TOMORROWLAND - The Movie...My thoughts

Hello!  Been a while since I posted anything here, let alone something related to Disney.  Here are my thoughts on the recent film TOMORROWLAND...

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Having read quite a bit about Walt Disney, I may be seeing this recent Disney film with tinted glasses.  I remember being inspired by the stories that Disney put on film and on TV in a myriad of ways back in the 1960’s, when I was inspired by the stories and the music to write my own stories and to learn to play the songs.  I didn’t take my inspiration for my love of science from Disney (directly); it was the space program that grabbed me and made me want to learn.  Yeah, I was one of those kids who wanted to be an astronaut.  I dreamed about traveling to the Moon or to Mars, or to even more distant places.  My interest was fed by writers like Asimov and Heinlein and Clarke (the so-called Big Three) and by Charlton Heston movies like THE OMEGA MAN and PLANET OF THE APES.

It wasn’t till I started to study Disney that I realized how interested he was in the space program himself — and in scientific advancement!  He made promotional films for NASA to help generate popular support for the project to put a man on the Moon, and in his parks was this area he called “Tomorrowland.”  Tomorrowland celebrated the future by promoting the achievements of corporations in that direction.  It had exhibits like “The House of Tomorrow”, a futuristic “People Mover” and its retrospective tribute to technology, “Carousel of Progress.”  I didn’t know about these things till relatively recently because I didn’t go to Disney World until 1975, and then as a member of my high school band who was less concerned with appreciating what I was seeing than with the existence of high school girls from other band programs in other parts of the country.

So what’s all that have to do with TOMORROWLAND, the movie?  I believe there is something of Walt Disney’s persona in this film.  And that something is “Optimism.”  Walt Disney was a futurist, according to Ray Bradbury.  A forward-thinking man who had his eyes on solving the problems of the world with technology, through corporations.

The movie isn’t as focused on corporations as agents for positive change, but it has the same optimism about the future that Walt had.  If I understood correctly, the story is that scientists figured out how to access an alternate dimension of reality and then proceeded to create a world where science was king — where just about anything was possible.  (Sort of goes with Walt’s old “If you can dream it, you can do it” mentality.)  In fact, the film starts with a boy inventor traveling to the World’s Fair that Disney used as a testing ground for so many things that found themselves into his parks, including the aforementioned Carousel of Progress and the “it’s a small world” attraction.  (At that fair, for the Illinois exhibit, Walt and company built an audio-animatronic Lincoln that people reported rose and stepped into the audience, shaking people’s hands – of course it did no such thing but, well, that’s how imagination works I guess.)  He makes his way to Tomorrowland with the help of a pretty young girl and a pin that she gives him.

Cut to the future – our future – where our space program is being dismantled and where pessimism reigns.  What’s the best an intelligent young man or woman can hope for in this world?  It certainly isn’t the Moon, or Mars.

In the film’s case, the intelligent young person is a high school girl who becomes intrigued by a pin she finds among her belongings after she is released from jail — she was arrested for sabotaging the machines that are destroying the launch platforms at Cape Canaveral.  The pin shows her a shining land of science and technology that is beyond her wildest dreams, and she must find it.

The straightforward adventure story that follows is competently written and it plays out in an entertaining manner.  But it was the concept behind that adventure — the idea that you can make a difference, that your brain is more powerful than anything else, and that amazing things can be accomplished if our best and brightest put their minds to it — that intrigued me.

And it wasn’t just me.  My kids were intrigued by the ideas, by the inspiration that they were able to take from the story.  I have smart kids, and we’ve always talked about accomplishing big things through intellect (not in those words, obviously), and they saw in this film something more than an unrealistic adventure story.  It’s the same sort of feeling we have when we leave EPCOT or Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom.  There’s an enthusiasm after those visits, a feeling that anything IS possible, in fact.

I found a review on a sometimes-Disney site called FutureProbe and I’m going to just quote the end of it:

The lesson our characters should have learned is that Tomorrowland isn’t a place you escape to, it’s something you make wherever you happen to be. The movie shouldn’t have ended with a bunch of robot children setting out to bring people to Tomorrowland, but with them setting out to bring Tomorrowland to the people.

I agree with the sentiment, but I think it’s being nit-picky about the final message. So what if the robots are setting out to bring the best and brightest to Tomorrowland instead of rejoining the real world? In a sense, they are metaphorically doing exactly that – inspiring the young people to create the future instead of accepting it and “gaming the system” for their own benefit. Maybe “Tomorrowland” is MIT or Harvard or University of Illinois for some particular teenager, and maybe it’s going to work for an environmentally aware company. Maybe it’s just getting the best out of yourself instead of coasting.

