MAGNETIC MONDAY : 1

This is the first of an occasional series featuring Disney magnets from my collection, beginning with a set of five marking the opening of EuroDisney (now Disneyland Paris Resort) in 1992 and obtained by sending coupons collected from packets of Findus frozen foods.

Note: None of them feature M Mouse Esq.

"WHEN I GET SMITTEN, I STAY SMUT!"

Despite living on the wrong side of the Atlantic, I've been smitten by Charlie McCarthy for years: I love the radio shows and while others may mock the idea of ventriloquism on the wireless, Edgar Bergen proved with Master McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd - as did his British counterpart, Peter Brough, with his equally successful radio shows featuring Archie Andrews - that any vent act (seen or only heard) succeeds solely because of the character and personality of the doll.

Charlie's Disney connections began in 1938 when he appeared in animated form alongside a cartoon W C Fields Humpty Dumptyesque egg in the Silly Symphony, Mother Goose Goes Hollywood...

Photo: Michael Sporn Animation Inc

In 1947, Charlie - along with Mortimer and supported by Edgar Bergen - co-hosted Disney's Fun and Fancy Free, entertaining little Luana Patten with the saga of 'Mickey and the Beanstalk'...


Then, three years later in 1950, Edgar and Charlie were on hand to help Walt launch his first-ever TV show, One Hour in Wonderland, that was a thinly-veiled promotion for the upcoming release of Alice in Wonderland. Charlie chatted with Kathryn Beaumont (dressed in Alice costume) and, here, with Walt's daughters Sharon (left) and Diane (centre)...

Photo: MiceAge

All of the above is a justification for reproducing a couple of items from my collection: an autographed photo of the suave, top-hatted duo...

And One Simple Simoleon: a piece of Charlie McCarthy Mazuma in the form of a One Smacker bill ("Money talks but this doesn't even whisper") that was given away at their live shows. Take a close look at the detail on the note to catch all the witty McCarthyisms...

TWO PORTRAITS OF MARC

I'd like to share a couple of mementos from my long association with Marc Davis, with whom I had the privilege of spending time in Los Angeles (his wife, Alice, was - and I'm sure still is - a fabulous cook!) and London and who contributed to several of my BBC radio series on Disney.

The first is a self-portrait...

The second is a, literal, 'thumbnail' history of Marc's career designed by the brilliant young animator Pres Romanillos (who was taken from us far too early) as a place-setting for a memorable evening in 1999 (the year before Marc's death) when a number of his friends met for dinner with Marc and Alice, at the El Conquistador Mexican restaurant on Sunset Boulevard.

I salvaged two copies at the end of the meal: one was signed to me by Marc and Pres but was subsequently 'lost' by the picture framer to whom I had taken it for framing - so, if you're ever offered a double-signed copy, you'll know the provenance!

Before his death, Pres Romanillos told me that he had presented the original of the drawing to Alice Davis and that it now hangs in their house in Marc's studio.

Marc Frasier Davis (1913–2000) worked for Disney as an artist, animator and designer and was one of Disney's 'Nine Old Men'.
Characters that Davis was responsible for designing or animating include the young Bambi, Thumper and Flower in Bambi (1942), Brer Rabbit in Song of the South (1946), the eponymous heroines of Cinderella (1950) and Alice in Wonderland (1951), Tinker Bell in Peter Pan (1953), Maleficent and the Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Cruella De Vil in 101 Dalmatians (1961). Davis also designed the characters for a number of rides and shows in the Disney parks, among them Disneyland's The Enchanted Tiki Room, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, Carousel of Progress, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Jungle Cruise, America Sings, Haunted Mansion, It's a Small World and the Country Bear Jamboree.

Images uploaded from my Disney flickr Photo Album.

SIGNED 'WALT'

"How much is it?" I asked, and held my breath.

"Forty pounds," he replied.

It's almost forty years ago now, but I remember the conversation as if it were yesterday.

