May 1975 - Carousel of Progress Final Scene

This is how Christmastime looked like back in May 1975 in the final scene of Carousel of Progress (Believe it or not, that final scene is actually set on New Years Eve).

And this is today:

New Orleans Square Officially Opens - One of the Last Times Walt E. Disney was on Film

The footage you are about to see is bittersweet. It shows one of the last times Walt was on film enjoying his park. The day was July 24, 1966 (Walt died later that year). Walt and New Orleans Mayor Victor Schiro officially opened New Orleans Square. It was the first time since opening day in 1955 that a new land had opened. It was also the only area at the park named after a real city. Guests enjoyed shopping, dining and music, and Pirates of the Caribbean opened the following year.

Walt E. Disney Talking About the Abraham Lincoln Audio-Animatronic

Tomorrow evening the Main Street Electrical Parade Premieres

NEW PARADE PREMIERES

06.17.09 - Tomorrow evening at 9 p.m., the most ambitious outdoor spectacular since last year's "America On Parade" will premiere in the Magic Kingdom: Our Main Street Electrical Parade!

The Main Street Electrical Parade will be made up of nearly 100 performers and 30 fanciful float units using new techniques of "piping" light through fiber optics and outlining figures with micro-neon "threads" of light to create entirely new visual effects, all interspersed with row after row of twinkling lights.

With the cool evening air shrouding Main Street, the scene will be set for a pageant of enormous proportions, which will combine the latest in Disney "imagineering" to excite your eyes with sights of light in motion, and your ears with an incredible soundtrack.

As Main Street's lights dim, you will be confronted with Mickey Mouse atop the world's largest electrified drum, an eye-blinking hippopotamus, and 33 of our characters outlined in micro-neon light-swirls! The sparkling cavalcade of twinkling lights... over 500,000 strong... along with animation and musical entertainment will take place twice each night in the Magic Kingdom this summer at 9 pm and 11:30 pm.

The Main Street Electrical Parade will be made up of nearly 100 performers and 30 fanciful float units using new techniques of "piping" light through fiber optics and outlining figures with micro-neon "threads" of light to create entirely new visual effects, all interspersed with row after row of twinkling lights.

Winding down Main Street and through the Magic Kingdom in ten divisions, the parade features Alice in Wonderland riding atop one of three giant 15-foot high mushrooms. Huge snails and colorful ladybugs twist and turn along the parade route.

Cinderella rides in her magical pumpkin coach, while her fairy godmother changes the coach's color with a wave of her wand. In a spectacular underwater scene, called the Briny Deep, fiber optics are used to create an underwater set where fish, coral and colorful sea creatures perform a marine ballet followed by Monstro the Whale, spouting a sparkling shower of lights!

The spectacular finale has 33 Disney characters traced in sparkling lights and reflected in a myriad of rotating mirrors, a fitting end to the 30-minute parade.

Other parade units include the Blue Fairy from Pinocchio, whose gown stretches 15-feet to the street below; King Lion's Circus Parade with an elephant rotating merrily in a shower bath; all Seven Dwarfs in fully lighted mining regalia; and "It's A Small World" with child-like figures from many lands.

An electronic Moog Synthesizer produces a unique and lively musical score filled with original and familiar Disney tunes to "theme" each division in the parade. The exciting and unusual Moog music, similar to our popular "Electric Water Pageant" soundtrack, will actually be transmitted from atop Cinderella Castle to individual floats, where the radio signals will be amplified and broadcast from onboard sound systems. The basic musical theme is interwoven with counter-themes to produce a special song for each of the patade's divisions. Because all of the music is broadcast from a single transmitter, all of the tunes are heard in time with one another, and in tune with all the others!

PARADE REMARKABLY COMPLEX
Designed at Disneyland by some 20 artists under the direction, of Bob Jani, Vice President of Entertainment Division, the 30 float units were constructed by a crew of 70 workers who attached each individual light to its assigned spot on the facades.