In any case, I found a lot to like about this movie.  I’m not going to argue that it’s the greatest piece of filmmaking ever, but it’s more than an entertaining story, or at least it can be.

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(This is cross-posted from my "Scott Dyson" blog which is where I talk about my writing and my books. Stop by if you want to see what I've been up to with my self-publishing efforts.
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What would the world have been like if Walt had lived longer?

Now there's an interesting question, don't you think? 

Perhaps your first inclination is to say that it would be pretty much what it is today, except with a better Walt Disney World in Florida.  And that might be the exact right answer. 

But we all know that Walt wasn't one to rest on his laurels.  He was always moving forward.  Any reason to think that wouldn't have continued?  His passion at the time of his death was his reimagined city concept which may or may not have been a success. 

I know I've written in this blog that what we got may in fact be preferable to what Walt wanted.  But I wrote that as a Disney fan.  I would never try to argue that what we got was "progress" in any sort of really important way.  Whether his ideas proved to be workable or to be a complete failure, the world would have gained something - knowledge about what might or might not work. 

Would having that knowledge have improved the world?  Well, it certainly would not have hurt the world.  Think of the mess our cities are today.  Not technologically, but socially.  I live near Chicago where we can't seem to stop the kids in gangs from killing each other and often (far, far too often) catching innocent bystanders in the crossfire. 

I'm not sure that Walt's social experiment with urban planning would have helped these people.  But who knows?

But more to the point, Walt was, in my opinion, his generation's Steve Jobs.  Yes, he focused on entertainment most of the time, but in a way, so did Steve Jobs and Apple.   What has Apple really changed?  They've changed the way we consume our entertainment, with our tablets and our iPods and iTouches and our smartphones.  Cool toys, all of them.  I'm pretty sure they all have applications beyond entertainment.  (For example, you can download my DOING DISNEY ebook and read it on the Kindle app on an iPad...shameless self-promotion...and not really to the point since reading is entertainment.)

What if Walt had taken the next step in his audio-animatronics and created actual AI robotics?  What shape might such things have taken?  What if Walt had put his mind to space?  His contributions to our space program were mostly PR-related, but would it not have been cool if he would have had any sort of input, through the megaphone of the Disney media giant, into the direction our space explorations might have taken?  Can you imagine Walt's excitement if he had actually lived to see Neil Armstrong step onto the moon?  Disney might have more than a few satellites in orbit (I'm assuming that, as a media company, they have at least a couple of those things flying above our heads)...they might have actually had a presence in space, if Walt could have envisioned it - and I'm pretty sure that if anyone could have, Walt could have.

I'd love to assume I have someone reading this, and if that is the case, I'd then love to hear what changes, if any, Walt might have involved himself in beyond the urban planning exercise he was devoted to in Florida.  The comments are available if you have anything to add to what is, to me, a fascinating thought experiment.

(As an aside, read   HABST AND THE DISNEY SABOTEURS if you want to take a look at Leonard Kinsey's thought about what might have been if Walt's mind had been allowed to continue working on problems in the world...)

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If you want to read a book about one family's strategies when vacationing for a week at Disney World, feel free to check out my title , Doing Disney: How To Spend A Week At Disney's Florida Resort   It's available on Amazon for $2.99.  I tried to write it for families who get to spend a week in the World every year or two and want to maximize their time in the parks and in the area.  It doesn't try to be comprehensive, but I think you might find a few helpful tidbits within its electronic pages...

Thanks!

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Film Review: SAVING MR. BANKS

We went to see SAVING MR. BANKS, starring Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson, over the holiday break.  I expected to like it, and I did.  It was a very good story, nicely told with the use of flashbacks to give us insight into the character of P. L. Travers, the author of MARY POPPINS.  I didn't go to the film believing that it was a documentary, but I have to admit that I wasn't terribly aware of what was fact and what was fiction as I watched.

Did that affect my enjoyment of the film?  Not one bit.  I thought most everything about it was good.  I don't expect academy award nominations for the actors, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of them get them.  The performances were good and believable, especially Thompson and Paul Giametti as the apparently fictional limo driver who chauffeurs Mrs. Travers around Los Angeles.   Hanks was good as Walt Disney himself, but trying to play a character who so many, including me, have seen either in video footage or on TV back in the old days has to be difficult.  I never quite got over the feeling that I was watching Hanks play Disney instead of watching Walt Disney himself, if that makes sense.

I highly recommend it to anyone, not just Disney buffs and Disney fans.  It's a very good film that deserves accolades.

It's come to my attention that there is raging debate on Facebook and in the blogosphere over the inaccuracies and liberties taken within the story and the visual presentation.  Most of the critics seem to like the film on the surface but are disturbed that people will see it and think it an accurate historical depiction of the events surrounding the making of MARY POPPINS.

