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...