Progress City, U.S.A.

I’ve long wanted to start writing book reviews here on Progress City, as recent years have been filled with a slew of great new titles dissecting every aspect of the Disney empire. Hopefully I can make time to do that, but this year looks to be filled with just as many interesting new tomes that it might be impossible to ever clear up the backlog.

I’m perhaps most excited about the upcoming release, on May 6th, of The Art of Walt Disney World. A companion volume to the excellent The Art of Disneyland, the book has already received a rave review from respected Disney historian Didier Ghez. Authored by prolific Disney authors Jeff Kurtti and the late Bruce Gordon – who, thankfully, left us with more posthumous releases than Tupac Shakur – this illustration-heavy edition will contain lots of little-seen conceptual art from the creation of the resort.

I’m incredibly excited about this release, as conceptual art from Walt Disney World has been much harder to find over the years than art from the development of Disneyland. We all know the handful of renderings that were released repeatedly in 1971; perhaps the only park to have its development well documented publicly was EPCOT Center, thanks to the now-legendary Walt Disney’s EPCOT Center: Creating the New World of Tomorrow.

The only problem is that, incomprehensibly, this book will only be made available in stores at Walt Disney World. Not online, not at Amazon… nowhere. Why? A large swath of Disney fandom has been waiting for this book for several years – it has been delayed many times – and not all of us can just pop down to the Emporium to pick up a book we’re interested in. This is another of those odd instances when I’m raring to give Disney my money but they refuse to take it. Of course, if they want to send me a review copy…

Staying in the theme parks, today marked the release of The Imagineering Field Guide to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The next in a series of pocket-sized editions that contain brief histories of various Disney parks, these “Field Guides” rarely have any earth-shattering revelations for die-hard fans but they always have some nice artwork and provide a good primer to the park and its history. I do think they missed a chance, though, by not offering a more expensive version without the dreaded Hat on the cover. I know I would have chipped in a few extra bucks not to have to see that on my bookshelf.

Heading to the world of animation, we have several new titles relating to Pixar and its films. The studio’s forthcoming feature Up has quite a few tie-in releases, most notably The Art of Up by Tim Hauser (The Art of WALL.E). Up also gets a Little Golden Book, and two picturebooks based on the film’s canine character Dug: Beware of Dug! and My Name is Dug, featuring art by Pixar vet Ronnie del Carmen.

Finally there’s The Pixar Treasures, also by Tim Hauser. Amazon says:

The Pixar Treasures is a scrapbook of instinct and inspiration, experiences readers can touch, and visions that exist only in the imagination. It begins with a group of animators who were inspired by Walt Disney films. In the late 1970s and early ’80s, John Lasseter, Brad Bird, and Joe Ranft were hired into an apprenticeship program at Walt Disney Productions. The last of Disney’s golden age artists, including animators Eric Larson, Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, and Ollie Johnston mentored the young dreamers, and as Pixar later developed, their work would draw heavily from this direct connection with Walt Disney’s “Nine Old Men.” The tale continues with Pixar’s foray into computer animation, and the resulting success of Toy Story. With chapters on A Bug’s Life; Monsters, Inc.; Finding Nemo; The Incredibles; Cars; Ratatouille; and WALL*E, Hauser’s narrative covers the struggles, growth, and successes of an incredible animation studio. And it gives readers a sneak peak at the newest Disney*Pixar film, Up. Filled with unique removable keepsakes, The Pixar Treasures is an essential collector’s item for every Pixar fan.

Happy reading…

UPDATE: Amazon has just listed Art of The Princess and the Frog, based on the next release from Disney Feature Animation. The book releases on September 1, and is authored by the omnipresent Jeff Kurtti. That guy is everywhere…

UPDATE THE SECOND: I smack my forehead as RandySavage points out in the comments below a very glaring omission from my post. On November 3, Disney will release Walt Disney Imagineering: A Behind the Dreams Look at Making More Magic Real. This is a sequel to the popular 1996 edition, Walt Disney Imagineering: A Behind-The-Dreams Look At Making The Magic Real. Also – and I really can’t believe I forgot this one – there’s South of the Border with Disney: Walt Disney and the Good Neighbor Program 1941-1948, an October release that will tell the story of the Disney animators’ research trips to South America during World War II and the package films that followed – Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, and the unproduced Cuban Carnival. This is one of my absolute favorite periods of Disney animation and I’m incredibly excited to see what never-seen surprises emerge from this book. Author J.B. Kaufman has discussed the project on the Walt Disney Family Museum site.

I also left out a couple of critical new animation titles such as June’s release of A Disney Sketchbook 1928 – 2008, a compilation of development art from the history of the Disney animation studios. October brings Walt Disney Animation Studios – The Archive Series: Animation, the next volume in the series of Disney Studios art that began with last year’s Walt Disney Animation Studios – The Archive Series: Story.