About 20 craftspeople in our Walt Disney World Wardrobe Department produced the electric powered costumes. And more than 200 cast members are involved in each nightly performance!

A special low-voltage direct current (DC) system using 1,200 batteries transmits energy to more than 500,000 lightbulbs dotted across the 30 floats with 20 silent electric drive units powering them along. Over 12 miles of miniature electric cable is used in our Main Street Electrical Parade.

In addition to fiber optics, the parade also makes use of a new king of multicolored low voltage system of neon tubing, the only one of its kind.

And for those concerned with the energy output of our dazzling parade, the 500,000 parade lights will use approximately the same amount of energy as that which is saved by turning out the lights along the parade route as it passes by. The special electric drive units engineered by Disney technicians for the parade eliminates the need for gasoline powered floats as in conventional parades.

The Wardrobe Department used special safety materials so that lights could be installed along the outlines of performers' costumes. Some of the performers carry their own batteries, while others are designed to plug into the float units they walk along with.

Similar to "America On Parade", the Main Street Electrical Parade will be produced simultaneously at Walt Disney World and Disneyland throughout the summer months.

With some float units reaching almost to the ceiling, the Production Center lately has been the scene of over 200 cast members... both back stage technicians and on stage performers... preparing for tomorrow night's 9 pm premiere.

Although the 30 parade units were constructed in California, each had to be shipped to Florida, unloaded, assembled, tested and declared "ready" to go on stage for tomorrow night's premiere. This enormous task was given to the Entertainment Support Department, which is based at the Production Center complex. Pictured above is a scene typical for the 16 men of Entertainment Support ... they first carefully uncrate a huge wooden container carried from California on the back of a semi-truck rig, and remove the delicate parade parts enclosed. Then a heavy duty crane from the Reedy Creek Drainage Department lifts the main float structure from the trailer bed. While suspended in the air by the crane, an electric drive unit (as seen here being driven by Dewey Rewis, Entertainment Support Supervisor) is carefully positioned beneath the dangling structure and it is gently lowered until contact is made. Long bolts connect them together, electrical connections are made, and the float unit is driven into the Production Center for final readying.

From the June 10, 1977 edition of the Eyes and Ears employee newsletter, published by Walt Disney World.

Model "T" Turns in High Performance for Hilarious Disney Motion Picture

06.08.11 - With a gelatinous goo called Flubber, the alchemist in The Absent-Minded Professor transformed a Model "T" into a high-flying fantasy.

Science teacher Ned Brainard (Fred MacMurray) and his pretty fiancee (Nancy Olson) swoop over the nation's capitol aboard their flubberized flivver in this scene from the Walt Disney feature-length comedy, The Absent-Minded Professor.

Many old timers will attest to the durability of Mr. Ford's delightful Model "T." "It could do anything," say some. "And you could fix it with a pair of players and a piece of bailing wire," say others.

But there's never been a Leapin' Lena that could fly until Walt Disney called for one in the script to his hilarious feature motion picture, The Absent-Minded Professor, to be released in combination with another Walt Disney laugh-hit, The Shaggy Dog.

For Professor, Disney's technical experts, who specialize in doing the impossible, got a 1912 vintage airbound for several hilarious scenes in the film. How they did it we'll leave to your own imagination, but the flying flivver, gleefully guided through the cumulo-nimbus by Fred MacMurray, makes for great fun in a way-out comedy which also stars Nancy Olson, Keenan Wynn and Tommy Kirk.

When the forgetful prof, portrayed by MacMurray, accidentally discovers an anti-gravity goo that can bounce a man or a car to great heights, he dubs it "flubber" and substitutes it for the motor in his Model "T." Thus inventing the world's first flying flivver — the neatest hot rod of our age — the happy inventor stirs up quite a commotion at the Pentagon, especially when he lands Lena smack on the White House lawn.

