A. Film L.A. test

"If the audience becomes conscious of the quality of your drawings, it means that you have lost their interest in the scene." --Ollie Johnston, in a letter to my old mentor Børge Ring. Think about it for a while...

Little over a month ago, Didier Ghez pointed us at a photo for sale on eBay, of Disney story man Ralph Wright. Just before that, my Alice collecting friend Matt gave me copies of this article in the July 8th, 1951 Sunday Oregonian Magazine, featuring Wright using the same picture of him. Here is the article... Ralph Wright (his personal data seem obscure, and even on IMDb the dates are said to be wrong) worked for Disney from December 1938 to 1945, then from 1950 to 1958 and again from 1966 to 1971. In 1945 he was located in room 3B-4, in 1957 in 3D-5 and in 1967 in 3B-8 in the Animation Building. Somewhere in there, from 1946 to 1949, he had a stint working with Dave hand at Rank's British Cookham studio, but the article obviously does not mention this. Nowadays, of course, he is most known for being the voice of Eeyore...

A visit to an antique mall some time ago yielded these photos of a kid at a studio microphone in the 1940s. At first, he seemed unknown - but a look at the text on the back told me otherwise. There seems to be very little info available about Paul Bryant (not the football coach). He was already at an early age a little radio star, though, when he became the voice of the George Pal Puppetoon character Jasper ! Hungarian-born Pal, seen holding the Jasper puppet in the image on the right, had very little contact with people of other race before he came from Holland to the USA, so he did not find anything offensive in the antics of this little innocent, but stereotypically naive African-American character. It seems to have come as a surprise to him that a group of people took offense to this series. Be that as it may, little Paul Bryant was a movie star in his own right. The writing on the first image reads "To Miss Dolares [?] who thought I was good enough for radio. Sincerely, Paul

Something just occurred to me: this blog had its second anniversary four days ago, and I forgot to celebrate... What was there to celebrate, you ask? Well, I was pretty happy to be able to explain the timing to a musical beat using different kinds of original Disney bar sheets , with click track examples - and I made a little pc metronome for just that. Then there are the Who is who's, by way of animation drafts for 62 short films, four whole features ( Pinocchio , The Three Caballeros , Alice in Wonderland and One Hundred and One Dalmatians ) and parts of several others; 14 Action Analysis Classes and Technical Manuals of the 30's; photos and articles . I suggest that new visitors browse the archives! In the mean time I go look for more skeletons to drag out of the closet... Like this one. Yes, that is Les Clark with the little moustache, looking down. And I believe the older gent in the front is Earl Hurd, the legendary inventor of cels, who was at Disney's until he

There was counter service, too! The special menu can be seen in the holders... < Click on it! Do you recognize anyone in this picture? I seem to have seen the gentleman at the back left of the first counter (with the striped shirt) before, but where?

Once in a while a menu turns up on eBay from the Walt Disney Studio Restaurant - I bet most of you have seen it. But what did the restaurant - "The Commissary" look like, back in the 40's? Well, part of it looked like this at 12:22 pm... < Click on it! I don't have my menu close right now, but I actually found one just now for sale, so I added its pictures to give this post some color. Clearly visible in this picture is John Lounsbery (right under the right "pipe"). I think that the top of then-lay-outer and later Imagineer Herb Ryman is seen in the left-front of the front counter, and I believe a gentleman in the back center staring straight at us is background painter (and also future Imagineer) Claude Coats. In the very back, left of center possibly Milt Kahl, looking screen left... Others?

I liked the images that accompany an otherwise not too interesting story in the Saturday Evening Post of October 31, 1953. This is the reason I only scanned the two pages with pictures, and for good measure, I descreened them, so they are quite a lot clearer. I especially like the casual shots around Walt's Holmby Hills house, the red barn and the image of Walt making his caboose... This brings me to an event that took place this Saturday the 17th at Walt's Barn, care of the Carolwood Pacific Historical Society , in Griffith Park (on Zoo Drive off Forest Lawn Drive). First a few interiors of the barn and a few layouts of Walt's Carolwood Pacific Railroad. It is certainly worth visiting if you are interested in Walt's history. There are also plenty of Ward Kimball and Ollie Johnston memorabilia on display. How about becoming a member of this worthy organization? The event was the inauguration of Ollie Johnston's Depot at the Carolwood Society's location on the gr

My old mentor Børge Ring asked to revisit this painting, done by his hero Norm Ferguson. I happened to have copied it off Van Eaton Galleries ' site in 2004 before they sold it... < Click on it! "Paul" was obviously an editor. But what's his last name?

I was surprised to see a "Buy" button (in Danish "Køb") on the publisher Vandkunsten's website for the new Kay Nielsen book by Colin White. It was originally slated for last year - then changed to Spring 08. So I wrote the publishers for info on the English version. This is the disappointing answer I just received: "Don't let the Buy button fool you - it [which I believe to be both the Danish and English versions] is now slated for a late Fall 2008 publication." [Nov. 2009: date now shows as February 2010.] [Jan. 2011: date now shows as March 2011.] [Apr. 2011: date now shows as October 2011.]

