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By Michael - November 30th, 2009  The Walt Disney Family Museum has released a short tease of the 51-minute film Christmas with Walt Disney, which recently premiered at the Museum’s own theater. Produced by Don Hahn, who seems to be everywhere these days, the film provides a look at Christmas through Walt’s eyes, with a mix of Disney family home movies and clips from Disney films and television specials.
The film will play daily at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco from November 27th, 2009 until January 4th, 2010. There are multiple showtimes daily; details can be found at the Museum’s website.
The mix of Disney + Christmas is quite a cocktail of My Favorite Things, so I’m sad I won’t be able to make it to the Presidio to catch the film. Those of you who have a chance to make it, don’t miss out!
The clip is below. It’s fun, but I have to say – more clip, less watermark!
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By Michael - November 28th, 2009  “Actress Sophia Loren and producer Walt Disney are all smiles in New York City, Oct. 1, 1966 as they hold the silver trays presented to them at the convention banquet of the National Association of Theater Owners. Disney was honored as Showman of the World; Miss Loren as Star of the Year.” (AP Photo) Walt you old dog! I don’t doubt that he was all smiles! With ciggy in hand, too – didn’t he ever put that down?
Walt and Ms. Loren were in New York to accept awards from National Association of Theater Owners, or NATO. During a banquet on the night of October 1st (always an auspicious date!), NATO named Sophia their Star of the Year. Walt had a slightly higher honor; he was presented an award invented specifically for him – the “Showman of the World”.
Walt’s appearance and speech that night would be one of his last; he would, of course, pass away two months later. But it’s great to see him having a blast in the Big Apple; his speech that night was very funny and a nice little history of his career from his point of view. I highly recommend you take a moment and read it.
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By Michael - November 27th, 2009 Early last month, the first five minutes of The Princess and the Frog appeared online. You’ve most likely seen it already, but I’m excited about the impending release so I don’t care. Early reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, and the fact that merchandise has been selling out for weeks now despite the fact that the film isn’t a sequel or “franchise” picture is a hopeful sign. I want this movie to be huge. I want this to be a smack in the face to every idiotic suit who thought that earlier, lesser films from previous years failed because they were traditionally animated.
I want this movie – a traditionally animated film that’s actually good – to make such a sickening amount of money that every studio starts scrambling to start up their shuttered animation units and every animator in New York and L.A. has as much work as they can stand. I want this project-to-project hiring and firing mindset to stop, and for people to sign fat, long-term contracts. Without those animators on contract but between projects, we’ll never get those inspired make-work projects like Goldberg’s Rhapsody in Blue.
Anyway, this is the first sequence of the film. It introduces us to Tiana and her friend Charlotte as children; soon after this clip ends, we transition to characters as adults. This was part of the film that was shown at D23, and it cracked me up because it seems to be taking a direct jab at the “princess” phenomenon and mindset.
One last note: while some of the animation in this clip is complete, some shots are still rough animation. That being said, here you go:
And it might be just me, but young Charlotte is reminiscent of Darla from Mark Dindal’s sadly unappreciated 1997 film Cats Don’t Dance. And her cat reminds me of the feline Yzma from Mark Dindal’s slightly less unappreciated 2000 film The Emperor’s New Groove.
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By Michael - November 26th, 2009  Cover of Eyes & Ears of Walt Disney World, Thanksgiving 1981 We here at Progress City would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. Hopefully everyone’s having a peaceful and relaxing holiday, and your dinner gatherings don’t have the odd and slightly upsetting undertones as Thanksgiving in Wonderland.
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By Michael - November 24th, 2009  Rendering of golf cart for Progress City (EPCOT) by George McGinnis Those of you who saw my birthday tribute to Imagineer George McGinnis will recall that his first job for Disney was to design transportation systems for Walt’s Progress City model. This model, which served as the grand finale for the original Carousel of Progress at Disneyland, became the template for Walt’s planned EPCOT city of the future in Florida.
McGinnis was hired by WED Enterprises based on the strength of his senior project at the Los Angeles Art Center School; it might be little surprise that Walt was fascinated with the project, a 200 MPH underground high speed train that would whisk commuters from New York City to Washington, D.C. and Boston. Walt himself showed up at the school to inspect McGinnis’s work (and to inspect the model train) – surely a daunting moment for a young art student.
McGinnis’s Progress City assignment wasn’t all glamorous trains, monorails or PeopleMovers, though. If something was going to move in the city of the future, he was tasked to design it. And so it was that we get the above rendering, for perhaps the sleekest and most futuristic golf cart ever created. How many Progress Citizens would take up golfing just for the chance to tool around the greens in one of these beauties?
George says that the design of this futuristic cart was based on Walt’s own Mercedes 280 SL, which could often be seen parked in front of the WED offices. My only question is, where do I buy one?
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The Progress City Primer
 From the Progress City archives comes this collection of 33 tall tales and true from Disney history. Available in paperback, hardback, and ebook formats. |
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