"Buddy Baker, Director of Music at WED & MAPO, conducting the National Philharmonic Orchestra inside the EMI/Abbey Road Studio in London"
In 1982 Buddy Baker was a busy man, jetting around the world to record the scores for a slew of new attractions and films for EPCOT Center. For the French pavilion’s Impressions de France, Baker and other Disney personnel traveled to London to record the National Philharmonic Orchestra at the fabled EMI/Abbey Road Studios. This marked the first time a film had been produced with an entirely digital soundtrack.
And, obviously, you can’t visit Abbey Road without the requisite photo op…
"Buddy Baker of Show Design, Rick Harper, formerly of Show Design and Glenn Barker and Dave Spencer of the Audio/Video Dept. cross London's Abbey Road"
Courtesy of John Donaldson come these sketches by Herb Ryman; they are preliminary studies for EPCOT’s Italy pavilion. While they are merely sketches, they do convey a Rymanesque sense of atmosphere and – of course – hint at a cast of interesting characters in the foreground.
The landmarks depicted do differ somewhat from the pavilion as we know it. The campanile and the building in the rear resemble the St. Mark’s Square replicas found in EPCOT today, but the obelisk is more reminiscent of one found in Vatican City than in Venice. In the foreground, you can make out the caption “view from the Rialto”; this alludes to Venice’s Rialto Bridge, which does receive a nod in the current pavilion’s design.
Here’s another perspective on Ryman’s design. Note the caption for the puppet show and the organ grinder – and also that the art was due Wednesday afternoon!
While these pieces were never intended to be seen by the public, they are an interesting look at the early phases of Imagineering artwork. And perhaps they can make us mere mortals feel a little better that even the greats had to sketch things out first instead of going straight into painting a masterpiece!
Disneyland’s long history is full of oddities that might amaze those of us who missed the park’s first few decades, or who were never able to visit until later years. A lot of those “lost” mid-century novelties were located in Tomorrowland, which underwent several major overhauls in its early years and was home to many short-lived exhibits.
One of the most famous of these was Monsanto’s “House of the Future”, which occupied a spot right off of the park’s central plaza from 1957 to 1967. As much a World’s Fair exhibit as a theme park attraction, the house used “modern” building techniques to create a unique four-lobed, plastic structure chock-full of the latest electronic amenities.
What must it have been like to visit? What would it have been like to live in such a wondrous home? Well, thankfully, we have this promotional film to show us just what it would have been like if we showed up at the park and just decided to move in. Those thousands of people waiting in line won’t mind; just make yourself at home!
This video is truly spectacular, and joins the pantheon of mid-century promotional films featuring odd hallucinations about having nicer appliances; it’s slightly more grounded than Once Upon A Honeymoon or Design For Dreaming, but still delightfully strange. Amazingly, both those films were made in 1956 – just a year before the House of the Future opened and this short was most likely filmed. In one of the opening shots of the house you can see the large steel support for the Skyway in the background; this would soon be replaced by the Matterhorn which opened in 1959.
So kick off your shoes and pop something in the microwave range – make yourself at home, it’s the future! Just don’t forget to change out of your park-going formal wear before you start dinner…
When I was a kid, there was nothing cooler than the crossover. Characters from different fictional universes appearing together was always ratings gold as far as I was concerned. GI Joe meeting up with Transformers? Proto-geek paradise. Daffy Duck playing piano alongside Donald? Exquisite. Any fellow nerd who has ever salivated over the idea of Marvel vs. DC, or Alien vs. Predator, or the U.S.S. Enterprise taking on a Star Destroyer can relate. Sure, not all crossovers are created equal, but they we still almost always exciting.
Good thing, then, that I wasn’t a child in Britain in 1975 when the fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker, crossed over from Doctor Who to appear on Disney Time; the fusion of these two universes would have been so incredibly cool that I might not have survived. Disney Time was an annual or semi-annual special that appeared on the BBC from 1970-1983 during Christmas and other major holidays. It involved a number of clips from Disney animated shorts and animated or live action features, all linked together by live-action interstitials featuring various celebrities. Baker appeared in character as the Doctor for the Christmas, 1975 special.
The video is of poor quality, and the actual Disney clips have been removed, but you get the idea…
I have to say that aside from wanting more Doctor with my Disney, Disney Time itself is a pretty good concept. The studio is sitting on a vast archive of material, none of which it is utilizing. I grew up on this sort of thing, fed a daily dose of Disney thanks to the syndicated Wonderful World of Disney, but where today will kids get to see True-Life Adventures or Blackbeard’s Ghost? Maybe a regularly-occurring clip show like this would be one answer, and even though Baker has long ago hung up his scarf I’m sure the eleventh Doctor would be glad to make an appearance…
I’m sure between ABC, ABC Family, the Disney Channel, Disney XD, and Disney Junior, they could find some place to put it.
And although I never knew one of my life-long goals was to hear the Doctor talk about the Apple Dumpling Gang, I’m glad to have finally experienced it.
Over at the Walt Disney Family Museum’s blog Storyboard – which you should be reading regularly by now – I’ve written an article about the Disney studio’s contributions to the VIII Winter Olympic Games in 1960. It’s an interesting and rarely-told part of Disney lore, and an overlooked step in Walt’s progression from Disneyland towards the east coast. Check it out!
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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