ON THE BOOKSHELF

However much you may think you know about Disney, Jim Korkis knows more and in his latest volume, The Vault of Walt Volume 2 he serves up another endlessly diverting potpourri of stories and anecdotes about Walt, his films, TV shows and parks. Like it's predecessor this is a classic bedside book – the perfect volume for dipping into with the guaranteed promise that wherever you dip you'll find some surprising new fact about movies, characters and theme park attractions that had somehow previously passed you by.

There are so many good reads in this book that it is hard to pick favourites: not surprisingly, I guess, I was particularly interested to read Jim's take on the the creative collision between Walt and P L Travers over Mary Poppins (now practically perfectly mythologised by the film Saving Mr Banks) but I also relished the behind-the-scenes detail on the making of those iconic Mickey Mouse projects, Steamboat Willie and 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' sequence in Fantasia; the unfilled plans for Disney's idea of a train-travelling diorama show featuring scenes of turn-of-the-century American life and the background to the design and building of EPCOT's Spaceship Earth.

I digress for a moment, here, to relate how, on the night of the Epcot opening party, I was (due to my friendship with Disney legends John Hench and Marty Sklar) a lone British journalist amoung the tuxedoed VIPs (my colleagues were being entertained in 'Rosie O'Grady's' in downtown Orlando) I was wandering past Spaceship Earth when I bumped into Ray Bradbury and one of his daughters and he asked if I'd like to ride "his ride" with them! An unforgettable evening...

Anyway, back to Korkisland: every reader will have favourite sections, for me the best are those providing insights into the man, Walt Disney. This provides an important contribution to American (and world) culture as time marches on and only sexagenarians are be able – with authority – to say, yes, Virginia, there is (or was) a Walt Disney!

I'll leave the last word to the luminaries (well, all bar one!) who provide the opening testimonials for this excellent book...

Not Disney, but classic animation...

Did you grow up with Bullwinkle and Rocky. George of the Jungle, Dudley Do-Right and (the original) Mr Peabody and Sherman? These classic '50s TV cartoons were the creations of American animation producer, Jay Ward and are now celebrated in a new book, The Art of Jay Ward Productions.

Researched and written by veteran animator, Darrell Van Citters (Disney – Fox and the Hound – Warner Bros and his own studio Renegade Animation) who previously wrote the definitive book on the making of UPA's Mr Magoo's Christmas Carol, this is a sumptuous volume of 352 pages, jam-packed with character-sketches storyboard drawings, concept art, backgrounds and meticulously detailed information on the exceptional team of artists and talents who worked with Jay Ward to give us 'Fractured Fairy Tales', 'Tom Slick' and 'Super Chicken', and whose work ranks alongside the best of the Hollywood cartoon studios.

A 'must' for all animation fans, this engaging slice of cartoon life, brilliantly captures an era in the revolutionary graphic style so redolent of the 1950s and the zany scripts by Ward's co-producer, Bill Scott, that combined wacky knockabout fun with sophisticated puns.

And an added bonus: the book has a Foreword by the voice of Rocky (and sundry Disney characters, including Lucifer, Witch Hazel and Magica De Spell) –– the one and only Miss June Foray!

MICKEY MONDAYS: Manifestations of the Mouse

Back in 1982, prior to the opening of EPCOT Center, I was interviewing a top Disney executive for a BBC television documentary I was making about Walt Disney World's second gated attraction.

"Will Mickey and the other familiar Disney characters have a role at EPCOT?" I asked. Mr Exec shook his head. "No," he replied with firmness, "you will only ever encounter Mickey and the gang at their home in the Magic Kingdom."

Well, it didn't take long for that policy to undergo revision as you can see from a publicity photo from 1985, showing the Mouse dressed as an archetypal image of the nation that once owned America as a colony...

Mickey's outfit is inspired by the distinctive costume of 'The Yeomen Warders of Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London, and Members of the Sovereign's Body Guard of the Yeoman of the Guard Extraordinary', popularly known as the Beefeaters.

The caption reads:

CHIEF CHEESEATER -- You've seen the famous Beefeaters of the Tower of London. Now meet Mickey Mouse in his costume for WorldFest, December's international festival in the United Kingdom Showcase at Epcot Center. Special holiday entertainment, yuletide decorations, sidewalk food stands and week-end performances of "Skyleidoscope" with its racing dragons and rainbow aircraft are among special features in World Showcase during December.

