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By Michael - July 7th, 2010  Slide Rock by Herbert Ryman, 1932 Despite his humble Midwestern beginnings, Disney artist and Imagineer Herbert Ryman eventually developed a love for world travel. Many of his early excursions were in the American southwest, where his road trips helped develop his artistic skills until his career took off at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1932. The painting above, a scene from Arizona, is a result of those early travels. It would be his later globetrotting adventures, though, that would inform his worldview and help shape some of his work that is most relevant here – his conceptual paintings for EPCOT’s World Showcase in the 1970s and 80s.
Ironically, though, Ryman was initially somewhat chagrined at his lack of worldly experience. Working on the adaptation of Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth at MGM, he started to feel the call of the outside world. He’d worked so hard on creating these exotic scenes for various films, but that was just film fakery – Herb wanted to see these things first-hand.
Things came to a head in 1936. Ryman, fatigued by four years of nonstop work, was sketching set designs for Mutiny on the Bounty. A chance conversation with actor Donald Crisp led to an exhortation for young Ryman to take a break from his work and see a bit of the world while he was still young. Mulling this advice, Herb received that same day a letter from his cousin, Halvern Norris, who was serving in the American Foreign Service as Vice Consul to Siam. Norris was wrapping up his five-year stint in Bangkok, and in his lengthy letter he encouraged Ryman to pay a visit and see the sights. Satisfied with the import of this coincidence, Herb took leave from MGM and headed to the steamship office to book passage to Siam. He didn’t have to worry about paying; in his pocket at the time were thirteen paychecks from Metro, all uncashed because the workaholic Ryman had not been able to leave his office long enough to visit the bank.
It turned out that for the price of passage across the Pacific Ocean to Siam, Herb could take the long way there and in the process see the world. For no extra cost he was able to circumnavigate the globe, stopping in the Caribbean, Europe, and several other points before eventually reaching Bangkok. For someone worried about his lack of travels, Ryman was about to catch up in high style.
 From Ryman’s sketchbook comes this study of the Ponte Sant’Angelo in Rome After circling the globe, with many stops along the way, Ryman reached Siam. While his adventures there were too innumerable to list here, it led to a number of fascinating and coincidental meetings. Prominent diplomats. Artists. Authors. The royal family. The Peking Man. It had to be pretty exciting for a young guy from Illinois. But, like so many young people in extraordinary times, Ryman wouldn’t really understand the full import of his travels until later. He didn’t realize, at the time, what was really happening around him as he trekked through Indochina – the first stirrings in the east that would eventually lead to a World War.
 The Junk Loading Rice, Pak Nam – Gulf of Siam, 1936 But these concerns weren’t on Herb’s mind. In his travels from 1936-37, he saw everything that he could possibly fit in to his itinerary. Despite the fact that the world was a much larger and stranger place in those days, though, even in the distant outposts of the Orient people knew about Hollywood. And, whenever locals would find out Herb worked in pictures in Hollywood, he was invariably asked about one person. Not any of the legends of MGM, where he actually worked – Garbo, Gable, or even Lassie. Everyone wanted to know one thing: Did Herb know Walt Disney?
He didn’t. But, after answering truthfully a few times and seeing the resultant disappointment and instant disinterest from curious strangers, Ryman decided to give the people what they wanted. “Yes, I know Walt Disney!”
Don’t be too hard on Herb – his harmless white lie was only a year or so distant from being 100% true.
 “Four Faces of Siba”, 1936, was the product of a lengthy side-trip to Angkor Wat From Siam, Ryman traveled northward to Japan, where the creeping hand of fascism led to a few uncomfortable interrogations at the hands of petty customs officials. A decision was made to visit China, despite the increasing chaos brewing in that country. Nationalist forces under Chiang Kai-Shek were faced with the prospect of battling Mao Tse-Tung and the communists to the west and invading Japanese troops to the east, but the situation was still stable in the major cities. Herb spent four months there in the village of Ba Ta Chu, in the hills outside Peking.
 Herb stands outside his lodgings in Ba Ta Chu, 1936 His time in China would be productive artistically as well as socially; it would also leave him with a full portfolio of artwork which, as we’ve mentioned, would lead to an exhibition at Chouinard in Los Angeles and, subsequently, his career at Disney.
 On the Long Trail, 1980 – “A watercolor painting done from the sketches made in my note books during that historic and critical winter of 1936-37 on the Gobi Desert and in Peking.” The circle of life, eh?
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By Michael - July 6th, 2010 To the considerable number of people running searches for this because they saw it mentioned on an episode of History Channel’s Pawn Stars last night:
There was never a plan to build an “Italian Disney World” in the 1960s, or any other time that I’m aware of. Even when Euro Disney was being planned in the 1980s, the final decision was between Spain and France. So, no Italian Disney World. Ever. Do not entrust your theme park history to the cast of Pawn Stars.
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By Michael - July 5th, 2010 
This is a fun story that I’ve been holding on to for a while; thankfully, our recent discussion of Disney legend Herbert Ryman presents the perfect opportunity to print it. The following tale was presented in the May 14th, 1982 edition of the WED-MAPO Imaginews, an internal publication for Disney Imagineers.