The Absent-Minded Professor is a Buena Vista release, and was directed by Robert Stevenson from a screenplay by associate producer Bill Walsh.

From the original Absent-Minded Professor press materials.

The Voice in Mission to the Moon and Mission to Mars From 1988 Disneyland Line

It Takes People

04.03.11 - George Walsh, who lent his voice to numerous narrations for Disney, voiced Mr. Johnson in Mission to the Moon, and later, Mission to Mars.

"Welcome to Mission Control, space travelers..." begins the opening remarks from Mission Control Director Mr. Johnson in the Mission to Mars attraction. The voice of Mr. Johnson belongs, coincidentally, to one of our own Disneyland Cast Members, George Walsh.

"Mr. Johnson" has been aboard the Mission to Mars attraction for many years. George has only been "on board" as a Disneyland cast member for a few months. His association with the Disney organization, however, has been a long one. He has voiced many narration spots for the Disney Studios over the years.

In addition to some educational films for the Studios, George has narrated several films promoting Mineral King and Epcot Center. George believes he may have narrated the last Epcot Center film on which Walt Disney appeared. So when the opportunity arose to do the voice of Mr. Johnson in Mission to the Moon — and later, Mission to Mars — George was well established as a Disney Studios narrator and a natural choice for the project.

George's 34 years as announcer for CBS/ KNX radio involved him in a diversity of projects. He is well remembered for being one of the voices of Smokey the Bear for many TV and movie spots. One of his most memorable achievements was announcing for a radio program called Gunsmoke, starring William Conrad, currently the star of TV's Jake and the Fatman. When the program went to an hour-long TV show, George did the lead-ins to the commercial spots for 20 years. He also narrated a popular radio show called Suspense, in which he was, as he puts it, "the spooky voice that told a tale, well calculated to keep you in suspense." He did a series of programs with award-winning designer Edith Head. When the radio division of CBS went to an all-news operation, George became a newscaster until his retirement two years ago. And somewhere among all of his achievements over the years, he was named Announcer of the Year by the Los Angeles Times.

George didn't always know that announcing would become his bread and butter. His first time "on the air" was in high school, where he took a public speaking course. He remembers that his first assignment was to describe "what I hope to become." He said, "My classmates were giving speeches about becoming doctors, lawyers, ministers and so forth and I didn't have the slightest idea what I wanted to become. So I decided to do something for laughs, just to get a grade in the class." He put together a skit, using voice impersonations of famous radio personalities. He received a good grade for his efforts. A couple of weeks later, for $15 and two tickets to the Senior Prom, George brought his impersonations act to the prom floorshow, and the rest is history. By the time George retired, he had spent half of his life with CBS and decided that it was time to try something else. So for a couple of years he "painted the house, pruned the roses, fixed up the old car and, one day last September, read in the newspaper that Disneyland was having a Job Fair. I came out to the Job Fair and left with a job."

"The voice of Mr. Johnson is alive and well at Disneyland," said George. "I've always been a Disney fan and now I have the pleasure of working here." George and his voice can be found in the Disneyana shop on Main Street where, he said, "I fit in very well with all of the old things."

From Disneyland Line, April 8, 1988

Cuban Sculptor Carves Furniture for Disneyland's Haunted Mansion

  Sculptor Santana busy at work on furniture for Haunted Mansion.

02.17.11 - For Ciro Rolando Santana y Arrite, a soft-spoken, wiry little Cuban sculptor of extraordinary talent, a temporary position at Disneyland has become a springboard to the fulfillment of a longtime dream — to bring his family from an adopted home in Puerto Rico to the United States and continue his career as a sculptor.

Rolando Santana came to this country early in 1969. He had been at Disneyland for only a few weeks when the word went out from WED that new projects required the talents of an additional sculptor.

Rolando went to WED for an interview, presented his credentials, and was promptly made a member of the WED Imagineering staff.

The sculptor's work has been exhibited in many countries throughout the Americas and in Spain. For two decades, art and educational publications have featured articles on his works.