It was an awful lot of money.

I was just twenty years old and had not long been seriously bitten by the Disney-bug.

My fascination with Disney movies had been suddenly intensified when I borrowed R D Feild's book, The Art of Walt Disney from my local library. Here was someone who, unlike my Mum, didn't think of 'cartoons' as the kind of kid's stuff you ought to have grown out of by the time your voice breaks.

I wanted a copy of The Art of Walt Disney more than anything else in the world and began scouring the second-hand bookshops, which is how I stumbled on Fred Zentner. He later became The Cinema Bookshop in London’s Great Russell Street, but then he sold film books, stills, posters and other gems - including a copy of The Art of Walt Disney - from the basement of The Atlantis Bookshop, in Museum Street, just round the corner from the British Museum. Once found, I began, bit by bit, buying up Fred's stock of Disneyana.

Then came the day when he placed into my hands a copy of The Story of Walt Disney as told by Walt's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, to Pete Martin.

It was a first edition American hardback, published by Henry Holt & Co (New York) 1956.

It still had its original dust-wrapper with a design by Disney studio artist Al Dempster and, what's more, it was ----- SIGNED!

On the half-title page, in green biro, with that distinctive bold handwriting was the inscription: 'Best Wishes Walt Disney'...

It was his very signature - including the little circle over the 'i' in 'Disney' that I emulated in my own signature. This man - whom I had never met but who exercised an obsessive fascination over me - had held this book, opened it and inscribed his name inside.

I wanted it!

No, I craved it!

But, FORTY POUNDS...

Forty pounds for a book? My mother would go bananas! Besides, I couldn't afford it. I didn't have forty pounds. I didn't know when I ever would have forty pounds. But, right there and then, I desired that book with a passion that, call me eccentric if you will, I have scarcely felt about anything since.

But, FORTY POUNDS...

It was way beyond my meager means. Then Fred Zentner showed himself to be a man who understood the full anguish of desire, because he made me an offer. If I paid him ten pounds a month for the next four months, he would keep the book for me until I had paid the full forty. Month by month, I made my pilgrimage to The Atlantis Bookshop, looked at the swirling green signature and paid another ten pounds. Then, one day, it was finally mine!

Fast-forward thirteen years to 1982 I am standing in the Archive at the Walt Disney Studio in Burbank, California, talking to Archivist, Dave Smith. I am there researching a television documentary about EPCOT and I mention, in conversation, that the prize of my Disney collection is an autographed copy of The Story of Walt Disney.

Dave Smith laughs and asks a question that almost brings the universe crashing down around my ears.

“Are you sure it's actually signed by Walt Disney?”

“Of course! It says so, in green ballpoint: ‘Best Wishes Walt Disney’!”

“That may be,” he replies, “but many people at the Studio - some of them distinguished animators - signed books and pictures on Disney's behalf.”

I look stunned. But, Dave goes on: “The Disney signatures by these other artists are more like the famous logo signature that appears on Disney movies and merchandise. Walt's personal signature, however, is quite distinctive. Would you like to see a GENUINE Disney signature?'

Nothing could be simpler: within seconds I could know whether or not I owned the real thing. Or, I could leave things as they were. Except, of course, that now I couldn't. Dave Smith had sowed the seed of doubt...

I hesitate for no more than a second. “OK, yes, let's see a GENUINE Disney autograph…”

Dave in fact showed me a whole series of genuine Walt Disney signatures in an article he had written in 1981 for Manuscripts, the journal of The Manuscript Society.

One of them looked like this...

Relief! Joy! The signature was just like mine!

You can read the full Dave Smith Manuscript article at the end of this post.

When, a few years later, I got to know Diane Disney Miller, I asked her about the book and she told me that her father used to sign copies for sale in the bookshop at Disneyland, which was very probably where my copy had originally been purchased.