I can see that many of the specifics are not accurate, and also I can see from checking the three biographies of Mr. Disney that I own that there is disagreement on the facts surrounding the relationship between Disney and Travers.  I noted that Jeff Kurtti, a noted Disney historian, presented a letter that Travers wrote to Disney thanking him for the film and praising it.  But I have read in too many places that Travers didn't like certain parts of the films, including the songs, and that her criticism often was held back until she was talking to someone who revealed that they didn't like Walt Disney.  I don't know.

I think that in general, the film gives an accurate representation of the general mood surrounding the relationships between Disney and Travers and the production team of MARY POPPINS, but uses a lot of artistic license to make it a good story.  Much like Walt didn't want to make Rudyard Kipling's JUNGLE BOOK, but Walt Disney's JUNGLE BOOK, Disney wanted first and foremost to make a film that would work well on the big screen and not necessarily be faithful to every little detail.  And they succeeded in doing that.

That's my take.  I'll probably buy it on DVD.  I already bought a biography of P.L. Travers and I'll probably make it a point to watch THE BOYS when I get a chance because of this movie and the discussions that I've read.

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Please take a look at my book DOING DISNEY, available for Amazon Kindle at $2.99.  Thanks!

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The Treasures of Disney exhibit - Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry

The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago has a special exhibit going on right now:  D23 Presents:  Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives.

We had the chance to see this exhibit yesterday, and it was one of the better exhibits we've experienced at the Museum (and we've been members for several years now).  That might be because we enjoy Disney, and I love the Disney history material.  But we all found it to be quite fun, right up to the "Animation Academy" style class at the end of the exhibit.  They had costumes from Enchanted, Mary Poppins, Pirates of the Caribbean, Alice In Wonderland, and a handful of other films.  They had some interesting props, a bunch of macaques (is that the right word?) of various animation subjects, and other interesting things like the Nautilus model used in the filming of 20000 Leagues Under The Sea.    The theme parks were covered as well.

It presented Walt as a forward-thinking genius who was one step ahead of the curve in the entertainment industry.

I'd actually like to go see it again.  Check out the Museum of Science and Industry's info on the exhibit on their site.

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Thunder Mountain and Walt Disney

We recently returned from a vacation in Sedona, Arizona.  While there, we took a backcountry jeep tour which brought us into gulches and to Native American (Sinagua) ruins nestled in the cliffs behind Sedona. 

On our way out, our guide pointed out several of the red rock bluffs by name, including one called Thunder Mountain.  He then proceeded to mention that Walt Disney actually had a house in Sedona at one time for a few years, and could see Thunder Mountain from his kitchen/dining area.  He said that Sedona's Thunder Mountain didn't really look like the rockwork done on Big Thunder Mountain, but that perhaps it inspired the ride.

I wasn't sure of the timeline, and didn't want to call him out on that.  First, I've never read anywhere that Walt Disney spent significant time in Sedona, though it wouldn't surprise me if he did, considering how beautiful it is there.  Second, I believe Marc Davis did most of the concept art for that ride (I suppose it's possible that Davis spent time in Sedona).  Third, I am thinking that Big Thunder Mountain wasn't conceptualized until well after Walt's death.

Anyone who has any comments or information on this tour guide info, please leave a comment.  Did Walt ever live in Sedona?  Did he have anything to do with the planning of Big Thunder Mountain?  Does Sedona, or any part of Arizona, have anything to do with Walt's inspiration for anything in Disneyland?

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December 5, 1901

Today would be the 111th birthday of Walter Elias Disney, so let's wish him a Happy Birthday, wherever he is!

Happy Eleventy-First birthday!  Same age as Bilbo Baggins when he left the Shire to live out his days in Rivendell!

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Disney Books: Walt Disney: An American Original

Whenever I visit Disney, I try to come away with one new book for my collection. I usually buy them in the parks, so my acquisitions tend to be the Disney-approved titles. This trip's book purchase was the Bob Thomas biography. I have his bio of Roy O. Disney, but I had never read this one. I have, however, read the biographies by Gabler and by Barrier, so the material being covered is not really new to me.

Still, I find that Thomas has a lot of anecdotes and information that I didn't read in the other books. At times the fact that he had worked on a project in 1956 called The Art of Animation and on another in 1965 which was a bio of the man for children really showed through, in that he had done four lengthy interviews with Walt himself and numerous interviews with key animators at Disney for those projects.

I'm about a third of the way through the book and I'm finding it to be easy reading, holding my interest quite well. I will post a more thorough "review" after I finish.

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Samland's book...

I said before that I would post the links to purchase Sam Gennawey's book, Walt and the Promise of Progress City, but I haven't. So here they are now...

The paperback version...

The Kindle version...

Go get it!!!

