Tag: walt disney

Calendar: December 5

A Year: Day to Day Men: 5th of December

Amazon River Boat

The fifth of December in 1901 marks the birthdate of Walter Elias Disney. He was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur who was a pioneer of the American animation industry. Interested in drawing from an early age, Disney was employed as a commercial illustrator at the age of eighteen. In the early 1920s, he relocated to California and co-founded with his brother Roy the Disney Brothers Studio, now the Walt Disney Company. 

Disney developed, with the design work of American animator Ubbe Ert Iwerks, the character of Mickey Mouse in 1928. In the early years, he provided the voice for this highly popular character. As the studio grew, Disney introduced synchronized sound, full-color three-strip Technicolor, technical developments for cameras, and the introduction of full-length cartoons. The results of these additions can be seen in the Disney Studio’s many popular animated films. 

The first full-length traditionally animated feature film was the 1937 musical fantasy “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, which was based on the Brothers Grimm 1812 German fairy tale. “Pinocchio” and the animated musical anthology film “Fantasia” followed in 1940. “Dumbo”, released in 1941, was based on a storyline about a young elephant with big ears by Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl. This film is one of the shortest animated features for the studio; it was also one of the few features to use wateroolor paint to render the backgrounds.

 In 1942, the Disney Studio released “Bambi”, based on the 1923 novel by Austrian author Felix Salten. Great lengths were taken to animate the deer more realistically; reference studies were made at the Los Angeles Zoo as well as in the Vermont and Maine forests. The film received three Academy Award nominations and was inducted into the National Film Registry. Following World War II, Disney produced both new animated and live-action films, among which were “Cinderella” and the 1964 “Mary Poppins”. 

In the 1950s, Walt Disney expanded into the amusement park industry and opened Disneyland in Anaheim, California in July of 1955. To fund the large project, he diversified into television with “The Mickey Mouse Club” and “Walt Disney’s Disneyland”. Disney was also involved in planning for the 1959 Moscow Fair, the 1960 Winter Olympics, and the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Another theme park, Disney World, started development in 1965; the center of the park was to be a new type of city, the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, or EPCOT. 

A shy, self-depreciating man with an outgoing public image, Walt Disney died of lung cancer in December of 1966, five years before the opening of Disney World. 

Calendar: October 23

A Year: Day to Day Men: 23rd of October

Afternoon Slumber

October 23, 1941 marks the release in New York City of Walt Disney’s “Dumbo”.

“Dumbo” was the fourth animated film produced by Walt Disney Productions. It is based on the storyline written by Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl. Jumbo Junior is the main character, an anthropomorphic young elephant cruelly nicknamed “Dumbo”. He has unusually large ears with which he is capable of flying. His only true friend is Timothy, a mouse, which belied the stereotypical animosity between the two animal species.

The voice actors in “Dumbo” were not given any credit for their roles. This was done for all four of the first animated films Disney made; Walt Disney wished to maintain the illusion with the audience that the characters were real. The title character Dumbo did not have an actor since he did not have any spoken dialogue. Timothy Mouse was voiced by character actor Edward Brody, who frequently played dumb cops and gangsters in films, one of which was role as Brogan in the 1944 “The Thin Man Goes Home”.

“Dumbo” was originally intended to be a short film; but Disney realized, that to do justice to Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl’s book, it needed to be feature-length. Disney Studios was in financial difficulty at the time, as both “Pinocchio” and “Fantasia” did poorly at the box office due to the war in Europe. When the film went into production in early 1941, director Ben Sharpsteen was told to keep the film simple and inexpensive. Thus, “Dumbo” lacks the lavish detail of the previous three animated films; background paintings are less detailed; and the character designs are simpler.

During its production period, the leader of the Screen Cartoonist’s Guild, Herbert Sorrell, demanded that Disney sign with his union, rather than the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, with which Disney had already signed. After Disney refused twice, much of the Disney studio staff went on strike. The strike lasted five weeks, and ended the family atmosphere and camaraderie at the Disney Studios.

The movie was completed in fall of 1941 and RKO Radio Pictures released “Dumbo”. After its October 23 release in New York City, “Dumbo” proved to be a financial success despite the advent of World War II. Despite its low cost, substantially lower than the three previously released Disney animated films, “Snow White”, “Pinocchio”, and “Fantasia”, it eventually grossed the equivalent of twenty-seven million dollars today. “Dumbo” and “Snow White” were the only pre-1943 Disney features to earn a profit.

“Dumbo” won the 1941 Academy Award for Best Original Score, awarded to its musical directors Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace. The film also won Best Animation Design at the 1947 Cannes Film Festival. On July 8, 2014, it was announce that a live-action re-imagining of “Dumbo” was in development, directed by Tim Burton. Casting is now complete and the film is scheduled to be released in March of 2019.

Calendar: February 19

Year: Day to Day Men: February 19

The Coffee Table Book

The nineteenth of February in 1913 marks the birth date of Francis Frederick von Taschlein who was an American animator and filmmaker. Best known as Frank Tashlin, he worked on the Warner Brothers Studio’s series of animated shorts, “Looney Tunes” and “Merrie Melodies”, as well as many successful comedy feature films.

Born in Weehawken, New Jersey, Frank Tashlin left high school at the age of thirteen and began working through a series of various jobs. In 1930, he started working as a animator for film director John Foster on the “Aesop’s Fables” cartoon series. Tashlin joined producer Leon Schlesinger’s cartoon studio at Warner Brothers in 1933 as an animator; the studio had achieved its success with the production of the “Looney Tunes” and later “Merry Melodies” series of shorts.

