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By Michael - May 17th, 2010  Another month, another crackerjack lineup of events at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. June’s events focus on animation, with screenings of classic Silly Symphonies and certain-to-be-fascinating presentations by producer Don Hahn and author Russell Merritt. There are, as always, lots of interactive and educational activities for families too. For more information, visit the Museum’s website, and be sure to follow them on Twitter and Facebook.
The Walt Disney Family Museum
June 2010 Events Calendar
Explore the Innovation in Animation
Meet film producer and director Don Hahn
In June at The Walt Disney Family Museum
FILM OF THE MONTH
Silly Symphonies (1929-1939)
1:00pm and 4:00pm, Theater
(except Tuesdays and June 19 and June 26.)
Tickets available online at www.waltdisney.org
Starting with The Skeleton Dance in 1929 and ending with The Ugly Ducking remake in 1939, the Silly Symphonies is a series of 75 cartoons based on musical themes. The film of the month comprises selections from the series, which feature a different cast of characters in each installment. Highlights include The Old Mill (1937), Flowers and Tress (1932), Music Land (1935) and The Three Little Pigs (1933).
JUNE LECTURES
June 19 – Innovations in Animation: Sound, Color, and Depth
3:00 pm, Theater
Tickets available online at www.waltdisney.org
Walt Disney tested new technologies in the Silly Symphonies and produced animated shorts with sound, color, and depth. Russell Merritt, professor of Film Studies at Berkeley and co-author of Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies, will discuss Music Land, Flowers and Trees, and The Old Mill among other groundbreaking shorts.
June 26 – Firsts in Animation: A Look Back and Forward with Don Hahn
3:00 pm, Theater
Tickets available online at www.waltdisney.org
Learn how Walt took risks that pushed the boundaries in the industry and changed animation forever. Film producer (The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast) and director Don Hahn discusses “firsts in animation” and highlights the new technological and artistic developments in the industry.
JUNE DISNEY DISCOVERIES! + LOOK CLOSER SERIES
DISNEY DISCOVERIES: Second Saturday of each month
June 12 – Disney Discoveries! Silly Cartoon Cranked Moviola
1:00 pm – 3:00 pm, Learning Center Art Studio
Imaginations and creativity will soar with our new Disney Discoveries! The second Saturday of each month, join us for family fun and activities in the Learning Center. The activities planned by our education staff will inspire the hidden artist in young visitors while learning about the life and work of Walt Disney.
The Disney Discoveries! Activities are free with paid admission to the Museum. No ticket is needed for members—just show your membership card.
LOOK CLOSER:
June 25, 26 + 27 – Look Closer: Multiplane Camera
11:00 am and 2:00 pm, Theater Lobby
Would you like to know more about one of the artifacts in the galleries? Our Look Closer series will give you that opportunity. In the 15 – 30-minute gallery talk, staff will reveal little known facts and information not on the gallery label.
The Look Closer series is free with paid admission to the Museum. Members are always free and no ticket is needed. Just show your membership card.
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By Michael - May 14th, 2010 Walter Cronkite is one of my heroes. Authoritative yet avuncular, his constant reassuring presence during the events of the later 20th century made him the perfect choice to narrate EPCOT’s Spaceship Earth from 1986 to 1994. So if I love Walter Cronkite, and I love TRON, what would I love the most? Why, Walter Cronkite in TRON!
 Wilkommen, bienvenue, welcome… programs! To promote TRON‘s 1982 release, Cronkite recorded a segment about the film’s cutting-edge special effects for his science-related summer series Universe. According to a 1982 issue of Disney Newsreel, “Cronkite was persuaded by ‘TRON’ director Steven Lisberger to appear in a scene shot here at the Studio that was then inserted into the new computer-generated images system used extensively for ‘TRON.'”
 Walter Cronkite and TRON director Steven Lisberger “Cronkite ended the segment with a soft-shoe routine and humming ‘Tea for Two,’ admitting that it had always been one of his unrealized dreams. ‘The reason I did it,’ Cronkite said, ‘was because they [Disney] said it could be done effectively with special effects. And I’m a very amenable guy. But – I don’t know whether it will get on the final show. After all, it might destroy the illusion of a serious newsman.'”
“‘However, I’m anxious to see what they’ll do with it. It’s fascinating out there. Who knows, I might end up at a pinball machine battling ‘Pac-Man.””
Sadly, we didn’t get a battle royale between Cronkite and Pac-Man, but what did result was pretty amazing. In a world where any punk kid with a copy of Final Cut Pro can slap together a sci-fi epic, it’s staggering to think of the amount of work that was required to create a single frame of TRON. Multiple elements were required for each effects shot, with several different exposures and mattes being optically printed onto the final negative. In fact, one wonders how much it cost just to do Cronkite’s simple few minutes of film. This was labor-intensive work; it’s also extremely cool.