She also explained that whilst The Story of Walt Disney carried her name as author (and, indeed, included several of her own reminiscences) it had been Walt himself who had collaborated directly with Pete Martin on the book. However, her father had decided that it would be better for his life-story to be presented as if told by his daughter partly because he felt that to tell it himself might appear arrogant, and partly because he wanted the recently married Diane to earn some money.

1998, decade and a half on, I found myself in San Francisco working with Diane on a BBC radio series about her father.

On this occasion, I had carried the treasured volume with me and I asked her to add her signature to the book’s title page.

Diane was modestly reluctant - since, as she had already told me, she didn’t consider herself in any sense the book’s ‘author’. However, she eventually relented and graciously inscribed the book: “For Brian Sibley - a very good friend - Respectfully, Diane Disney Miller”...

A few more years down the road, 2001, I attended the Los Angeles premiere of the documentary Walt Disney: The Man Behind the Myth in which I appeared as an interviewee.

By this time, I had acquired a British edition of what was now called Walt Disney - An Intimate Biography published by Odhams Press (London) in 1958...

At the post-screening party, chatting with Diane and her husband Ron, I produced this volume and asked whether the book’s Non-Author would oblige with another inscription!

Appreciating the joke, she unhesitatingly agreed...

Beneath the printed sub-title - ‘An intimate biography by his daughter, DIANE DISNEY MILLER, as told to Pete Martin’ - she wrote: “Actually, Brian - we know better, don’t we? Warmest, warmest regards, Diane.”

Nowadays, the autograph business is big business: copies of the recent reprint of The Story of Walt Disney with Diane's signature sell for several hundred dollars and someone, in a recent American auction, paid over three thousand dollars for a copy of the original edition signed (also in green ballpoint!) by Walt.

So, all in all, I think that original - and seemingly astronomical - forty pounds of mine was money incredibly well spent!

It is not, however, for any financial value that I treasure these volumes, but for the even more valuable memories and associations that they hold…

***

Here is the article, 'The Most Recognizable Signature in the World' by David R Smith in the Manuscript Society journal, Manuscripts, Vol XXXIII No. 2, Spring 1981

"I FORGOT TO TELL YOU - I'M LOCKED!"

For when you want your bedroom door to be "simply impassable"...

DISNEY IN-DUCK-TION!

It was 1982, and I was on my first visit to Los Angeles. Unlike other holidaymakers who were making an immediate, predictable, bee-line for Hollywood Boulevard, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, Universal Studios and the other attractions of Tinseltown, I jumped in a yellow cab and headed off to “beautiful down-town Burbank” which as well as being the sometime home of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, is the location of the studio known in the business as the Mouse Factory.


I had made a pen-pal of the Disney archivist, David R Smith, and as soon as I’d booked my trip to California, I blagged an invitation to visit the archive. And now here I was, in a state of bleary-eyed wonderment, staring into cabinets containing such holy relics as early Mickey Mouse watches, toys and comic books when I suddenly heard an explosive outburst of spluttering and squawking.

Turning around, I found myself looking at a dapper little man, at the time almost eighty years old, whose face was contorted into a shape that any gurning champion would be proud to have pulled, in order to produce the strangulated voice that could only belong to Donald Duck!

To my astonishment, I found myself being introduced to Clarence Nash who, for nearly fifty years, had been responsible for Donald’s impenetrable vocal tirades and who, rather sweetly, was known to everyone around the studio simply as ‘Ducky’.

So, what do you say to a man who’s spent his life playing a duck (or, more accurately, a ‘drake’) in a sailor suit? Fortunately, there was no need to say anything beyond the basic civilities, because Mr Nash was as loquacious as his fine-feathered friend.

He whisked the archivist and myself off to the Disney commissary where, over lunch, he retailed his history: his early career in vaudeville; his days as a bird impressionist on an LA radio show; his experiences as ‘Whistling Clarence’, touring local schools promoting the products of a local dairy; and his audition for Walt Disney when he had recited ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ in the voice of a baby goat and got re-cast as a duck in the Silly Symphony, The Wise Little Hen.