Walt’s Elephants Are Missing!
By Herb Ryman As Told To Dennis Kuba
Walt Disney and his family had just moved into their new home in Holmby Hills. I naturally would visit with them, because I was working on a portrait of his daughter, Sharon. I was standing there in the living room admiring the new carpet, when Walt came over and said,
“By the way, Herbie, have you ever seen anything like this?”
It was a tiny, reddish-brown thing he had in the palm of his hand, about half the size of a pistachio nut.
I said, “No, I have not, but I think it’s some kind of bean, isn’t it?
“Yes, it is. You can’t guess what’s inside of it.”
“No, you tell me!”
“Well, there’s forty-nine elephants inside of it.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, this was a gift given to me by a very important Chinese gentleman after the opening of Snow White. He explained to me that the bean was a very appropriate gift because in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, I had used the magical number seven, and that seven was my lucky number. Seven times seven, he explained, which is forty-nine, is seven times as lucky. So, he proudly presented me with this bean which has forty-nine pure, handcarved ivory elephants inside there.”
So, he opened it up, and sure enough, inside there were little tiny bits of ivory, each about the size of a grain of salt. You couldn’t see what they were, because they were too tiny. So Walt asked Sharon to bring us a magnifying glass. The Chinese gentlemen had told Walt that the elephants kept in the bean would bring him good luck all his life.
We poured out the ivory elephants and counted them with a needle, and sure enough, there were forty-nine. Then Walt put them in my hand. As I admired them with the magnifying glass, he unexpectedly nudged my elbow. The whole bunch of elephants flew up in the air, and down into the thick rug. Well, you can imagine what I thought when I looked at the rug. There was no possible way that we would retrieve all of those elephants. Immediately Walt said,
“Now, Herbie, see what you’ve done. You’ve brought me bad luck.”
And I answered, “Well I didn’t bring you bad luck. You knocked my elbow!”
Mrs. Disney, who had witnessed it all, came to my rescue and responded, “I saw you knock his arm!”
We kneeled down in a frantic search for the elephants. They were deep in the thick pile of the rug, like little grains of salt. One of the girls got tweezers and even a flashlight. And there we were all working down on the floor probing through a forest of wool. Well, we never found the forty-nine elephants, probably got about thirty of them. So, the rest of the elephants were left behind… lost in the rug.
Whether Walt’s nudging was deliberate or accidental, I never really knew. Hunt as we would, we never found any more. So as Walt said, I had brought him bad luck.
But, if you want to go back over the story, think about it. Walt didn’t have any bad luck after that. He built Disneyland, Walt Disney World, and he did so many beautiful films. Walt achieved international fame. But still, I sometimes think of the luck he might have had if I hadn’t lost those elephants!”
If I build a time machine tomorrow, the first thing I’m going to do is try and get an invite to some of these wacky Disney dinner parties. As a nice little aside, here’s the postscript at the bottom of the story:
If you ever have a chance to laugh or trade stories with Herb Ryman – do so. “Herbie” is one of those people God tucks into your day because He figures you need some inspiration. Artist & storyteller extraordinary, Herbie has been associated with Disney since 1939.
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By Michael - July 4th, 2010 And what better way to celebrate than a look at what remains one of Disney’s greatest technological accomplishments, EPCOT’s American Adventure?
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By Michael - July 2nd, 2010 It’s a shame, but a lot of the great Disney-related books are out of print. That makes things occasionally difficult for the researcher or fan who might be just starting their own Disney library. For some time now, I’ve been using Alibris to locate those hard-to-find classics. They stock all the must-haves, like Richard Beard’s famous EPCOT tome, Finch’s The Art of Walt Disney, or Jeff Kurtti’s Since the World Began, as well as a number of very rare volumes such as Windows on Main Street by Van Arsdale France, Walt’s Time featuring the Sherman Brothers, the legendary Disneyland: The Nickel Tour, and even A Brush With Disney, a collection of art by our featured Imagineer Herb Ryman.
I received some discount codes today that I thought I’d pass along; if you’ve been looking for a rare out-of-print book these would be a nice way to get a few dollars off. Just enter the codes at the checkout screen. The discount codes are good until August 2nd.
Happy reading!
Codes:
VERSO ($2 off $20)
ERRATA ($4 off $40)
ETCH ($6 off $60)
OCTAVO ($8 off $80)
EPHEMERA ($10 off $100)
FLYPAGE ($12 off $120)
GILT ($15 off $150)
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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. |
Slide Rock by Herbert Ryman, 1932
From Ryman’s sketchbook comes this study of the Ponte Sant’Angelo in Rome
The Junk Loading Rice, Pak Nam – Gulf of Siam, 1936
“Four Faces of Siba”, 1936, was the product of a lengthy side-trip to Angkor Wat
Herb stands outside his lodgings in Ba Ta Chu, 1936
On the Long Trail, 1980 – “A watercolor painting done from the sketches made in my note books during that historic and critical winter of 1936-37 on the Gobi Desert and in Peking.”
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