the walt crew

Dedicated to the people who made the Walt Disney Studio films and theme parks of the 20th century possible. I don't own any of the images or footage I post on here. I only make gifs and edits, collect and summarize research, and share them. This is simply a hobby passion project. | sideblog

[thewaltcrew]

I’ve made a counterpart blog to this one @waltcrewlog. Posts on here tend to be slow depending on how I busy I am personally, so I thought it’d be good to have a more casual updates/extras style blog to keep you all posted during those times of inactivity. Just a way to document my research, give some sneak peeks of the posts I’m working on, and maybe post smaller tidbits.

[thewaltcrew]

Your blog content in so beautifully presented and so thoughtfully curated, thanks for posting! 💛✨

That's so sweet, thank you! I'm glad you like the content, and I appreciate the message :).

[thewaltcrew]

Director Kirk Wise, screenwriter Linda Woolverton, and actor Robby Benson on casting the Beast [x]

They gave me an incredible amount of freedom. I didn't want Beast to be a cartoon character. I played it as though I were doing a Broadway show. As if this was a living person. And I wanted him to be funny. By funny, I don't mean shtick or one-liners. I am talking about real comedy. When real comedy works, and is truthful, especially with the Beast, it comes out of the fact that he is so pathetic. For some reason, I really understood that. Ha! Because of that, they gave me a lot of leeway. [x]

My first audition was recorded on, of all things, a Sony Walkman. As a musician, I had branched out into recording engineer and loved to play with sound. When I saw the Sony Walkman I knew it had a little condenser microphone in it, and if I were to get too loud, the automatic compressor and built-in limiter would 'squash' the voice— and there would be very little dynamic range to the performance. I did a quick assessment and wondered how many people who had come in to audition for the part were making that error: playing the Beast with overwhelming decibels, compressing the vocal waveforms. I decided to give the Beast 'range.' Because of my microphone technique, and an understanding of who I wanted Beast to be, they kept asking me to come back and read different dialogue. After my fifth audition, Jeffrey Katzenberg the hands-on guardian of the film, said the part was mine…

Beauty and the Beast was so refreshingly fun and inventively creative to work on that I couldn't wait to try new approaches to every line of dialogue. Don Hahn is one of the best creative producers I have ever worked with. The two young directors, Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale, were fantastic and their enthusiasm was contagious. I not only was allowed to improvise, but they encouraged it. It never entered my mind that I was playing an animated creature. I understood the torment that Beast was going through: he felt ugly; had a horrible opinion of himself, and had a trigger-temper. Those are things that, if done right, are the perfect ingredients for comedy. Painful and pathetic comedy— but honest. The kind of comedy I understood...

In the feature world of Disney animation, the actors always recorded their dialogue alone in a big studio, with only a microphone and the faint images of the producers, writers, directors and engineer through a double-paned set of acoustic glass. Paige O'Hara and I became good friends; it was her idea that for certain very intimate scenes, such as when Beast is dying, we record together. We were able to play these scenes with an honest conviction that is often absent in the voice-over world...

The success of this film was the culmination of a team effort but I must say, the honors go to the animators— and for me (Beast), that's Glen Keane — and to Howard Ashman and Alan Menken. This was the perfect example of a crew who 'cared'. And the final results (every frame) of the film represent that sentiment. [x]

[thewaltcrew]

hey! i know you're probably busy irl and/or already working on other things, but i'd love if you made a post about mary blair if you have any ideas for that. i love all of the concept art and designs she created for the early films and for it's a small world, she had such a lovely and unique style.

Sure! She really did have such a lovely and unique style :).

I'm currently working on a post on Robby Benson, but after that, I'll do one on Mary Blair.

[thewaltcrew]

Imagineer Rolly Crump (February 27, 1930 – March 12, 2023) in "Disneyland's 10th Anniversary" from the anthology series Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, aired January 3, 1965

Roland "Rolly" Crump started his career at Disney as an animator in his 20s. The man who ran the animation department at the time of Crump's hiring reportedly told him years later that "what you showed us was the worst portfolio of anyone ever hired in animation."

His first three years as at WED Enterprises provided little interaction with Walt.