Mercifully, these anecdotes were not recounted in ‘duckese’ but in English (or, at least, American), and Nash explained that - alone among the Disney voice talents - he had personally dubbed all Donald’s foreign language soundtracks, learning the dialogue phonetically, and then delivering it in French, German, Italian, Spanish and several dozen other lingoes. Then, to the great amusement of the other diners, Nash slipped back into duck-talk and gave a vocal demonstration of his skills.

Whilst, frankly, it was impressive - and the most wonderfully eccentric beginning to any American holiday - the truth is that when Donald Duck flew off the handle in Serbo-Croat, he was as just as unintelligible as in his native tongue. But then maybe the fact that we never really understood was part of his charm.

Blind fury is not the most engaging of attributes, but Clarence Nash at least made it funny. Apart from which, seeing Donald Duck incandescent with rage can only make our own most intemperate outbursts seem positively innocent by comparison!

Here's a treasured memento of my encounter with Ducky Nash...

SITUATIONS VACANT!

My love-affair with Disney began in the cinema, watching re-issues of the classic features and taking huge delight in spotting detailing - particularly in the pictorially rich Pinocchio - that, for many audience-members, would go unnoticed.

Similarly, one of the pleasures of exploring the Disney parks is the chance to discover little out-of-the-way details that are a part of the cumulative atmosphere of the place but which are invariably missed by so many visitors.

When spotted by the observant Disneyite, however, these discoveries take the form of a 'reward' for keeping one's eyes open and taking the time to stop and look up, or down or round this or that corner.

One such place to make a momentary stop is the faux-entrance to the Disneyland Casting Agency on Main Street, USA.

Pause here a moment - while the crowds rush headlong for the hub in their eagerness to get to their favourite rides before the lines lengthen out of sight - and enjoy the beautifully embellished window panel in the door that establishes the style and theme of this charming conceit...

Then peruse the NOW CASTING poster that provides any passer-by who lingers long enough with a series of Disneyesque smiles and chuckles....

You may need to view it at a larger scale in order to read the full details but, among many interesting openings on offer, are (or were in 2005) the following:

ELEPHANT TRAINER
Must work with flying elephants.
Trained in the magic feather technique.
Send resume to: T.M. at our Florida office.
[Note: T.M., Timothy Mouse, obviously]

GHOSTS AND RESTLESS SPIRITS WANTED
Seeking ghosts and goblins to perform with ghoulish delight
in haunted house musical. Spirited performers only.
Auditions at Ghost Relations.

A Jewel of A Role
7 openings for Miner roles. Must work well with animals, princesses
and whistle while you work. Short hours.

MOUNTAIN CLIMBERS
sought for alpine-themes production.
Auditions First Snowfall, Matterhorn Mountain Features.

EXTRAS NEEDED

Children's fantasy film needs extras to play playing cards, Singing Flowers,
and a Doorknob. Singing, dancing and shrinking abilities a plus.
Wonderland Featurettes, Room 10/6. Don't be late.
[Note: The room number is, presumably, the office of the Mad Hatter!]

WANTED:
One Airborne Pixie
Aerial artists to fly in nighttime Extravaganza.
See T. Kline for further info.
[Note: Tiny Kline (born Helen Deutsch, 1891-1964) was Hungarian born
circus performer who performed with Barnum & Bailey and at Disneyland
where (from 1961-1964) she 'flew' from the Matterhorn to Sleeping Beauty's Castle
at the start of the evening's fireworks display.]

There are also some surprising jobs that it is surprising to find are still being advertised, among them...

Miniaturization Technician
Can you operate the mighty microscope?
An inner space adventure needs you. Hurry!
Opportunities are shrinking! Snowflake EFX Ltd.

