. - John Hurt was the Horned King in The Black Cauldron. He was a well know stage actor who's done everything from Shakespeare to Hellboy. Frank Thomas of the Nine Old Men also makes an appearance to add context to what a good voice actor for animation is. He was named a Disney Legend in 1989 along with the other Nine Old Men. Original air date May 2, 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.

The Walt Disney Studio Showcase was one of the original TV series on the newly launched Disney Channel. It was a monthly anthology series that sometimes included behind the scenes sequences or presented obscure films to American audiences as Disney discoveries. Like most of the early Disney Channel content, it went away when the Eisner regime took over the company. In this super rare documentary, author, researcher, reporter, and publicist John Culhane takes you on a tour of what the Walt Disney Studios was like before the Eisner regime took over. That makes this film a tremendous time capsule of this turbulent time in Walt Disney history. Culhane was an entertainment writer who actually got to interview Walt Disney as a teenager in the 1950's. He later wrote several books on the film industry with a few focusing on Disney. His nickname around the studio was "Snoops" because he was always digging into everything. In his honor, Madame Medusa's henchman was named Mr Snoops. and made to be a caricature of him in The Rescuers. Culhane was also later caricatured as Flying John in the Rhapsody in Blue sequence of Fantasia 2000. This was a time of transition at the Walt Disney Studios so we get a glimpse at the productions of many of the darker films being produced at that time. On this tour we see how sound effects are added to the live action horror film Something Wicked This Way Comes. Later we return to this film and witness some of the film score being recorded with James Horner. Horner was one of the most prolific film composers of the latter half of the 20th century. His score was actually the second version written and recorded for the film when the original score by Georges Delere was deemed too dark. Ray Bradybury is also seen present in this footage as it was his book and screenplay the film was based on. We are introduced to a young Tim Burton who's developing the stop motion film Vincent and the live action Disney Channel Halloween special Hansel & Gretel. It would air as the Halloween Studio Showcase episode later that year. These were Burton's very first directorial debuts and for years rarely seen. Hansel & Gretel only aired once it alarmed the studio brass so much. He was forced out of the studio after making a featurette film for the reissue of Pinocchio, Frankenweenie, when it garnered a PG rating for the atmosphere of it. That film later led to Burton directing Peeweee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, and Batman. There's also behind the scenes segments on other films being produced by Walt Disney Productions at the time such as Tron, Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend, Never Cry Wolf, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. We also get to see some material on the short lived network TV series Zorro & Son and the upcoming animated feature The Black Cauldron. In each of these segments we see interviews with the creative people who were developing these projects. The Roger Rabbit segment, in particular, is fascinating because this was the version of the film that didn't get made. Even though this Roger Rabbit design (voiced by Peewee Herman star Paul Reubens) wasn't the version in the final film, that character design had a cameo in the audience of the Sports Goofy featurette Soccermania. We also drop by to see how the animatronic dinosaur for Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend was being developed. Originally a Walt Disney Productions film, this became a Touchstone Pictures release when more mature undertones were added hoping to make the film more mainstream. Later, it was edited into a more family friend version that aired on TV under the Wonderful World of Disney banner. Matte painting is covered with Harrison Ellenshaw. His father was the famous Walt Disney matte painter Peter Ellenshaw who worked on every Walt Disney live action film for decades. Harrison learned at his father's knee and he went on to do the matte paintings on the original Star Wars trilogy himself. He later returned to Disney to work on The Black Hole and other films. We also get to see some of what the backlot looked like before Eisner demolished it for a parking lot. In all, this is a remarkable glimpse into the Walt Disney Studio just before things changed forever. Original airdate June 23, 1983 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 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.