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By Michael - November 16th, 2011 
Today, the Walt Disney Company is a multi-billion dollar hype machine cranking out a stream of press releases on a daily basis. But long ago, the Disney studio was literally a garage-based organization and hardly the talk of the town. Still, the 22-year-old aspiring mogul managed to get his name in print – no small feat, even in 1924.
Hollywood bigshots with enough time on their hands to browse the back pages of the Los Angeles Times might have come across this blurb at the bottom of a long column of movieland news on July 6th, 1924. I’m curious as to how this story came about; perhaps it was the work of Disney’s distributor in New York. In any case, one could hardly have guessed at the time the magnitude of events which would result from this simple announcement.
ACTORS MIX WITH CARTOONS
In Hollywood a young cartoonist by the name of Walt Disney is making a series of twelve animated cartoon productions. Real people are seen acting with pen-and-ink actors. They are known as the “Alice” series and 5-year-old Virginia Davis, de luxe child dancer, has the big part. M.J. Winkler of New York is releasing the comedies.
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By Michael - November 12th, 2011 The next time you’re in the Italy pavilion at EPCOT…
Don’t blink.
DON’T
BLINK
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By Michael - November 11th, 2011 
The longer one is a fan of anything, the more likely they are to pine for past glories, and those of us interested in the history of the ever-fluid theme park industry are no different. Wonders big and small have been lost over the years, and the Disney parks are no exception to this wistful truth. In fact, of all eleven Disney parks I would personally only say that three are currently at their historical peak; one is Tokyo DisneySea, which has only added to its roster in its short ten years; another is Hong Kong Disneyland, only six years old; and, ironically, the last is California Adventure, which really had nowhere to go but up (Some might argue for the inclusion of Walt Disney Studios park in Paris, but I believe its historical peak came when it was still a vacant lot of grass). The point is, for those of us who are long-time followers, there is a lot in the scrapheap of history to sift through and explore.
Some of these are obvious – the “big ticket” cornerstones of nostalgia, if you will. They’re the first things that spring to mind when thinking retrospectively – Horizons, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride – the big ones that got away. But the deeper you dig – or if you were there back in the day – the more obscure the objects of ones affection become. You get into the territory of Disney Handwiches(TM) and frapping and the Get Jet Set game. And somewhere, at the intersection of these realms, sits the Little Orange Bird.
Continue reading Little Orange Memories
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By Michael - November 8th, 2011 I considered many titles for this article.
The typically punny things, naturally – things like “Why We Deride” and things like that. But I think it’s important to underline the fact that this is the strangest thing I’ve ever seen at Walt Disney World. That might be quite the buildup, as I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff, but this one left me standing in the street, mouth agape, and laughing maniacally. It’s just so strange.
It’s well documented that I have a bone to pick with the Studios Formerly Known As Disney-MGM. Not only is it generally bursting to the seams with fail…
 "What was that you were saying about visual contradictions, Mr. Hench?" …But among all the Florida parks it has fallen furthest from its potential for greatness (Yes, yes, I know current Future World might qualify for that dubious honor, but at least it used to be brilliant and EPCOT still has Showcase). I’ve always been enthralled by the classic era of Hollywood filmmaking, as well as the iconic look of that period’s architecture and design. Studios should be a slam dunk, with such rich material to draw on; it also gives designers leeway to explore themes and periods that are absorbing but wouldn’t fit in a Kingdom-class park. The western frontier and tropical jungle were dangerous places that Disneyland distilled and made safe and accessible; to modern audiences the mean streets of Los Angeles and New York City might seem equally threatening but they’re just as full of rich iconography and deeply-ingrained lore to exploit in a theme park environment. Studio whiffs on that potential and lacks a clear vision or purpose.
But that’s all beside the point. While my subject here might possibly be used to illustrate the unfocused and sub-par aspects of the Studios, it’s just so incredibly bizarre and random that it transcends lack of theming (or veneer-thin theming) and poor spatial layout. It’s so absurdist it almost becomes art in and of itself; there’s simply no reason why this existed. The fact that it did exist means that somewhere there’s a story that I desperately want to know.
Continue reading Literally The Strangest Thing I’ve Ever Seen At Walt Disney World
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By Michael - November 8th, 2011 
In a speech during the 1970s, author Ray Bradbury famously referred to Imagineering as a “Renaissance organization.” That was an apt metaphor; that first generation of Imagineers contained a remarkable collection of what could legitimately be called Renaissance men (and a handful of Renaissance women as well). These artists, many of whom had been culled from the realm of live-action motion picture art direction as well as Disney’s own animation studio, had not grown up going to Disneyland and dreaming of theme parks; they had seen the world and, like Walt himself, were fascinated with a slew of seemingly unrelated and esoteric subjects.
Over the years, though, the mantle of Imagineering’s resident “intellectual” seems to have settled on John Hench. Another long-time Disney staffer and former artist at the animation studio, Hench was the reserved, studious sort. After Walt’s death, when individual Imagineers started to come to the fore in the media, Hench’s position at the top of the WED pile ensured that he received lots of print coverage as Disney tried to figure out what they were going to do about EPCOT. During this time, he publicly began to discuss his philosophies about “the architecture of reassurance” and what, exactly, made Disney Disney.
Continue reading Hench On Hench
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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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