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The Ryman Centennial: A Community Of Tomorrow

In 1965, when Walt Disney moved into active planning for his “city of the future,” he needed artwork to get his vision across. To help sell the project to the Florida legislature and state officials whose permission he needed to create a new type of governmental district to govern his property in central Florida, Walt […]

The Ryman Centennial: A Whole New Disney World

Herbert Ryman was working on Disneyland projects right up to the time of Walt’s death in 1966, doing quite a bit of artwork for both the New Orleans Square and New Tomorrowland expansions. It seems only natural, then, that Herb would begin work on Walt Disney World when development began on the new resort. Much […]

That Mighty Microscope…

Ryman sketch for Adventures Thru Inner Space

In my most recent piece about Imagineer Herb Ryman, I mentioned how Ryman initially designed the “Mighty Microscope” of Monsanto’s Adventures Thru Inner Space to resemble an antique microscope that had belonged to his father. Ryman’s father, also named Herbert, had served as a local doctor before dying […]

The Ryman Centennial: The Phone Call

Walt Disney displays a number of concept art pieces for Disneyland, all created by Herbert Ryman

“Hello?”

“Hi Herb, it’s Bill Cottrell. We’re over at the Studio working on something and Walt wants to talk to you.”

“Well, OK…”

“Hiya Herbie, it’s Walt!”

“Well hi, Walt, how are you?”

“Fine, Herb, fine. Now listen. I’m […]

The Ryman Centennial: An Intermission With Herb

As we take a brief intermission before we start looking at Disney artist Herbert Ryman’s contributions to Imagineering – contributions that would occupy the last thirty-some years of his life – perhaps it would be nice to hear, for the first time, from the man himself. Author John Donaldson has uploaded this video, which originally […]