JOHN HENCH - SEASON'S GREETINGS

Well, the Christmas cards are already pouring in and, shame on us, we haven't done a single one! This is partly due to the pressure of work deadlines coupled with the fact that we are having to prepare to move out of our home of many years occupation. So, apologies to friends for the lack of seasonal greetings this year...

Anyway, the daily influx of images of robins, snowmen and stagecoaches reminded me that for some twenty years my Christmas was given an extra Disney dimension of pleasure through the receipt of personal greetings cards from some of the great Disney animators and artists: Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson, Marc and Alice Davis, Joe Grant and, the subject of today's post, John Hench.

I first met John, legendary artist and Imagineer, early in 1982 when I visited Glendale, California, and Orlando, Florida, to research a BBC TV documentary on Disney's EPCOT which was, finally, under construction at Walt Disney World.

I was thrilled to visit the studios and workshops of Disney Imagineering and quickly made what would prove to be long-lasting friendships with a number of the creative personnel and, in particular, the unit's President, Marty Sklar, and Senior Vice President John Hench.

John was a true 'Renaissance Man' as all who know of his work will agree: his contribution to animated films from Fantasia through to Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan; his influential work in shaping the Disney theme park experience in Disneyland, Walt Disney World or any of the other parks where his philosophy of entertaining and managing people is still followed; his illustrations to Disney picture books or his 'official portraits' of Mickey Mouse painted for the studio over a number of years.

The opening of EPCOT Center in October 1982, was marked by – amongst many media events – my TV programme, Waltopia. Two months later, I received my first Christmas card from John celebrating the EPCOT achievement...

Click on any image to see larger versions

John and I renewed our friendship a few years later, in 1985, when I was back in Los Angeles making the first of several radio series and specials on Disney subjects.

That year, we began exchanging Christmas cards and continued to do so until shortly before his death in 2004 at the age of 95.

Here for your enjoyment are eighteen years of seasonal Hench artwork demonstrating his diverse skills as a draughtsman and his wide-ranging interest in art...

1985

1986

John's 1886 design is inspired by the woodcuts of the German Renaissance artist, Hans Weiditz the Younger (1495–c.1537), also known as The Petrarch Master

1987

The 'Friends' depicted on either side of John and his wife, Lowry, are (to the left) Salvador Dali (with whom John had worked on the planned Disney film, Destino), Henri Matisse and René Magritte; and (to the right) Pierre Bonnard and the young and old Pablo Picasso. As the inscription in the bottom left hand corner explains, the piece is also a tribute to the 19th Century French caricaturist, Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard, known by the pseudonym, J J Grandville.

1988

This card is a tribute to the magic of the 18th Century French conjuror, Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, who illusions included the magic portfolio from which all kinds of wonders would be produced. John and Lowry's cat is AII: both a paper-size and short for Arabella II, the first Arabella having departed the previous year (hence her appearance in angel-form on the puppet booth in the previous card)

1989

A magic lantern tribute to Salvador Dali. The emblematic head is a pastiche of one created by Dali for the Disney film Destino

1990

This card is in the style of the Hours of Catherine of Cleves (now in the Morgan Library and Museum), an ornately illuminated manuscript in the Gothic style, made in about 1440 by the anonymous Dutch artist known as the 'Master of Catherine of Cleves'

1991

1992

1993

John celebrates 'the best spaghetti factory': Fratelli De Cecco di Filippo in Arbruzzo, Italy

1994

Salvador Dali (this time his museum in Figueres, Catalonia) once again provides the inspiration for a Hench Christmas card

1995

Port Lligat was the location of Salvador Dali's home on the Costa Brava. On the reverse John acknowledged receipt of a copy of the book Walt Disney's 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs': The Making of the Classic Film which I wrote with Richard Holliss

1996

1997

The card carries the message, 'Les Heureux Presages' – The lucky Omens

1998

On his 1998 card, John renders the artist and his cat as Magritte-like windows onto a sea-scape

1999

A Chaucerian feast for Christmas 1999

2000

An inscription on the reverse explains John's 2000 design...

2001

The caption reads: 'A stimulating environment produces neurogenesis!' Neurogenesis (birth of neurons) is the process by which neurons are generated. Most active during pre-natal development, neurogenesis is responsible for populating the growing brain with neurons. In addition to bells, trumpets, candy canes and holly, the imagery on this 2001 card features a Dali lobster-telephone

2002

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