Tashlin worked with Schlesinger for one year before he joined the Ub Iwerks studio in 1934. Iwerks had worked as a character designer for Walt Disney and refined Disney’s sketch for Mickey Mouse; he would do much of the animation on Disney’s “Silly Symphony” cartoons which included “Steamboat Willie” and “The Skeleton Dance”. Tashlin stayed with Iwerks until 1934 and then worked for one year with Hal Roach’s studio. 

In 1936, Frank Tashlin returned to Schlesinger as the head director for the animation department at Warner Brothers. With his knowledge of the industry and his diverse interest in animation, he brought a new understanding of camera techniques to the department. Animated shorts began to use montages, vertical and horizontal pan shots, and shots taken from different camera angles. From 1936 to 1938, Tashlin directed almost twenty shorts. After an argument with studio manager Henry Binder, he resigned and worked for a few years in Disney’s story department. 

Tashlin joined Columbia Pictures’s Screen Gems animation studio as production manager in 1941. He was effectively in charge of the studio and hired many former Disney artists who had left as a result of the Disney animators’ strike over pay inequities and unionization efforts. Tashlin launched one of the better products of the studio, “The Fox and Crow” series which ran until the studio closed in 1946. His stay at Columbia lasted only one year as he was fired after an argument with Columbia executives. 

In 1942, Frank Tashlin rejoined the Warner Brothers animation studio as a director. Among the cartoon shorts he directed were “Porky Pig’s Feat” in 1943 and two Bugs Bunny features, the 1945 “Unruly Hare” and 1946 “Hare Remover” which was Tashlin’s last credited film at Warner Brothers. Tashlin worked on the studio’s wartime shorts during the years of World War II. Before he left Warner Brothers, he directed some stop-motion puppet films for producer John Sutherland. Tashlin’s 1947 puppet animation film “The Way of Peace” was selected in 2014 for entry into National Film Registry.

From 1946 until 1951, Tashlin became a gag writer for such comedians as Lucille Ball and the Marx Brothers; he also worked as a screenwriter for Bob Hope and comedian Red Skelton. Tashlin began his career as a director of feature films when he was asked to finish directing Bob Hope’s 1951 “The Lemon Drop Kid”. His successful streak of box-office successes began in 1956 with “The Girl Can’t Help It” starring Jane Mansfield and Tom Ewell. This was followed by the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis 1956 “Hollywood or Bust” and the 1957 “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter” that starred Jane Mansfield, Tony Randall, Betsy Drake and Joan Blondell. Tony Randall received a Golden Globe nomination for his role and the film was selected in 2000 for entry into the National Film Registry. 

Frank Tashlin was the director for six of Jerry Lewis’s early solo films, among which were the 1958 “The Geisha Boy”, the 1960 “Cinderfella”, and “The Disorderly Orderly” in 1964. He also directed the 1965 “The Alphabet Murders” and the 1966 “The Glass Bottom Boat’ with Doris Day, Rod Taylor, Arthur Godfrey, Paul Lynde, and Dom DeLuise. Tashlin’s last directorial work was the 1968 comedy “The Private Navy of Sgt. O’Farrell” with Bob Hope, Phyllis Diller and Jeffery Hunter.

Over the course of his career, Tashlin worked on four dozen animated shorts, including a dozen of Porky Pig’s earliest appearances, and forty-four feature films, either as director, writer, or producer. Frank Tashlin was stricken with a coronary thrombosis in his Beverly Hills home on the second of May in 1972. He died three days later on the fifth of May at Los Angeles’s Cedar-Sinai Medical Center at the age of fifty-nine. Tashlin is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

 

Mickey Mouse Christmas

Walt Disney’s 1932 “Mickey’s Good Deed”

Early in his career, Mickey Mouse starred in the 1932 Christmas themed “Mickey’s Good Deed”, an animated black and white short film that was released during the Depression years. This film has resurfaced throughout the years and was re-issued to theaters in 1974. Released just prior to Christmas on the seventeenth of December in 1932, “Mickey’s Good Deed” was directed by Burt Gillett who had overseen many of Disney’s short subjects, including the 1933 “Three Little Pigs”. 

The voice of Mickey Mouse was provided by Walt Disney himself, a role he performed until 1947. The voice of Plute in this film was done by Pinto Colvig, known for being the original voice of Goofy. Although originally in black and white, it was eventually colorized for future showings. Released in home video compilations, it was also retitled for some releases as “Mickey Plays Santa” and “Mickey’s Lucky Break”. 

In addition to the warmth and humor in “Mickey’s Good Deed”, there are also scenes involving orphaned kittens in a dilapidated house and a scene in which Mickey is forced to sell Pluto to a family of pigs so he can care for the kittens. Of course there is a happy ending as Pluto runs from the pigs’ house carrying their turkey dinner, and later emerges through the snow to his Mickey. As they eat their turkey dinner, Mickey declares “Merry Christmas” to Pluto.

Dance of the Hours

Dance of the Hours, “Fantasia”, 1940, Walt Disney

A little known fun fact about the “Dance of the Hours” segment in Disney’s “Fantasia” is that the ostriches pirouetting in the opening of the piece are performing in drag!  While their bows, long eyelashes, and ballet slippers suggest a feminine side, their black feathers give them away!  Only male ostriches have black feathers, while females are colored a brownish-grey.

Mars and Beyond

Walt Disney Studios, “Mars and Beyond”, Computer Graphics, Animation Gifs

“Mars and Beyond” is an episode of Disneyland which aired on December 4, 1957. It was directed by Ward Kimball and narrated by Paul Frees. This episode discusses the possibility of life on other planets, especially Mars. It begins with an introduction of Walt Disney and his robot friend Garco, who provide a brief overview. It continues with an animated presentation about mankind seeking to understand the world in which he lives, first noticing patterns in the stars, and developing certain beliefs regarding the celestial bodies.