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Steve Jobs: The Walt Disney of Technology

As everyone probably knows, Steve Jobs passed away yesterday, October 5th, 2011, at the age of 56. He's been battling cancer for at least 10 years, and though I haven't seen anything yet about the exact cause of his death (not because it isn't out there, I just haven't had time to look that much), I'd assume it was cancer-related.

I have read commentaries and seen news reports suggesting that Jobs is the Einstein of his generation. I don't know. There are different types of genius. Einstein was a genius with physics. He could see through the equations to the extension of our reality that we call "special relativity" today. But I don't really think he was a genius in terms of people skills.

A more apt comparison is probably to the 'raison d'etre' for my and many other blogs, Walt Disney himself. Walt was a genius, not because of his great artistic skills, not because of his intellect in academics, but because of his feel for what people wanted. Walt gave people animated feature films when the prevailing wisdom held that no one would ever go sit through a cartoon of that length. Then he built these things called "theme parks" that the experts felt would never succeed. They did succeed, beyond anyone's wildest expectations, because of Walt's special genius - a gift for knowing what people liked and wanted.

Steve Jobs had this same type of genius. He didn't invent the first Apple computer; according to what I've heard, Steve Wozniak was the one who built it. He didn't invent mp3 players, or cell phones, or tablet computers. But his genius was in recognizing the potential of these devices, and how they would relate to what people actually wanted and needed. He led in shaping the direction of these implements, and others have followed, but Steve Jobs' genius has placed Apple firmly at the forefront of their development, a step ahead of their competitors.

He also exhibited his genius when he saw Pixar for what it could be. George Lucas HAD Pixar in his pocket, but didn't recognize the potential there. Jobs did. Jobs let those boys work in the direction they wanted to go, recognizing the quality of what they were doing, and gave them enough time to succeed beyond their wildest expectations - eventually being bought by Disney and making Steve Jobs one of Disney's largest (if not THE largest) shareholders.

To Steve Jobs, the Walt Disney of Technology and one of those rare folks who are legitimately known as a genius, rest in peace.

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That's what lack of research gets ya...

We were fortunate enough to spend a week (kids' spring break) in San Francisco. Now too most people SF means Lombard Street, Fisherman's Wharf, the Golden Gate Bridge, Ghiradelli Square, and of course, Alcatraz. But to ne as a Disney fan, it also meant a chance to visit the Walt Disney Family Museum in the Presidio.

I looked it up months ago to see where it was and recall them talking about needing timed tickets for admission, but I thought we'd just get them when we got into town. So, we went about our scheduled activities, with a city tour on Sunday and an Alcatraz tour on Monday, figuring that Tuesday would be the day we'd rent a car and do things in various parts of town, including visiting some neighborhoods and getting some pictures under the Golden Gate Bridge. And drive to the Museum.

You may already see the flaw in my planning. Tuesday, unfortunately, is the only day of the week the place is closed. I never checked with the concierge at our hotel or anyone about it; we simply located it on our maps, then noted its location on the city tour (by Tower Tours bus), and made for it immediately after lunch.

The next day we were leaving the city to see Muir Woods and drive up to Napa, and there simply would not be time to go there.

So I guess a visit to the Walt Disney Family Museum, for me and my family, will have to wait till the next trip to San Francisco. Darn.

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Disney and Dentistry - Walt's Words

Oddly enough, after posting my last entry, I went to a seminar on comprehensive dentistry, and I opened the binder that was provided with all the handouts and notes from the class. On page 3 of the binder, the instructor gives us this quote:

It seems to me shallow and arrogant for any man in these times to claim he is completely self-made, that he owes all his success to his own unaided efforts. Many hands and hearts and minds generally contribute to anyone's notable achievements.

Walt Disney

The course was using these words to illuminate his views on the value of our dental team, including hygienists, assistants, and clerical staff. When you think about it in terms of Walt himself, he was obviously talking about all the talented individuals who did a lot of the heavy lifting in the process of making Walt Disney Studios the huge success that it became.

What's it have to do with Disney today? Probably very little. Probably has more in common with Pixar, where the team effort of all those guys produced the end result we see today every time we watch a Pixar animated release in the theaters. And maybe that's part of the problem at Disney today (assuming there IS a problem at all!), that it's way too huge to innovate anymore, whether it be in animation or in the theme park industry.

When you think of it, the newest part of Disney is probably the Disney Vacation Club, and that IS in fact a different way of packaging the concept of time shares. And their hotels and resorts are very much destinations in and of themselves. A very successful, very profitable business for the Disney Company. Maybe that spirit of innovation, of lots of talented hands, hearts and minds coming together to make something really cool, is alive and well in this branch of their business. A lot of people scoff at DVC, or resent it, but if you've ever stayed at one of their resorts, you'd probably agree that they're great places. With resorts in Hilton Head, Vero Beach and soon, Hawaii, they aren't limited to the theme parks either.