Ground Controller
Rocket to the Moon (and back). No experience necessary.
Report to Mr. Morrow, Moonliner Flight Systems.

If only those vacancies were still available...

FAIRY-TALE SWEETNESS

If you were seeking proof of Walt Disney's lasting influence on popular culture you'd need look no further than his first feature-length animated film from 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Before the Disney version, there were dozens (probably hundreds) of interpretations by various artists and illustrators as well as at least five early motion picture versions - one of which (made in 1916) had made a striking impact on the youthful imagination of a young lad in Kansas City named Walter Elias Disney.

What all these pre-Disney versions had in common is that they didn't have anything much in common! None of the Snow Whites looked alike and the dwarfs were just seven little men with no names. After Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, virtually everyone knew that the story's heroine wore a yellow dress with blue-and-red puff sleeves and that the dwarfs were called Happy, Grumpy, Sleepy, Sneezy, Bashful and so forth...

And so it's gone on for seventy years and will do so, now, for all time: check out the Snow White on your local ice-cream van and, when Christmas rolls round, the fliers for any Pantomime version near you and you'll see I'm right.

Over those seven decades, Disney's Snow White and her seven dwarfs have been recreated in many different media from topiary to glass, marble to ice and, here, in SUGAR!

Some friends gave me these items of (very unofficial) Disney merchandising at least ten years ago, but I've never had the heart to eat them. So they sit on a shelf gathering dust and must have become so fossilised by now that they'd probably break the teeth of all but the most macho mouse!

I have to confess, however, I'm not entirely sure which dwarf's which - apart from the bespectacled Doc and the beardless Dopey...

Image: © Brian Sibley 2010, uploaded from my Disney flickr Photo Album.

RE: WARD

Here are one or two mementos of my various encounters and correspondences with veteran animator and one of Disney's legendary Nine Old Men, WARD KIMBALL.

First, an inscription from my Disney autograph book by Kimball (using an inky thumb-print to create his face) along with his wife, who was a former Disney painter, Betty Kimball...

Next, a couple of typically anarchic Kimball pieces: a revisionist Model Sheet for animators featuring misrepresentations of the Disney Studio's most famous character...

...and some images of Jiminy Cricket as he was never seen in Pinocchio, by the man who designed and animated the character in the 1940 film...

Finally, a raunchy cartoon which Kimball sent me in 2002, two years before his death, in which the artist depicts himself playing (rather suggestively) with a model railway - a reference to his life-long love of steam locomotives: a passion he shared with Walt Disney and which led to Kimball building the Grizzly Flats Railroad in his California backyard, using sets from Disney's 1948 film, So Dear To My Heart...

Ward Walrath Kimball (1914-2002) began his Disney career as an in-between artist on the 1934 short, The Wise Little Hen and worked on the first Disney feature-length film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs before going on to create numerous classic Disney characters including Pinocchio's diminutive conscience, Jiminy Cricket; the Crows in Dumbo; Bambi's love-interest, Faline; the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and Tweedledum and Tweedledee in Disney's version of Alice in Wonderland; and Jaq and Gus, the mice in Cinderella, and their nemesis, Lucifer the Cat. He also animated the frenetic 'Three Caballeros' musical number from the Disney film of the same name.

In the mid-1950s, Kimball became a director and was responsible for the Academy Award-winning short, Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom as well as three ground-breaking Disney television shows about outer space. His 1969 animated short, It's Tough To Be A Bird won an Academy Award. Subsequent publicity were adapted to read: It's Tough To Be A Bird - but it's great to win an Oscar!

Images uploaded from my Disney flickr Photo Album.

"SAY 'HOW D'YOU DO' AND SHAKE HANDS..."

"...state your name and business!"
WELCOME!
This is a new Sibley blog
devoted to things that areDECIDEDLY DISNEY!

Image: © Brian Sibley; Tweedledee in The Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World, Florida, 2001, uploaded from my Disney flickr Photo Album.