Here is a little article from Liberty magazine of November 26th, 1938, "What Snow White's Father is Doing Now - Walt Disney's Startling New Plans." It tells, among other things, of Bambi as the follow up to Snow White, followed by Pinocchio. It announces the Sorcerer's Apprentice, and tells of the new studio that ultimately cost over two million, and not the $750,000 as Walt estimates here. When I read this, I could wonder why the strike ever even happened... Interestingly, the featured article in this magazine is "Why Russia is Powerless" by Leon Trotsky - an answer to an article in a previous Liberty magazine...

The Saturday Evening Post of 11/17/1956, Vol. 229 Issue 20 featured the beginning of the story "My Dad, Walt Disney," by Diane Disney Miller as told to Pete Martin. The cover was masterfully painted by none other than Gustaf Tenggren , the inspiration for the drawing style of (among other films) Pinocchio - but until I stumbled over this article, I only knew the feature story that later was reprinted as the book The Story of Walt Disney (Henry Holt and Company, New York 1957 - and Dell paperback). Here now is the story of the cover, with a self portrait of Tenggren. I added a small image of the actual cover, as well... < Click on it! In the foreword to the latest re-issue of the book, Mrs. Miller tells how she hardly had any hand in the book. Her father would only have Pete Martin do the book if it was in her name. On the other hand, she was present at all the interviews, and interjected some questions, which in itself is not an unimportant contribution... Read more on G

Here is a cartoon I happened upon at a paper show. It was printed in the Oakland Post Enquirer of Thursday, March 13, 1930... < Click on it! Written by Walt himself, drawn by Win Smith (See the comments).

Since Mike Barrier is posting about El Gaucho Goofy, I thought it might be nice to show this August 1942 article in Fortune magazine, in which this film is mentioned... I especially like the quote about Walt's relation to the dollar... This reminds me that I am looking forward to seeing Ted Thomas' film " Walt and El Groupo "...

Here is an article from the Better Homes & Gardens magazine of January 1940. It features photos of Walt's Woking Way home in the Los Feliz/Silverlake district overlooking the Hyperion Avenue studios, where Walt and Lillian lived since they left their Lyric Avenue house in 1932, until February 1st, 1950 when they moved into their Carolwood Drive house in Holmby Hills. The $50,000 twelve-room French-Norman style house on Woking Way was built in the summer of 1932 in a mere two and a half months, to be in time for a baby that never arrived. The happy occasion finally occurred in December 1933 with the birth of daughter Diane Marie Disney. The text in the article is very general, but I still thought this interesting enough to post here. By the way, all three houses were built by Walt himself. The 355 North Carolwood Drive mansion was incomprehensibly destroyed quite recently by the new owners, but like the $8,000 house on 2495 Lyric Ave, Walt's 4053 Woking Way house is still th

In this Readers Digest (August 1934) version of an article from the July 1934 Woman's Home Companion, we find on page 108 a simple description of the bouncing ball system to record Steamboat Willie... We also find mention of "the three raids on Disney's staff." Now - the first was Mintz' Oswald take-over in early 1928, and the second was Pat Powers' Iwerks/Stalling maneuver in January 1930. But what was the third that this article refers to?

As all of you have seen recently, here and on other blogs, collectors Robert and Jenny Cowan have been very kind in sharing images from their amazing collection, including the Ingeborg Willy scrapbook (retracted, at least temporarily, due to possible legal issues). To give us his own thoughts and back stories, Robert has started a blog of his own, Cowan Collection: Animation in which he highlights some of the amazing pieces. Todays goodies are some gorgeous Eyvind Earle paintings from Sleeping Beauty. I especially like that the blog and its creator do not pretend to be purely historically oriented, but also give an insight into collecting for the beauty of the art's sake, and this includes the very interesting choices that the Cowans have made as to the framing of the pieces. A Tenggren in a two-sided frame is something we should see more of, and the Just Mickey cell on a Haunted House background makes for a good conversation piece in any house, however historically misplaced. Th

Without a doubt, the single most important event for Walt Disney's success was the success of Mickey Mouse. "Let's not forget, it all started with a mouse..." And the most important reason Mickey was a success? Synchronization! Steamboat Willie is considered, not as the first sound cartoon, but the first cartoon with a character that is perfectly synchronized to the sound track, when this was still a novelty. When the Colony Theater in New York opened its doors on November 18th, 1928, theatergoers were excited because they watched a cartoon character seemingly have a life of its own, with sound. That was Walt's big breakthrough, and the reason his company is still around. So... How did they set about it? Ok, here goes, off the top of my head... After Walt was unable to secure distribution for his first silent Mickey cartoons Plane Crazy and Gallopin' Gaucho, he decided that the breakthrough he needed was sound. But he did not know how to do this. Wilfred "