Crump: All I did was absorb. I watched how everyone reacted to Walt, and the strengths and the weaknesses of the different guys. I studied Walt Disney and what it was like to work with him, but I wasn't participating until after three years. That's when I started talking. I learned that if you show something to Walt, it has to be something he hasn't seen before.

He called the period working with Walt "the happiest time of my life."

Crump: It was a great job. You were thrilled to do what you were doing. I was, anyway.

Rolly Crump's strange, bold, chaotic, and graphic style stands out strongly among his Imagineering peers. With his distinct touch, Crump was able to create some of the most visually memorable iconography for Disneyland, including the façade of It's a Small World (based on Mary Blair's styling) and the tiki god and goddess statues in the Enchanted Tiki Room.

Always a man who was protective of artist identity and integrity, he would often refer to rides by their primary visionary. The Haunted Mansion was Yale Gracey's ride, It's a Small World was Mary Blair's.

Crump: I was given the job of kind of supervising It's a Small World. I knew it was only going to work if everything looked like Mary Blair. As far as I was concerned, this is a Mary Blair ride.

And had the Museum of the Weird been built, it would've been Rolly Crump's.

It started out with Crump creating drawings and concepts for the Haunted Mansion. All the strange objects he describes in the "10th Anniversary" episode are all ideas and visuals he came up with. His peers told him his ideas would be "too weird" for Walt but after a presentation to the boss, Crump found Walt sitting in his office chair the next morning.

Crump: The first thing he said to me was, "You son of a bitch. All that stuff you showed me yesterday? I couldn't sleep."

Crump: The next day, what happened was Walt came in and said, "OK, we're going to do a Museum of the Weird, that's where we're going to use all that funny stuff you showed me yesterday." All he had to do was go home and spend some time with himself and he'd come up with everything. He was a delight to work with... You never felt like you worked for Walt. You felt like you worked with Walt because that's the way he made you feel. He encouraged your creativity. He was part of the magic. He was part of everything we did.

Unfortunately, the project died with Walt. After his unexpected passing, the project was dropped.

Crump: Management didn't like it. Walt passed, and he took the museum with him. No one else wanted to fool with it.

But the Museum of the Weird lives on. Marvel created a comic book based on the attraction called Seekers of the Weird. The fortune teller character Crump designed, Madame Zarkov, is referenced in Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and was written into the the elaborate Easter egg SEA (the Society of Explorers and Adventurers, a fictional secret society incorporated in many Disney attractions to tie their lore). And the window on Main Street USA that honors Crump for his work features three of his most famous pieces: the Tower of the Four Winds from It's a Small World (built for the 1964 World's Fair and unfortunately torn down because it was too big to move to Disneyland), Maui from the Enchanted Tiki Room, and the coffin clock.

video source [x] photo sources [x][x] research source [x][x][x]

[thewaltcrew]

Chanticleer concept art by Marc Davis

(Please check out my previous post on Chanticleer where I discuss the history of its development and cancelation!)

These drawings are specifically of Reynard the fox, some bird townsfolk, and the creatures of Reynard’s dark carnival, run by nocturnal animals and vultures. They entertain the citizens, causing them to stay up all night and miss their work responsibilities in the subsequent days, angering the mayor Chanticleer.

research source [x] photo sources [x][x]

[thewaltcrew]

Chanticleer concept art by Marc Davis

Chanticleer is likely the most famous of all canceled projects at the Walt Disney Animation Studios. Although these drawings were done in the early 1960s, the studio had been trying since the late 1930s to develop a feature film based on two French stories: the play Chantecler by Edmond Rostand and the Roman de Renart or Reynard the Fox, a literary cycle first collected in 11th-century Europe. The two stories were initially developed separately. Storymen Ted Sears and Al Perkins were the first to work on them, but they quickly ran into the same problem that would constantly plague Chanticleer for its entire development existence: how to make an arrogant rooster into an appealing protagonist.

Sears: We, or any other cartoon outfit, cannot depict a likable, interesting rooster character. Good animators have told me this, and only some revolutionary change or inspiration would make a rooster character sympathetic.

Development on Reynard also ran into similar problems of having a protagonist with a less-than-admirable personality, as Reynard the Fox is one of the most famous sources that propagated the image of a fox as a sly trickster. By 1945, the idea to combine the two properties came about, likely to help alleviate the problem of Chanticleer’s arrogant character by having a villain for him to play off of. Attempts to develop it again continued on through the 1940s, but nothing ever panned out.