Rolando received his formal art training as a student for seven years at Havana's St. Alexander's National School of Fine Arts and two years at the Havana Center of Fine Arts.

Adept in sculpturing all media, Rolando has begun the resumption of his career at WED by carving wooden furniture and ornamentation for Disneyland's Haunted Mansion.

While one part of Rolando's dream became a reality, the other part came true in May when his wife and three children joined him in their new home in the United States.

From Disney News, Fall 1969

About 1982's TRON

The First Electronic Gunslinger

02.09.11 - Long a fan of the mythic heroes of the Old West, Bruce Boxleitner finds himself playing the hero in a different kind of mythology. He is a computer programmer fighting to save his electronic world in Walt Disney Productions' futuristic adventure, "TRON."

Powerful Programmer… Bruce Boxleitner stars as a computer expert whose alter-ego is the most powerful game warrior in an electronic universe in Walt Disney Productions' futuristic adventure, "TRON."

"TRON" combines state-of-the-art computer graphics with special techniques in live-action photography to create a fantasy world never before seen on a motion picture screen. It is a world where energy lives and breathes, where laws of logic are defied, where an electronic civilization thrives.

All of which is quite a departure for Boxleitner, a tall and athletic actor whose career is rooted in roles as rawboned types who helped tame the West. Collector of frontier art, reader of historical fiction, Boxleitner relished such vehicles as the television series "How the West Was Won" and the telefilm "I Married Wyatt Earp." "I loved the idea of reliving history," he says. "Playing a Western hero you sense how strong those people must have been. Let me tell you it's a thrill."

Expectedly, he was not enthralled with the notion of starring in an effects-laden picture like "TRON.' "I was really feeling my oats," he says today. "I had just finished doing a Western movie-of-the-week and was still thinking of myself as the gunfighter hero. When I got the script for "TRON" I rejected it. I didn't want to spend that time cooped up on sound stages.

"Then Kitty (his wife, actress Kathryn Holcomb) read the script and told me I'd better reconsider. She thought it was something special. When I reread it, I realized that Tron, my character in the film, was not so different from a traditional Western hero."

Boxleitner's Tron character is the only being who can save his electronic world from domination by a huge and despotic master computer program. Ironically, while the completed film portrays an epic battle set in a fantastic landscape of light and electricity, the actors performed against sets that were practically bare. The live-action was mated with computer-generated settings in post-production.

"We looked at storyboards (rough drawings of each shot in the movie) before each scene. Then it was up to the imagination. And when you realize that what we are seeing in 'TRON's' world can't possibly exist — then you know how difficult a job the actors had. 'TRON' is the most difficult movie I've ever done." Boxleitner may have had it a bit easier than the others, however. Faced with a duel on the video game grid, chased by a Recognizer or a data pirate, or confronted by any of the electronic world's myriad dangers, he could always ask himself, "What would Wyatt Earp do?" The settings may change but the heroes remain the same.

In color by Technicolor, "TRON" also stars Jeff Bridges, David Warner, Cindy Morgan and Barnard Hughes. The film was written and directed by Steven Lisberger for producer Donald Kushner and executive producer Ron Miller. Buena Vista releases. Filmed in Super Panavision ® 70.

From the original 1982 Tron press materials.

 

 

Lisberger Breaks with Convention

02.09.11 - In 1976 he stretched a $10,000 American Film Institute grant into a multi-million dollar animated film. Today, Steve Lisberger is the guiding creative force behind "TRON," a motion picture that is not only unconventional, but the first of its kind.

Writer-Director Steven Lisberger is the mastermind behind "TRON," Walt Disney Productions futuristic adventure about an electronic world in which video games come to life through state-of-the-art computer imaging.

Writer-director Steven Lisberger is not one to settle for the conventional. As a college student in Boston he formed his own film production company. In 1976 he stretched a $10,000 American Film Institute grant into a multi-million dollar animated film. Today, Lisberger is the guiding creative force behind "TRON," a motion picture that is not only unconventional, but the first of its kind.