Take a look at the final product courtesy of the wonders of Betamax tape. From the summer of 1982, here’s Walter Cronkite battling the electronic scourge with a bit of softshoe.
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By Michael - May 14th, 2010 Today’s riveting historical find that has me agog is this amazing video, taken in 1988, of the rarely documented attraction if you could fly. This short-lived ride was a re-named version of the fan classic if you had wings, necessitated when Eastern Airlines dropped their sponsorship of that original attraction. The changes were superficial and quick; If You Had Wings closed on June 1, 1987, only to open five days later as If You Could Fly. All references to Eastern Airlines had been stripped out, including Eastern-specific logotypes, and, unfortunately, the original attraction’s catchy and iconic theme song went as well.
What makes this video particularly special is that there’s scant good video documentation of If You Had Wings as it is, and film of If You Could Fly is exceedingly rare. In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever seen any online. For the time, and considering it’s a dark ride, the quality of the video is excellent.
If You Could Fly remained open until January 4, 1989. It’s show building – and ride vehicles and track – were later used for Dreamflight, which was sponsored by Delta Airlines. Delta had replaced the defunct Eastern Airlines as the official airline of Walt Disney World. After Delta dropped their sponsorship in 1996, Dreamflight became Take Flight for two years until it was closed again to become Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. But the next time you’re riding past the day-glo plywood and zapping Emperor Zurg, realize that you’re traveling on the exact same path that these fine inhabitants of the 1980s took to visit Cancun and olde San Juan.
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By Michael - May 13th, 2010 First, Rapunzel became Tangled, when Disney’s marketing department panicked and imposed a title change on Disney Animation Studios. Then, more recently, The Bear and the Bow was re-announced as Brave because… well, who knows, actually. Now it looks like the still-officially-unannounced-once-canceled-but-now-alive-with-a-different-director-project-that-won’t-die Joe Jump is going to be called Reboot Ralph. Because, ya know, the kids love to reboot. According to Deadline Hollywood, the story of an 8-bit videogame character in a quad-core world will debut on March 22, 2013.
Meanwhile, while all these semantic shenanigans were afoot, we’ve lost King of the Elves and The Snow Queen. This week, the internet got all aflutter with the shocking news that Pixar had pulled the plug on Gary Rydstrom’s newt. To which I say, well, yeah.
So with all this bloodletting, what do we have? Lined up on the Disney side of the fence there’s Rapunzel, Winnie-the-Pooh in 2011, and Reboot Ralph in 2013. Pixar is now sequeltown (next door to Pigs With Pigs Junction) with Toy Story 3 (2010), Cars 2 (2011), Monsters Inc. 2 (2012) and Brave (2012). Brad Bird is AWOL and headed to Paramount to film Mission: Impossible IV (potential subtitle: “The First Good One”), Andrew Stanton’s John Carter of Mars isn’t out until 2012, and Pete Docter is doing… something. But he won’t say what.
Then there’s all the mid-level talent creeping out the doors; with only two releases per year, directorial power has remained in the hands of a select few and there’s nowhere for rising stars to go but to other studios. Will the sequels take over, or is there still room for new ideas?
So after the much-ballyhooed slate of a few years ago has been picked apart, and the much-ballyhooed return of traditional animation has been pretty much relegated to W.T. Pooh, and the much-ballyhooed shorts program is nowhere to be seen, one has to ask… what’s up?
One last thing – I don’t typically do this but I’m feeling particularly saucy tonight. From February:
Who wants to bet that newt’s summer 2012 release spot goes to another Pixar rehash, Monsters, Inc. 2?
OK, so I got the season wrong (Monsters 2 be a fall release, not a summer release), but next time, Disney, prove me really wrong.
UPDATE: It looks like the Reboot Ralph announcement was official. No word on if Rich Moore is still slated to direct.
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By Michael - May 11th, 2010 Tonight, on a very special Imagineering After Dark…
 “Relaxing for a moment on the huge model of EPCOT at WED Enterprises in Burbank, California, are vice-presidents Marty Sklar (left) and John Hench. WED “imagineers” are paid to tinker with the mechanics of fantasy in order to create the future according to Disney.” Boom chicka wah wah…
“Hey baby, wanna tinker with the mechanics of fantasy?”
Those sly guys from Glendale… I think half the creative problems WDI faces today could be solved by more polyester and larger lapels.
Notes for EPCOT nerds: This is from 1980. Note the different design for The Seas (the earlier version had a large dome on the top) and all the extra add-ons to Communicore that would never be built. In World Showcase we have Mexico, Germany, Italy, America, Japan, France, and the U.K. – they’re all in the proper place and look pretty much exactly as they were built.
Now if only Yale Gracey had built a clapper that would make a disco ball come down from the ceiling and a Barry White album start playing.
And now, Mr. June – Claude Coates!
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