But that's probably a blog entry on its own. I just found it rather coincidental that I came across more references to Disney as it related to dentistry.

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Debunking Eliot: Snopes on Disney's illegitimaticy

I just thought it would be good to post this while fresh.

Here is a link to an article at Snopes.com where they debunk the flimsy Eliot assertion that Walt was possibly born either in Spain, or that his mother was a recently emigrated Spanish woman. Eliot jumps through a bunch of hoops on this one, but my initial impression that the allegation was fanciful seems to be born out by this article.

Read it over if you are interested...

To summarize: Walt Disney was almost certainly born in Chicago on December 5, 1901, just as was always suggested by the official record, to Elias Disney and Flora Call Disney. There was some confusion about the birth certificate, since there doesn't appear to be one, and some confusion about the record of birth, which shows that "Walter Disney" was born on December 30, 1891. It seems likely that this record refers to Walt's older brother Ray who WAS born on that day. Probably the Disneys had decided on one name and changed their mind, christening the baby "Raymond" instead.

The stuff about the illegitimate birth is just too convoluted to get into...but the article does a good job of summing up the allegation and the refutation...

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Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince commentary

I finished this biography of Walt Disney, by Marc Eliot, a few minutes ago. Eliot wrote a biography of Bruce Springsteen called Down Thunder Road among other books. This book was written in 1993, when Michael Eisner was at the helm of a very strong Disney Company. I wanted to comment on the book before I go and read anything else about it from other sources.

I'm probably somewhat biased - I have previously read Pat Williams' How To Be Like Walt and both Barrier's and Gabler's biographies of Disney, and have come to really admire Walt Disney from their depictions of him. In his acknowledgements Eliot talks about other bios of Walt, like Bob Thomas's book, the Leonard Moseley book, and Diane Disney Miller's bio of her father, and how alike they are to each other. They are all "authorized" in the sense that permission was granted to freely use the company archives, and that this permission seemed to come with strings attached...that is, that the studio gets input into the content and the presentation of the information. He further states that when he sought access to the Disney Archives, he was eventually turned down, and that a PR representative told him (off the record) that he didn't need the archives - "no one had ever been given any information by the studio it didn't want them to have", which explained the similarities between the other Disney biographies.

Part of the point of all this is that the author seems to have gone into the writing of this book with a pre-existing determination to discover "dark secrets" about the life of Walt Disney. Indeed, as he writes about certain events in the life of Disney, he seems determined to interpret them or present them in the most sinister light possible. Some are things that I can't imagine how he might know other than someone (who also probably didn't "know") repeating stories that had been told - things like peaks into Walt's personal life and intimacies with his wife. Some seem to be pure speculation on the part of the author, especially those items relating to his and Lillian's relationship. Some are well known stories, cast in a different light, through the filter of possible anti-Semitism, anti-Communism, his FBI connections, and his perceived cheapness and unwillingness to share credit.

All of these things might have been true of Walt Disney, but there is a matter of degrees in any of them. Having read the other, even more comprehensive biographies of Barrier and Gabler, I can (and have) see the different lights that many of these things can be cast in, by Disney employees and colleagues, by friends and enemies alike.

Some of the more interesting details in the book are some pretty detailed descriptions of the mechanisms that Disney went through to get his first theme park financed. I also felt that this book went into more depth in reporting the events surrounding the strike in 1941, with solid sources and detail that backed up a lot of what was alleged about both the actions of strikers like Art Babbitt and Dave Hilberman, and Disney management, personified by Walt Disney and his brother, and also including Gunther Lessing and Willie Bioff, than the other biographies I read.

Some of the more fanciful speculations include those about Walt's heritage, possibly being born illegitimately to a Spanish maid, with convolutions that are as crazy as some of the JFK assassination speculations, and the insinuation that perhaps Walt had an affair with Dolores Del Rio (and others, though no names are mentioned). The author also insinuates a less than normal relationship between Walt and his adopted daughter Sharon.

Some of this book was very interesting reading. Some struck me as not much more than the type of writing one might find in the Weekly World News or the Enquirer. Some struck me as irresponsible speculation. In the end, I didn't admire Walt Disney any less, or feel I learned anything earth-shattering about him.

So now I'll go off and read some other comments on this book and see what sort of reaction others have had to it.

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Stuff I got today...

Today started off with a quick trip to the library. I wasn't really looking for anything in particular, but came across a bio of Walt Disney called Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince by Marc Eliot.