"TRON" combines live action with computer-generated imagery to create a fantasy world where video games are arenas of life and death. Long a devotee of video games, the filmmaker first conceived the project in 1978.

"Everyone's looking for new fantasies in the movies," he says. "Outer space has been done to death. They've gone inside the body and under the sea. We've created this world in 'TRON' by taking video games and just blowing them out to the point where they are a reality. At the point where the games met computer graphics, something came alive that hadn't been alive before. Video games were the basis for the fantasy; the computer imagery was the means to create it."

Lisberger and his partner, producer Donald Kushner, brought their project to Disney in mid-1980 and a deal was quickly struck. "They first gave us money to do a demonstration, to prove that we could create the effects we claimed were possible," Lisberger says. "It's to Disney's credit that they didn't say, 'Call us when the computers can do a dog.' We were interested in creating objects and environments that couldn't exist in the physical world. That's something computer-generated images can do very well."

With the boundless enthusiasm of the first boy out to recess, Lisberger began, in early 1981, to choose his creative team for "TRON." French comics artist Moebius — one of the founders of Heavy Metal — was lured from his Pyrenees mountain home to work on character styling and storyboarding. Futurist Syd Mead was called to design vehicles that would later be computer-generated. High-tech artist Peter Lloyd was hired for color styling and background design. Richard Taylor, currently manager of the Movie Technology Division of Information International, Inc. (Triple-I) and an art director whose glowing designs gained him fame in the 1970s with his commercials for Levi and Seven-Up, joined the group to oversee the computer imaging and optical effects. Harrison Ellenshaw, matte painter for "Star Wars" and "The Empire Strikes Back," signed on as co-director (with Taylor) of special effects and associate producer.

The Mathematical Applications Group, Inc. (MAGI), Triple-I, Digital Effects Inc. and Robert Abel and Associates were hired to execute computer images choreographed by animators Bill Kroyer and Jerry Rees. Matched with the live action, those computer scenarios bring Lisberger's world to life.

"We're taking risks with this film," admits the director who spends his days buzzing through the production like a low-flying plane looking for fires to put out. "But that's what got this place (Disney) rolling in the first place. They broke with convention. Computer imagery is never going to replace actors. Actors are what I call the ultimate special effect. And it won't challenge the hand-crafted animation for which Disney is famous. But for this particular fantasy in "TRON" it's the perfect artists' tool."

In color by Technicolor, "TRON" stars Jeff Bridges, David Warner, Bruce Boxleitner, Cindy Morgan and Barnard Hughes. The film was written and directed by Steven Lisberger for producer Donald Kushner and executive producer Ron Miller. Buena Vista releases. Filmed in Super Panavision® 70.

From the original 1982 Tron press materials.  

Disneyland Presents The Walt Disney Story

What Walt Disney and his staff did was to create for the world a realm of wonder and make believe never before experienced — and that fabulous world has become a part of our lives, a part of our culture. 

Walt Disney shown in his "formal" office at the Disney Studio in Burbank.

Most Americans and much of the world have grown up with pleasant memories of Dumbo, the Three Little Pigs, Cinderella and dozens of other characters of fact and legend as they were pictured by Disney. A whole generation watched television's Mouseketeers and thrilled to the exploits of Davy Crockett and Zorro. Millions of people have visited Disneyland in California and Walt Disney World in Florida. 

The man behind it all, Walt Disney, received nearly 1,000 plaques, scrolls, Emmys and Academy Awards for his work. The Walt Disney Story at Disneyland's Main Street Opera House exhibits many of these awards in honor of the man who always remembered that "it all started with a mouse." 

The exhibit is presented free by the Gulf Oil Corporation, and features Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln in the Opera House's 500-seat auditorium. 