In early 1960, Marc Davis and Ken Anderson, uninterested in any of the films in development at the time, took a trip down to the Animation Research Library to find ideas for a film they could develop on their own. Davis, being a fan of musical theater, wanted to do a big Broadway musical-style animated feature. They came across the old treatments for Chanticleer and jumped on the chance. They disregarded the original source materials (aside from the basic premises) and began to develop their own plot, envisioning it as a satiric comedy.

The story would have been about a rooster named Chanticleer who believes that his crowing makes the sun rise every morning. Everyone else in the village adores Chanticleer because they believe in his power too, and they elect him mayor of the town. However, he becomes an overbearing leader, ordering the hens to lay more and more eggs. The townsfolk come to resent him, and Reynard the fox arrives and takes advantage of the situation, wishing to exploit the village for his own benefit. He entertains the citizens, and the chickens stay up all night, becoming too tired to lay any eggs. An angry Chanticleer orders Reynard to leave, but Reynard announces that he will run for mayor against Chanticleer. Chanticleer finds himself in a duel at dawn against a Spanish rooster who works for Reynard and doesn’t realize that the sun has risen without him. Once he discovers that his crowing does not bring up the sun, he realizes his foolishness and is humbled, allowing the villagers to forgive him. Because although his crowing never made the sun come up, it did awaken the citizens for them to be able to start their days.

Cost cutting is what effectively ended Chanticleer’s chances. Walt was pressured to stop the production of animated feature films moving forward, as their already existing catalogue would have been enough for the company to profit off of during re-releases.

Davis: Walt was about ready to dump animation; then he got to thinking, “I owe these people something,” which he did. So he said, “Hell, these guys know how to make these films without me.” I don’t think the others realized how eager the members of this business gang were to get rid of animation. Everything after Dalmatians was done with a minimum of Walt’s supervision. I think he got spread very thin: he got terribly interested in the Parks, his vision of Epcot, and more.

But as preoccupied as Walt was, he didn’t have it in his heart to shut down animated film production for good. He did, however, reduce the output by setting a schedule of a new film every four years rather than every two. This meant that one of the two films in development at the time, Chanticleer and The Sword in the Stone, had to be cut. The decision was obvious, as Chanticleer would have been much more expensive to produce, and The Sword in the Stone was a simpler story with human characters and a cute underdog protagonist.

Davis: We had all the artwork up on the walls, and the money people at the studio came in like it was a funeral. We went all the way through the presentation and met with silence. Then a voice from the back of the room said, “You can’t make a personality out of a chicken!” They all filed out and that was the end of it.

Walt would soon call up Marc Davis to ask him to help out at WED (later called Imagineering), which is where Davis would stay for the remainder of his Disney career (where he would contribute to some of the most beloved Disney attractions of all time), thereby making Chanticleer the very last thing he worked on at the animation studio.

Davis: I had always kind of doubled up: I did story on an awful lot of stuff that was not made, including some damned good things. I think some of the best drawings I ever did for the Studio were for Chanticleer.

Chanticleer has grown a legacy of its own, perhaps solely because of how appealing and well-drawn Davis’ work for the project was. As animator Andreas Deja put it, “Marc designed some of the best-looking characters I’ve ever seen--those drawings want to be moved and used... The designs for Chanticleer show the same level of graphic sophistication as his paintings. When that’s combined with his very thorough knowledge of anatomy and the Disney appeal, the result is outstanding.”

Mel Shaw attempted to rework a new treatment for Chanticleer in 1981, but it was quickly squashed. In 1992, Don Bluth, an ex-Disney animator who, like everyone else, loved Marc Davis’ work on Chanticleer, tried his hand at the story himself with the film Rock-A-Doodle, though to little critical or commercial acclaim.

Although Marc Davis never worked on an animated film again after Chanticleer, some of the designs he created for that film did find their way into his WED project America Sings and later Splash Mountain, when the animatronics from America Sings were repurposed.

research sources from [x][x][x], The Disney That Never Was: The Stories and Art of Five Decades of Unproduced Animation by Charles Solomon, and Marc Davis: Walt Disney’s Renaissance Man, Chanticleer chapter by Charles Solomon photo sources [x][x][x]

[thewaltcrew]

What would you like my next post to be on?