I've heard of this book, read stuff about it in various forums and discussions, and have heard it is a hatchet job, poorly written and with an agenda to paint Walt in the worst possible light. If that's true, I doubt I'll finish the book. But I think it's always good to get other perspectives. For example, I have a friend, works as a market researcher for a big company, who, when I mentioned that I had been reading a lot on Disney (both the man and the company), commented that Walt was a Nazi and a real jerk. That goes against everything I've read about him in Barrier and Gabler and other sources. I suspect a lot of that comes from a book like this. So, I'm going to see what this other side is.

My other purchase was the Blu-ray edition of The Princess And The Frog. It is only my second Blu-ray disc purchase since getting one at the beginning of the year. My wife didn't get to see it in the theater, so maybe we can make a family thing out of it and all watch together.

Now it's off to do something besides write blog entries...

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Walt Disney - The Man Himself

A while back I read a pair of biographies on Walt Disney, the first being WALT DISNEY: THE TRIUMPH OF THE AMERICAN IMAGINATION by Neal Gabler, and the second one called THE ANIMATED MAN, by Michael Barrier. Aside from some controversy about Diane Disney Miller (Walt's daughter) not liking the portrayal of Walt outside of the business by Gabler (which I noted on Barrier's website), the two books were quite similar in their portrayal of Disney the man, in my view.

What I learned about Walt: He wasn't a great artist. But he was a driven motivated individual who didn't let much stand in the way of achieving his dreams. He started with almost nothing except some ideas and some drawing skills. His real genius came in his ability to take a story or a drawing or any sort of play and add to it, or subtract from it, or change it, and almost always make it better.

He was a man who didn't really fit in with the Hollywood folks. He was not highly educated, and behaved as a common man, probably part of his huge appeal to Americans and probably part of his ability to understand what everyday folks would enjoy. He was a family man, loving his daughters and his wife even when he didn't have a lot of time to dote on them.

He was an intense guy who could by sheer force of will accomplish things that others would just scoff at. He made color short cartoons when no one else thought that it could be done profitably. He made a feature length animated film that stands up with some of the best films of all time (SNOW WHITE). He saw the importance of TV and used it to his advantage. And he dreamed up this thing called a "theme park" and made one that was different from anything anyone else had ever tried. All the while being told that he couldn't do it, couldn't make it work.

Had he lived, what would EPCOT have become? Would it have actually have become a lightning rod for advancement? A model of utopia? What other new venues of entertainment would have intrigued him?

I came away impressed with the man, even as I always admired his work without really knowing anything about it. Those books, along with my visits to the theme parks, have inspired me to put some thought into Disney - the man AND the company.

Disney Theme Parks and the Sense of Wonder

As I read my new book by Jeff Kurtti, I found myself very interested with some of his characterizations of the theme park embodied in Disneyland. Kurtti writes:

For Walt, Disneyland was a world seen through fantasy, a place of warmth and nostalgia, full of 'illusion and color and delight'. A 1953 proposal for Disneyland promised, "Like Alice stepping through the Looking Glass, to step through the portals of Disneyland will be like entering another world."

And further on:

In a sense, the Park is a form of "virtual reality," because it is a place that, although not real, creates its own reality.

Today, is there anything "real" about Disneyland? The parks at Walt Disney World? I mean, in the sense that people really suspend disbelief when they pass through the turnstiles? Or are we jaded and cynical to the point where nothing on Planet Disney can break through this shell?

I'm not talking simply about enjoyment; the parks are full of enjoyment for one and all. There's something there for everyone. But I find it hard to imagine that there is the same sense of wonder about the places that there probably was when they first opened.

I wasn't around then. I never went to Disneyland before 2008. And I only went to Disney World one time, that being in high school, when I visited with our high school band, and we drummers were more concerned with chasing girls from a band from the New England area than appreciating the park. (And that was in 1975!)

I'd love to experience these parks as something really new, something that had never been done, or even tried before. There is still some of that, since most places fall far short of the Disney ideal. Marriot's Great America (now Six Flags Great America) tried to theme their areas according to parts of the country, but as the big coasters invaded, the theming disappeared.

I love experiencing the parks today; I love seeing them through my sons' eyes, and I love the enthusiasm that they both have for discovering new and fun things about different parks. But I know I'm in a theme park, and not just academically.

Maybe I'm just too old. Maybe I've got too much life experience. But I do wish I could have seen them as those early visitors did, as something that didn't exist until Disneyland was opened by the visionary we call Walt Disney.

Jungle Book Viewing

I "forced" my kids to watch Disney's The Jungle Book with me on Sunday, and of course, once they got into it (took them about 5 minutes) they were entranced.

