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By Michael - April 30th, 2011 Well, not exactly.
I know that we here at the ProgressDrome can be a little hard on Disney’s output these days. Too often are their televised specials shallow, full of awkward forced synergy, and generally unentertaining and devoid of Disney-related content. I know, I know – we can be really picky. But despite how great Disney specials were back in Walt’s day, it doesn’t mean that the rest of Disney televised history was a golden age.
We’ve already documented many of the horrors of Disney television in the 1970s, from Shields and Yarnell to Pablo Cruise. When Michael Eisner arrived to make the company more “Hollywood” in 1984, the general production values of Disney’s television specials nosed up considerably. That doesn’t mean, however, that they too couldn’t be full of awkward moments that today seem as if they’d have been too cripplingly embarrassing to perform.
On December 28th, 1986, the Disney Sunday Movie aired Tiger Town, starring the great Roy Scheider, but it also featured a short presentation about Star Tours, then preparing for its grand opening at Disneyland. (This, of course, was a great affront to those of us Star Wars obsessed kids on the east coast, who would be unable to fly through the trenches of the Death Star for nearly three more years.)
While this special was shown many years before Jar-Jar Binks would arrive to darken our souls, it begins with a little number that might have been an early warning sign that all that is Lucas is not gold. I mean, look…
Continue reading The Star Tours Christmas Special
By Michael - November 18th, 2010 The estimable Mickey Mouse turns 82 today; hopefully, his birthday is made more happy because it comes on the cusp of a new wave of recognition thanks to the impending Epic Mickey videogame. It’s hard to believe that the corporate icon of today – the giggling, krumping creature of the “Disney Dance Crew” – was once the scrappy, feisty heir of Fairbanks as seen in Plane Crazy or The Gallopin’ Gaucho. Hopefully we’ll see some more of that spark soon!
For your viewing pleasure, we have the special that aired on NBC’s The Magical World of Disney in 1988 to celebrate Mickey’s 60th birthday. If you were around at that time, you’ll no doubt remember that Mickey’s 60th was a huge deal; during the 1980s any major anniversary of a park or character was celebrated, and those early Eisner years saw a number of specials like this. Mickey’s 60th brought Mickey’s Birthdayland and a new parade to the Magic Kingdom in Florida, but it was also celebrated coast to coast and around the world, as can be seen in this special.
As to the special itself, it comes from the couple of years when Disney was partnering with NBC to produce some fairly high-quality original programming. The Magical World of Disney began with the promise of new serial programming – new hour-long specials based on Davy Crockett and The Absent-Minded Professor were produced – in the vein of Walt’s old Wonderful World of Color shows. The push for original programming overlapped nicely with the promise of the upcoming Disney-MGM Studios in Florida.
Of course it never really worked out, but at the time the idea of a return to these classic franchises with a modicum of production values seemed pretty exciting. Let’s face it, once you’ve survived the Klinkers or Kraft, these NBC specials seem like Citizen Kane. Upon watching, I was kind of surprised that it holds up. I watched this a billion times as a kid, but it’s still pretty funny (Charlie Fleischer: “You want me to kill the duck? The duck makes a lot of money…”). At the very least, it reminds us that John Ritter could make the most of any material and that NBC really wishes it still had the primetime lineup from 1988.
So here’s Mickey, with his new friend Roger Rabbit, and a cast of thousands, celebrating Mr. Mouse’s 60th birthday. And a shout-out across the ages to Walt and Ub, for getting the whole thing going and knowing how to make some darn fine cartoon pictures.
Continue reading Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Mouse
By Michael - November 5th, 2010 For your weekend viewing pleasure, courtesy of Progress City Public Access TV…
This classy little documentary was made for the Disney Channel in 1989. It tells the story of Walt’s life, and continues from there through the events of 1984 and beyond. There’s a great deal about Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, which was in production at the time, and which seemed to be a return to the innovation of Walt’s era (never mind that the Roger Rabbit project was originally championed by Ron Miller in the pre-Eisner days).
Anyway, it’s a pretty good bit of television, unusually even-handed in its biography of Walt, and features “talking head” interviews with a number of great Disney artists who are sadly no longer with us. They actually take some time to talk about the process behind the creation of their famous films, and there are a few stories that haven’t been told to death and are worth hearing. The interviews with Eisner and Katzenberg are interesting as well, as they’re in the earlier, humble days and their apparent candor provides an insight that seems so removed from later years when everything went so wrong.
Here’s the special, in six parts.
Continue reading Your Friday Viewing: It All Started With A Mouse – The Disney Story
By Michael - October 28th, 2010 So what’s up at Disney and Pixar, and what are Ron and John working on?
It’s been a while since I’ve done any significant animation coverage because, truthfully, I was tired of chasing rumors. After all, how could I figure out what Disney’s Feature Animation department was up to if they didn’t know themselves? [...]
By Michael - June 27th, 2010 In the summer of 1988, EPCOT was celebrating the arrival of Norway – World Showcase’s 11th pavilion. The pavilion had soft-opened that May, with a grand opening celebration following in June. So by the time of Walt Disney World’s 4th of July parade, it was time to give people a glimpse of the pavilion [...]
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Four Decades of Magic
Essays about the first forty years of Walt Disney World, including two pieces by yours truly. Available in print and for Kindle. |
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