Bill Walsh (producer and writer on many Disney live-action projects)

an Imagineer (someone like John Hench or Yale Gracey)

some of the voice actors of Lady and the Tramp

Robby Benson (voice of Beast)

one of the WDAS movies I've never made a post for

Chanticleer (animated film proposal that failed to get greenlit)

Zorro

The Mickey Mouse Club

make me look through my Disney books and make a post about someone lesser known

Voting ended onFeb 15, 2023

It's been a while! I finally got the poll feature, and I figured this would be the easiest way for me to decide between possible post ideas I had been thinking about.

[thewaltcrew]

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Fantasmic! and the recent reopening of the show in Hollywood Studios last month, let’s give a spotlight to three people who were pivotal in its creation: director Barnette Ricci, art director Tom Butsch, and composer and music producer Bruce Healey.

Fantasmic! was created as a stopgap attraction between the releases of Splash Mountain in 1989 and Toontown in 1993. Michael Eisner liked the idea of having a show in the Rivers of America to pack the restaurants along the riverfront, and possible ideas for what could kind of nighttime show could occupy the river were thrown about for years before it developed into a celebration of Disney’s animated feature films. But figuring out how to be able to project scenes from the films turned out to be a big problem, for raising and lowering traditional projection screens would not only be a clunky process on the river but also a slow one that would break the momentum of a show. Luckily, Barnette Ricci, a long-time show director for the Disney Parks who would be named a Disney Legend in 2019, found the solution on a research trip to Paris: she discovered a piece of tech developed and patented by a French company named Aquatique Show. The “water screens,” as they were called, used high-pressure nozzles to create fans of mist onto which the film clips could be projected through rear projection.

Ricci: By layering the dancing water fountains, special lighting, lasers, pyrotechnics and black light, along with live performers on watercraft and this new way to project animation on water, I was convinced all of these elements combined would create a rather exciting show! …It took months of searching through Disney film footage to find the right clips for the storyline and to create the film elements so they would look great on the water.

The Rivers of America was drained and reconstructed to accommodate the infrastructure that would be needed for Fantasmic!. The team was on a time crunch to be able to get the show done to serve as a proper stopgap between Splash Mountain and Toontown. Ricci wrote the script (as well as the lyrics to the song “Imagination”) and continued to re-edit it as Bruce Healey re-scored the iconic music from these films, but according to Tom Butsch, the story and spirit of Fantasmic! hardly strayed from Barnette Ricci’s initial vision.

Tom Bustch originally worked as a set designer in theater and then moved onto sitcoms before finding work set decorating on shows and seasonal attractions at the Disney Parks, where he would work for over 20 years. He storyboarded the entirety of Fantasmic! and materialized Ricci’s vision and brought it to life through the many set pieces used in the show. With a limited budget, his team made Fantasmic! economical as they could without ever sacrificing quality or scale. When they found that they were unable to afford the technology required to animate their Maleficent dragon, Butsch devised it so that a mechanical head would be raised on a genie lift (cherry picker) rigged with chains for the wings which would be flapped by performers (this dragon would eventually be replaced with a fully mechanical dragon in 2009).

Bruce Healey is famous for having reportedly produced every musical score in every parade and show at Disneyland between 1984 and 2017, but he’s done work across Disney Parks around the world and has been a composer, arranger, orchestrator, and conductor on everything from nighttime shows to television specials during his tenure. But out of the hundreds and hundreds of projects he’s worked on, Fantasmic!, on which he not only arranged and rescored the classic music from Disney films but also composed the main iconic theme to the show, is the work he says he is most proud of.

Healey: Fantasmic! still tops the list. I’m grateful for the chance to do some of my best work on that show.

It is more important to me that people around know and enjoy the music I’ve created and produced. If I’m not well known, but my music is well known because it’s part of the Disney legacy in some way, then that is great with me.

