A. Film L.A. test

On November 17th, a day shy of Mr. Mouse's 80th birthday, the Sherman Brothers, Richard and Robert, were endowed the National Medal of the Arts at the White House. Of course you know the Shermans, for they wrote most of Disney's songs of the 60s, during the entire period from Sword in the Stone to Aristocats, including Mary Poppins, which won them Academy Awards. They were also prolific outside of Disney, including writing the hit She's Sixteen (She's Beautiful and She's Mine). Currently they have Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang shows around the country. Here they receive the highest national honor in the field of the Arts. If you are wondering, President Bush tells Richard "You boys really deserve this!" and to Robert he says "I'm glad you could make it!" Yesterday night we had a little get-together that included our dear friend Richard Sherman, who asked in advance if we would be interested in seeing the medal. Would we indeed! So here

Known as Mickey's Mellerdrammer, this short directed by Wilfred "Jaxon" Jackson was released on 03/18/33. Though not all the scenes were assigned on this draft, we do find as animators: Paul Fennell, Ham Luske, Les Clark, Frenchy de Trémaudan, Chuck Couch, Eddy Donnelly, Bill Roberts, Johnny Cannon, Gerry Geronimi, Tom Palmer, Fred Moore, Marvin Woodward, Ben Sharpsteen, Roy "Big Mooseketeer" Williams, Harry Reeves and Ed Love. Interestingly, this draft mentions a whole slew of changes to be done, from new camera movements to new action and additions to the backgrounds. In the words of my old mentor Børge Ring: Mickey's Mellerdrama is one of Walt Disney's alltime best. It must have cost a lot in all departments. The atmosphere of backstage amateur-theater is tops. The animation is 10 years ahead of 1933. it is controlled and fine-tuned like in his later features. I bet it went wildly over budget." It can be found, with disclaimer by Leonard Maltin,

To further celebrate Mickey's birthday, I thought it fitting to show another animation draft for one of his earlier achievements. Released on 1/13/34 as Shanghaied, and directed by Burt Gillett, most all of the first part of this short was animated by Norm Ferguson, with scenes by Cy Young (effects), Dick Lundy, Johnnie Cannon, Roy Williams, Hardie Gramatky, Ed Love, Ben Sharpsteen and "Jerry," whom I suspect to be Gerry Geronimi. Five of the scenes have no assignments...

This is the day you were officially born, at the Colony Theater in New York, where for thirteen days you shared the screen with the talkie Gang War. You were conceived in dire straights, some say on a train trip from New York to Los Angeles that started March 13th, 1928, others mention that you first saw the light in meetings between Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks late March early April. We know that Ub animated your first film Plane Crazy by himself in record time in late April in a back room at the small Hyperion Avenue studio, while it was inked and painted in Walt's Lyric Ave garage and then previewed that May 15th. Then Ub, with Les Clark and Johnnie Cannon, animated The Gallopin' Gaucho in June and early July, after which they animated your big break-through Steamboat Willie. The now famous session where your first scenes were previewed by projecting them through the studio's rear window onto a sheet while the crew made noises to fit the actions may well have been on July