I know from reading about Walt Disney that the making of this movie cost him one of his excellent story artists, Bill Peet, who resigned after Walt disapproved of his initial treatment of the story. Peet, following the Kipling book, had storyboarded a film that was not at all what Disney wanted to make. Walt told him, "That's the problem. I don't want to make Kipling's Jungle Book, I want to make Disney's Jungle Book." Walt felt that the only song in the movie that would work in his version was "The Bare Necessities", and that it needed to be funnier, as the original work was sort of depressing. (I've not read the Kipling version.)

Walt gave the project to Wolfgang Reitherman, and asked the Sherman Brothers to write the score. He asked the principle artists if they had read the book, and when they said no, he told them to keep it that way. He told them the story he wanted to make and apparently contributed extensively throughout the making of the film.

One interesting tidbit I remember reading was that Disney had actually come to an agreement with the Beatles' agent, Brian Epstein, to have the Fab Four do some songs in the movie. But John Lennon nixed it forcefully, stating that "There's no way The Beatles are gonna sing for Mickey blankety-blank Mouse!" I'd guess that all that is left of that idea are the four vultures who appear near the end of the movie. One of them sounds a lot like Ringo, to me.

This was also, apparently, the last film that Walt directly worked on. It was released on October 18. 1967, a few months after Walt's death.

I knew my boys would love this once they got into it. They're big into Star Wars and video gaming right now, but they're as much a sucker for a good story (and that's what you usually get from a Disney film) as their dad is. I still haven't been able to get them to commit to watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty, though I suspect that I will one of these days, and when I do, I suspect they'll be enthralled by those tales too.

Tomorrowland and Inspiration

"A lot of young people think the future is closed to them, that everything
has been done. This is not so. There are still plenty of avenues to
be explored." Walt Disney

I found this quote to be interesting, since Walt obviously said it many years ago. The book (How To Be Like Walt) that lists it does not give a date for it, but let's assume it is in the 1950's or the 1960's. But it could be said of today's youth also.

Americans are falling behind in the sciences, and the number of our children going into hard sciences and pursuing graduate level education in those fields is dwindling. Why is this? Are these fields of study inherently uninteresting? Is there a perception that there is not enough money in careers in scientific fields? Not enough security? Do we as parents not promote their interests in such fields enough?

Walt was as interested in the future as he was in the past, and it shows in his parks. Tomorrowland was, more than any other part of Disneyland, Walt's toy. Oh, he loved other parts equally - he was a nostalgist as well as being a futurist - but Tomorrowland, like the future, was a malleable thing to him, or so it seems to me. Sadly, he didn't live long enough to continue his tinkering with Tomorrowland - of course, later in his life he was consumed with a "real" Tomorrowland, his plans for EPCOT.

In 1955, the three episodes of Walt's "Man In Space" were shown, featuring on-screen appearances by rocket scientists Wernher von Braun and Heinz Haber, along with director Ward Kimball and Walt himself. The third episode, "Mars and Beyond", was shown on December 4, 1957, just a couple of months before the Soviet Union launched Sputnik and the U.S. plunged into the "space race". This series was very influential. Eisenhower even requested copies of the Disney episodes to show to his staff, and it inspired countless young people to become space scientists, and played a big part in getting the nation behind the space program.

Do our young people need inspiration at this point in history? I believe they do, and I wish that Disney was one of the vehicles for this inspiration. Do they want to do what Walt did forty years ago? I am not at all sure they do. It might not be profitable.

That's okay. 'Profitable' is a good thing. It's what all businesses aspire to. It's just that Walt realized that doing positive things could be profitable, too, and he was far- sighted enough to see that the results of doing something like "Man in Space" could be measured in more than just dollars and cents.

How Walt Looked At Things

I am currently rereading Pat Williams' (with Jim Denny) book titled How To Be Like Walt, and something I read in the chapter titled "The Plus Factor" struck me as I was reading other blogs and articles over the last couple of weeks. In the section subtitled "Walt and the Capitalist Bosses", Williams tells a story about Roy Disney pestering Walt to attend a stockholder meeting. Walt always refused to go, but Roy kept after him and finally Walt relented.

At the meeting, Walt took the podium and opened a letter from a man in Florida who owned a few shares of Disney stock. He read the letter to the assembled stockholders, which ended with this sentiment: "I don't care if I ever get any dividends. You just keep up the good work and keep making good pictures."

Walt then added "I wish this company had more shareholders like that one. He understands what Disney is all about." (Roy apparently never asked Walt to attend another stockholder meeting.)

That sums up Walts attitude about his business. It was about doing things right. When he and his employees did things right, they got a very good return on the investment, even if it didn't add up in advance to the beancounters, including Roy. The difference is that Roy understood and trusted Walt, and believed in him.

A huge problem with not only Disney today, but with many large corporations, is not only that there is no Walt running things, there is no Roy to figure out how to accomplish the things that made Disney special.