Fantasmic! was only supposed to run for a few years, but its enduring popularity has allowed it to become a classic staple of Disneyland and, with its recent renovation and reopening, will likely play on for many more years to come.

research and photo sources [x][x][x][x][x][x][x][x]

[thewaltcrew]

Some 101 Dalmatians storyboards by Bill Peet (a film he boarded entirely by himself)

To date, Bill Peet is the only story artist to have boarded an entire Disney animated feature by himself (which he did twice for 101 Dalmatians and The Sword in the Stone). Walt Disney delivered to Peet a copy of Dodie Smith’s book The Hundred and One Dalmatians, asking him to read it to possibly adapt into an animated feature. During this time, Walt was busy with a myriad of other projects, such as Disneyland, live-action features, and television, and he entrusted Peet to handle the story alone on these features during his absence, indicating Walt’s high approval and deep trust of Peet’s abilities. Upon Walt’s request, Peet wrote the script for 101 Dalmatians (which was something that had not been done previously on other animated features at the company), did all the storyboards, and even cast and directed the voice actors.

“I worked alone on the film until it was ready for the director, and Walt agreed with everything, and it was ready to go. I was moved on to the director’s unit. There was no overlap.”

When Peet got into an argument with director Clyde “Gerry” Geronimi over a voice audition, Walt stuck by Peet and replaced Geronimi on the project.

“I said, ‘Look, I’ll go back upstairs and stick with my storyboard work! I’ve got plenty of things to do. To hell with this recording!’ I just blew up. Walt looks at me and says, ‘Aw, come on now, Bill.’ He sticks out his hand and he says, ‘Shake. We don’t want to fight, do we?’ I was amazed.”

Of all the films Peet worked on, he cited 101 Dalmatians as his favorite. To this day, he is considered by many to be Disney’s greatest story artist. When asked years later if there were any other Disney storymen as good as he, he quickly responded with, “Nobody!”

excerpts and research from Paper Dreams: The Art & Artists of Disney Storyboards by John Canemaker, Bill Peet: An Autobiography by Bill Peet, and an interview with Bill Peet conducted by John Province for Hogan’s Alley

photo source [x]

for @moogadoog

[thewaltcrew]

If you're able to find anything from bill peet Id love to see it. Ive been looking for years and other than his book Ive only ever found one interview with him.

Oh, yes! I love Bill Peet’s work as well! If you couldn’t find anything after all those years of looking, I’m not sure I’ll be able to find anything new. But I’ll do my best and even if it’s something you’ve seen before, I’ll still do a post on him :).

[thewaltcrew]

@moogadoog​

Some other Bill Peet resources I found:

- An LA Times interview + article on Bill Peet from 1990

- some quotes from a 1988 animation conference at AFI that Peet spoke at (the book Storytelling in Animation: The Art of the Animated Image, Vol. 2 includes more transcripts/discussions/interviews from the conference; it’s out of print, but you can find used copies of it online)

[thewaltcrew]

Is there much interest here in Disney live-action productions (mostly from the 40s to 60s, such as The Mickey Mouse Club and the serials from it, the Zorro tv show, Davy Crockett, The Shaggy Dog, Darby O'Gill, Treasure Island, The Parent Trap, The Absent-Minded Professor, etc.)?

I've been trying to watch more of their old live-action work, and I find them entertaining and interesting. It also opens up a whole new ground for posts and people to talk about. However, if there isn't much interest for them, then I won't make many posts about them here.

I thought about making another sideblog just for their 40s to 60s live-action fare, but I already have a hard enough time just running this blog haha. But I'll still keep it open as an option for the future.

And quick update: I've got my next two posts lined up, so hooray! Less waiting.

[thewaltcrew]

Behind-the-scenes footage of the reshoot of the squid sequence in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)

A soundstage with a tank was built specifically for the movie. It was used for underwater miniature shots, but most importantly, this was where the famous squid sequence of the movie was filmed. Building the soundstage alone cost $300,000, but costs would continue to climb once the studio realized it would need to shoot the sequence all over again.

The screenwriter Earl Felton originally described the scene as such in his script: "THE NAUTILUS breaks the surface in the red after-glow of sunset, the ugly body of the squid silhouetted against the horizon, its long tentacles writhing."

