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Times Have Changed…

As you can no doubt tell, I’ve been digging through my old issues of Eyes and Ears lately trying to do some research. The perilous part of this is that any given issue from the 1970s can be full of distractions, from interesting historical tidbits that need sharing to things that are simply strange. Or, […]

Watercrafting – Layin’ Keel, 1975

One of the many operational issues facing Walt Disney World when it opened in 1971 was inadequate transportation capacity. Walt Disney Productions simply ran out of time before the resort’s debut, and so the Magic Kingdom opened without enough operational monorails and watercraft to bring visitors in from the Transportation and Ticket Center. Every moving […]

Trick Or Treat On Halloween!

"House cleaning, Halloween style… Sitting in the lap of one of our 999 happy haunts is Jayne Polgar, one of our animation artists who finds that every day is Halloween around here! Jayne spends her time keeping up the appearances of dozens of ghouls and goblins in the Haunted Mansion." – Eyes and […]

Lake Buena Vista Chronicles: Selling The Magic, 1972

Despite the fact that the Lake Buena Vista area is a critical element of the early Vacation Kingdom aesthetic, it often seems that Disney itself had a poor handle on what, exactly, the development was and why it existed. Trying to track the history of the Lake Buena Vista village’s intended purpose is a […]

Eyvind Earle, A Biography

One of Disney’s great, iconoclastic artists was Eyvind Earle, a master painter responsible for bringing a stylized flair to midcentury Disney animation. Earle was heavily involved in the unique backgrounds and production design of Sleeping Beauty. I would elaborate on his biography, but thankfully we are able to see his life through his own words.

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