There’s been a big surprise for Disney music fans this week – without notice or warning there appeared on Amazon and other online retailers a listing for a 4-CD box set entitled Disneyland Goes to the World’s Fair. The collection is set for release on November 11th, 2008. Far from being unknown to Disney music aficionados, this set has been known to many for years – we just never thought we’d see it!

A musical retrospective based on the Disney pavilions of the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair – the Carousel of Progress, Magic Skyway, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln and it’s a small world – was originally planned in 2001 by former Imagineer and prolific Disney author, Bruce Gordon. When that release ran into rights issues – rumor has it that there were legal hurdles concerning the tracks from Ford’s Magic Skyway attraction – the project was scrapped. The project was revived in 2004 when Gordon and Walt Disney Records park music guru Randy Thornton worked together on the Disneyland 50th anniversary retrospective set, “A Musical History of Disneyland.” But when Gordon left the company and subsequently passed away in 2007, all seemed lost for the World’s Fair compilation.

But this long process, as described in a posting by Thornton himself, has a happy ending for music fans. Thornton has continued the project, restoring and remastering the source elements to provide a set of tracks far clearer than the original temp elements that were leaked onto the web years ago. The set will be accompanied by liner notes based on Gordon’s original work, and all legal hurdles have been cleared which precludes the need for this to be a “limited edition.” The artwork above (which erroneously states “limited edition”) is from Gordon’s original work on the project; Thornton is currently working to clear it for use on the current release.

From the Amazon listing:

DISNEYLAND GOES TO THE WORLD’S FAIR is a rare “behind the scenes” look at Walt Disney’s contribution to the 1964 World’s Fair. It was here where Walt unveiled several unique attractions and exhibits that would forever change not only DISNEYLAND, but greatly influence the future of Disney Theme Parks yet to be imagined.

THIS 4 CD BOX SET includes a 24-page full color booklet and more than 3 HOURS OF RECORDINGS from the classic attractions and exhibits Walt Disney and his team of artists created for the 1964 New York World’s Fair.

The original 2001 release, which has been traded online amongst Disney fans for years, is fantastic, which only makes it more exciting to finally be able to purchase a high-quality version with liner notes. Even if you might already have a version of this sitting on your hard drive, it’s time to step up and buy a real copy to show Walt Disney Record executives that there’s a healthy market for park-related releases. Hopefully this trip to the World’s Fair will only prove that there’s “a great big beautiful tomorrow” for Disney music fans.

Here’s some bits and bobs to clean out my stack of interesting stories that have been piling up…

First, we have Mickey Mouse from the Year 900!!!

The “Stuff From the Parks” blog has posted this fascinating diagram from 1954 of a proposed layout for Main Street at Disneyland. Notable are the early ideas for shop themes, the Nautilus set walk-through in the Opera House and accompanying animation studio demonstration, and most interestingly the International Street concept that would never be built but resurfaced nearly thirty years later as World Showcase at EPCOT Center.

One of the stories that kind of slipped under the radar recently was that Scott Trowbridge, vice president of Universal Creative Studios, was hired away by Walt Disney Imagineering and is now the new vice president of creative research and development. This is big, big news as Trowbridge was senior show producer on The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, a perennial contender for the title of best dark ride ever created. This is a huge coup for WDI and I can’t wait to see what it leads to.

Staying in the parks, about.com has an interesting talk with Imagineer Tony Baxter about Disneyland’s new Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage and the path that the attraction took from the original Submarine Voyage’s senseless closure in 1998. While a great story, it underlines how my ‘home park’ in Florida has suffered from the lack of a powerful champion in WDI’s brain trust.

MiceAge tours Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disneysea, as well as providing a look at some rare conceptual art for EPCOT Center’s Spaceship Earth.

John Lasseter talks about animated shorts, WALL-E, and Pixar’s future slate and animation’s chances at the Oscars. WALL-E has started having sneak previews, and Leslie Iwerks’ documentary The Pixar Story has started a round of public screenings.

Women build shrine to Cars on Route 66!

Disneyland in Malaysia! Disneyland in… Siberia? Malaysia and Siberia might want to call Hong Kong, who’s going to have to bail out the faltering Hong Kong Disneyland, which continues to fall below attendance expectations due to the glaring lack of any actual amusement in their amusement park.

Finally, I should mention the passing of renowned Imagineer and author Bruce Gordon who died November 6th at the far too young age of 56. Gordon was a fan favorite at various conventions, and authored or co-authored a number of authoritative books on Disney parks, animators, and imagineers. He was currently working with the Disney family on The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco and had a number of books in the pipeline for publication. He will be greatly, greatly missed.

And… this. Umm…

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