Peter Ellenshaw, matte artist: I reckoned it would be very dramatic if--and I was doing sketches on the film quite a lot--that if we did a red, deep red sky, and the squid comes out of the water, it would be a wonderful effect. Well they tried it. They put on that kind of wishy washy sky, and it looked ridiculous.

Richard Fleischer, director: [The first squid] had all the tentacles, but the tentacles were held up by very heavy cables, which you couldn't avoid seeing... The cables would break, or great hunks of the material would come apart, come off. And the inside was stuffed with kapok, and it was absorbing the water, so it's getting heavier and heavier and getting less and less mobile, and it was just impossible. So I'm trying to shoot this thing, and I'm sick to my stomach looking at it because I know it's not working.

After seeing the dailies of the squid sequence, Walt talked with director Richard Fleischer, and they both agreed that it looked comical. Thus, Walt halted production while they thought of an alternate solution.

Fleischer: [Walt] said, "Start a dramatic sequence, and leave the squid sequence alone." He said, "I'll get together with my geniuses at Disneyland, and we'll come up with a squid that will do something for you. It'll be much better than this." ...My writer Earl Felton had seen the dailies too. And I said, "You know, Earl, what are we going to do with this thing? It doesn't work, even if we get a good squid." He said, "Well, look: everything's wrong with this sequence. This should be a sequence that takes place at night in a violent storm with lightning and thunder and wind, tremendous wind, waves smashing everything, so that it becomes not just a fight against the squid, but a fight against nature as well. You'll only see the squid really in flashes of lightning, and you won't see any flaws it may have." So I kissed his hand and ran out to find Walt, and I ran right into Walt on the studio street, and I said, "Walt, this is the new concept for the squid fight." And he listened, and he said, "You're absolutely right." He didn't hesitate a minute. "That's the way we'll do it, and you tell Earl to write that sequence."

The new squid was redesigned and remodeled by sculptor Chris Mueller (who sculpted a majority of the animals on Jungle Cruise). In his redesign, he tapered out the ends of the tentacles to allow them to stretch out to twice their length. He added a brow ridge to the squid to give it a more menacing look and rounded out + shortened the head.

The new mechanics were concepted and created by technical effects expert Bob Mattey (who made the animals on Jungle Cruise move and eventually would become well-known for creating the three animatronic sharks in the film Jaws). He created a spring device that made the tentacles light in weight and fluid in movement. It required 28 men to operate the squid, and they would use vacuum hoses to make the tentacles writhe, inflating them to make them curl and deflating them to uncurl them.

With the new stormy setting, it also required the addition of wind machines, dump tanks, wave makers, and reengineering the Nautilus so that it could lean during the storm.

Most of this reshoot was shot by second unit director Jim Havens (pictured in the first and eighth gifs; James Curtis Havens on IMDb), who already had previous experience shooting action sequences, including the underwater scenes in Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Needless to say, the reshoot practically flooded the soundstage. You can see in the last gif that the water spilled outside the soundstage as Walt, with rubber boots on, walks into the building.

The reshoot cost an additional $250,000, but with only half of the principal photography having been shot, the production was in danger of being shut down. The film had to start taking from funds intended for Disneyland.

Fleischer: They had to get in the bankers... They asked them to supply money to finish the picture, and the bankers wanted to see what had been shot up to date. And that was a big day for us. I was working on the set, waiting to hear word whether we're going to come back to work the next day or shut down that night. It was really that close. Word got back to me. They loved it. And they're giving him a million and a half dollars to finish the picture. That's our squid story. It was a real hair-raiser. A movie in itself.

quotes and footage from “The Making of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” featurette additional sources [x][x][x]

for anonymous

[thewaltcrew]

One of Disney’s Nine Old Men, Marc Davis, with his wife, Alice Davis, renowned costume designer. a. On their honeymoon at Tivoli Gardens, c. 1958. b. With the auctioneer animatronic from “Pirates of the Caribbean.“

photo sources [x][x]

In 1947, Marc Davis started teaching animation classes at Chouinard (which would eventually merge with the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music to form CalArts). Alice Estes wanted to enroll into the animation major at Chouinard, but it had a two year waiting list. Thus, she instead enrolled in a major that had openings, costume design. She was allowed in Marc’s animation drawing class even though it was full, as long as she took roll call and brought in chalk.