One of the most intriguing displays of The Walt Disney Story concerns Disneyland. Surrounded by photographs taken during the building of the Park, a small viewing screen shows a speeded-up movie of the actual construction. Thus, the one-year-plus-one-day construction project, which turned an orange grove into a Magic Kingdom, is seen in only three minutes. 

The highlight of the attraction for many is a capsule history of Walt Disney's career. The short film features Disney himself as he tells the story in his own words. 

Guests see film clips from the earliest Disney cartoons (the "Alice" series), Mickey Mouse's first appearance in "Steamboat Willie," and how Disney advanced the art of film animation, beginning with his "Silly Symphony" series right up to "Mary Poppins." He also explains the philosophy behind the "Audio-Animatronics" figures developed by Walt Disney Productions for use at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. 

From the beginning, people began to collect anything bearing the imprint of Mickey Mouse or the other Disney characters — watches, toothbrushes, games, cups, bracelets, soap, candy. 

A few of these rare and valuable collector's items are displayed in a glass case towards the back of the exhibit area. There is an original Mickey Mouse watch, manufactured by Ingersoll in 1933, plus the five millionth and 25 millionth Mickey Mouse watches produced. 

On view also are books, clocks, dolls, glasses, plates, a toy stove, Christmas lights, an Emerson Mickey Mouse radio (circa 1933), records, a tea set — most of all of them manufactured in the 1930s or '40s. Today they are eagerly sought by dedicated collectors of Disneyana. 

Disney supervised his operations from two offices at the Disney Studio in Burbank, about 35 miles from Disneyland. They have been re-created as part of The Walt Disney Story, authentically furnished with pieces used during his lifetime. 

His "working" office was used for conferences with directors, writers, artists, and almost anyone involved in creating Disney projects. Behind his desk are a few of his favorite awards: a 1938 award for "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" from the International Film Festival in Venice, Italy; the very special Irving Thalberg Award, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1942 for consistent high quality of Disney films; and an Oscar, symbolic of the 51 Academy Awards received by Walt Disney and his staff throughout the years. 

The other office, also re-created for The Walt Disney Story, is the "formal" office. It was used for appointments with special guests visiting the Studio and contained a baby grand piano. Leopold Stokowski played some of the music for "Fantasia" on it more than 39 years ago, and Richard M. and Robert D. Sherman used it to play songs from "Mary Poppins" in the 1960s. 

Behind the desk are two sketches of Disney's daughters, drawn by Norman Rockwell. Between them is a portion of Disney's miniature collection — animals, dolls and small figures gathered from around the world. 

The Walt Disney Story also includes a section on Disney's famous television creations: the Zorro and Davy Crockett series and the Mickey Mouse Club. Featured are Zorro's cape, sword and mask, an original Mouseketeer hat, and two Emmys, on for Best Variety Series (1955) and the other for Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming (1964). 

One award that held a special place in Walt Disney's heart was the Oscar presented to him in 1932. This special award was given to him for the creation of Mickey Mouse, who, in a few short years, had become famous the world over. The Oscar presented to Disney now stands in a place of honor in The Walt Disney Story, surrounded by photographs from some of the early Mickey Mouse cartoons. 

A third film, shown in an area designed as an old-fashioned schoolroom, is devoted to Walt Disney, the Naturalist. The short movie, narrated by the "Audio-Animatronics" figure Y. Zol Owl, contains film clips from several of Disney's True-Life Adventure series. 

Launched in 1948 with the release of "Seal Island," the films are a continuing reminder of Disney's deep interest in ecology, the environment and the condition of man. 

Also on display in this area are various international awards and three Oscars, representative of the eight Academy Awards won by the 13 True-Life Adventure films. 

There is more: other international awards, pictures and posters of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, honorary degrees. 

The Walt Disney Story pays fitting tribute to a man whose genius made dreams come true — for himself, and for the world. 

From the Spring 1976 edition of Vacationland magazine, published by Disneyland.