Does it make Disney special that they still make quality films? I believe it does. Does it make Disney special that they run the most unique theme parks in the world? I believe it does. Does it make Disney special that they run a timeshare business that is, at the moment, hugely profitable? I do NOT think it does. I like the idea of running a profitable DVC operation; I just wish that it could be a supporting part of the resort business instead of the main thrust.

First Post

Welcome to Disney Fan Ramblings, another in a (perhaps) overcrowded selection of blogs about any and all things Disney. This being my first post, I thought I'd write about developing a love for Disney.

It was 1975 when I first visited a Disney theme park. Our high school band was invited to march in the mid-day parade at the Magic Kingdom, and being a 15 year old member of the drum section, I thought I was far too cool to pay much attention to the park itself. My friends and I were totally absorbed with chasing girls from another high school band from New York. Consequently, I don’t remember much about the experience, besides repeated rides on Space Mountain, which was pretty recently opened at the time, and was one of the coolest rollercoasters in the world as far as I was concerned.

Admittedly, my experience with amusement parks at that point in my life was fairly limited. We had been to Six Flags over St. Louis at least once as a family, and I had also gone to that park as part of my grade school band. As a younger child, we regularly went to a park in Addison, Illinois, called Adventureland. Other parks in our area included Santa’s Village (recently closed) and Kiddieland (still open). These parks were dwarfed by Marriot’s Great America, however, which was themed around areas of the United States, like "Hometown Square", "County Fairgrounds", Yukon Territory", and "Orleans Place". As the guests entered Great America, they were treated to the view of a huge double-decker carousel, which is the same view they get today as they enter the park. And the familiar Warner Brothers characters like Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat, and Daffy Duck populated the park.

In the Midwest, specifically the northern part of Illinois, the climate is not conducive to running an outdoor amusement park year around, so someone came up with the idea of building an enclosed park near Bolingbrook, Illinois. It was called Old Chicago, and was in the center of a huge building with an enclosed mall all around it. It had a small indoor log ride, a couple of rollercoasters, one called the Chicago Loop, with corkscrew inversions, and many smaller rides. But it failed in the long run, closing its doors in 1981 after being open for only 6 years. It seemed like a good idea but was probably not exciting enough to compete with the bigger coaster park Great America in the good weather months, and not a big enough shopping mall to bring in money and business.

Even with the limited experience, however, I was too young and too distracted to note the Disney theme park as something special. I was not too young to be able to appreciate some other Disney products, however, like their family films and the weekly television show I grew up with. Watching Uncle Walt introducing each weekly episode was a highlight of my week on Sunday night. It inspired me. It made me want to write stories like those I saw on there. It brought out my creative side. It educated me.

And my favorite movies were Disney fare - mostly animated features like ONE HUNDRED AND ONE DALMATIONS and LADY AND THE TRAMP, though there were live action movies that grabbed me, like THE PARENT TRAP and THE LOVE BUG. I loved the music from the animated features. Songs like CRUELLA DE VIL and HE’S A TRAMP were my songs of choice in the 1960's and early 1970's, before I discovered rock music and abandoned Disney to a younger generation.

Finally, with kids of our own now, we have rediscovered the magic of Disney. The films of old are still wonderful and enthralling for my children and me. The music appears on CDs and I’d often rather hear an old classic tune from a great movie than something more current. And the new films, by Disney Studios and by Pixar both have provided fabulous new additions to the DVD library. But mostly we are enthralled by the theme parks. They provide the escape from the pressures of everyday life that I find I need. They provide the entertainment and relaxation that make our vacations special. And more and more they provide a sort of inspiration for me; to strive to do things than I have been doing better, to be more creative, to try to inspire my own children.

Inspired by my experiences at Walt Disney World and Disneyland Resort, I’ve dreamed of trying to develop a theme park of my own. It’s only a thought experiment, I know, but it’s fun to dream about. (And who knows? Maybe something will come of it someday!) In the course of thinking about such a development, I have read several books and frequented several websites about related subjects. I’ve studied a little about ‘imagineering’, the Disney term for their park and ride designers and builders. I have looked at the Disney company, the behemoth that it has become in the 21st century. And I have studied the men responsible for the company’s beginnings and its growth over the years - Walt and Roy Disney, two brothers who were as different as two people could be, but who knew that they could trust each other implicitly.

I have all but concluded that it would be next to impossible to do what they did. It is a different time and a different climate, both in business and socially. But the relationship between Walt and Roy is the most important part in the equation, and how can anyone duplicate that? More than trust went into it. Brotherly love and familial bonds made it special and probably beyond repeating by design. I doubt that Walt and Roy really understood how their relationship contributed to the success of the Disney corporation until they were already successful beyond their dreams, and maybe not fully even then.

I will try not to be so wordy in future posts. Thanks for looking in here.