After graduating, Alice became an accomplished lingerie designer. One day, Marc called her, asking her to design and make a dress for Aurora’s live-action reference model, Helene Stanley, for Sleeping Beauty. He wanted a long, bell-bottom shaped skirt that still flowed when she moved. Alice made it, and Marc was very happy with the dress. The two married in 1956.

After 101 Dalmatians, Marc moved to WED (which would eventually become Walt Disney Imagineering). A little after they had married, the two happened to bump into Walt Disney at dinner one night. Walt asked Alice what she did for a living.

“He was very curious. When he heard me say ‘elastic,’ he wanted to know all about elastic fabric. He stayed for at least a half hour, asking me all kinds of questions. Marc was sitting there wondering what was up his sleeve. Eventually, [Walt] said, ‘Well, I’d better get going.’ He started to walk away, then turned and said, ‘You know, you’re going to work for me someday.’” 

Years later, Marc told Alice that Walt wanted her to do the costumes for “It’s a Small World,” working alongside Mary Blair. The couple also went on to work on “The Carousel of Progress” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” together.

They remained married for nearly 44 years until Marc’s death in 2000. They’re the only married couple to have each been honored with a window on Main Street U.S.A. in Disneyland.

story source [x]

[thewaltcrew]

Alice Davis passed away a few days ago on November 3, 2022, at the age of 93. Her fantastic work will be remembered for generations to come, and may those closest to her be able to properly mourn and grieve such a great loss.

“I was initially excited to meet Marc and Alice because of all they’d accomplished, but quickly became even more enamored of them as people. I never called Alice without being invited over and never visited without being fed.” - Pete Docter [x]

“To the world, Alice Estes Davis was best known for her work with Walt Disney as a costume designer. To the Board and staff at The Walt Disney Family Museum, Alice was an inspiring collaborator, kind-hearted benefactor, and cherished friend... She was always Marc’s leading lady, and she will always hold a special place in our hearts. We will miss her deeply.” - statement from the Walt Disney Family Museum [x]

[thewaltcrew]

Animation by Ollie Johnston (first) and Milt Kahl (second) for Br’er Rabbit, Song of the South (1946) [x][x]

for anonymous

[thewaltcrew]

Posted my first edit on my counterpart blog @waltcrewlog! I’m quite proud of it, so please check it out! It’s about Fred Harman, the artist who co-created and drew the Red Ryder comic strip. He worked alongside Walt and Ub Iwerks back in Kansas City, but he never worked at the Disney Studio, which is why I made a post about him on the counterpart blog rather than on here. I’ll try to make more regular updates on my counterpart blog (as the blog was made with the intent to fill the void between my long periods of inactivity on this blog). But don’t worry, I definitely know that my next post on here won’t take nearly as long and I know exactly what I’m doing for it, so look out for that fairly soon!

[thewaltcrew]

Character designs for Sleeping Beauty by Tom Oreb

“Eyvind and I were the two hot new guys... We’d work on the weekends, we’d throw storyboards up... a lot of the old guys just absolutely turned on us. It was really kind of brutal in a way. But guys like Tommy, Ward Kimball, Bill Peet, Don DaGradi, they didn’t have that closed kind of thing. Tommy really married Eyvind and I. He became our friend. He looked after us. He talked us up. So the three of us became really good friends. We started hanging out together and all of that. Eyvind was kind of like Tom’s equal. They were both in the same age range and everything else. And I was the young kid. I was probably nine or ten years younger than both of them. I just became Tom’s protégé. I idolized him.” - Vic Haboush, layout artist

“There was only absolute harmony and enthusiasm between Ken Anderson, Don DaGradi, Eric Larson, Tom Oreb and myself. We set out to create the most beautiful picture we could do. We all loved each other’s work... The first production layouts were given to me to redraw in my style. Tom Oreb drew the characters over and over and over again. The Ink and Paint Department made finished cels of Tom Oreb’s characters and they were placed over my backgrounds to see if they would fit.” - Eyvind Earle, background painter & color stylist

excerpt and photos from They Drew As They Pleased: The Hidden Art of Disney’s Mid-Century Era: The 1950s and 1960s by Didier Ghez Aurora photo [x]

for @winged-time-criminal (who asked me to gif my favorite princess movie)