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Improving On Homer, 1934

One thing that’s often forgotten nowadays is the fact that in Walt’s heyday – the golden age of Walt Disney Productions – the studio was a favorite of intellectuals and “serious” artists the world over. In recent decades Disney is often derided by cultural commentators, who view it as a vast hegemonic and homogenizing corporate […]

WALT DISNEY WAS NOT ANTI-SEMITIC.

A couple of blogs I read have linked to this post today; it’s an “expose” about what a horrible person author Roald Dahl (allegedly) was. I know nothing of Dahl except for his books, which I read voraciously as a kid, and the story of his early years and dealings with Walt Disney. So I […]

Future Fantasias, 1940

“Maybe we ought to open up on those things instead of playing down to our medium or our public. That’s the very thing we like to have, a challenge.” – Walt Disney

This single quote speaks volumes to explain the devout admiration and fascination so many hold for the works of Walt Disney. It […]

Walt Disney Vs. The Air Pirates

Walt ‘Nickels’ Disney’s Gulfstream 1, preparing for combat. Not pictures: Nickels!

During the 1970s, Frank Stanek lead planning efforts at WED Enterprises and headed the development of Tokyo Disneyland, but back in 1964 he was a young cast member managing the business affairs of Disney’s “it’s a small world” attraction at the 1964/65 […]

Progress City Home Theater: Walt & El Grupo (2009)

Last week saw the release of three prominent Disney-related documentaries. The only of these that I had not seen in theaters was Walt & El Grupo, so I was naturally eager to check out director Ted Thomas’s (Frank and Ollie) recounting of Walt Disney’s 1941 South America trip (Thomas’s father, animator Frank Thomas, was […]