The man who raised animation to an art

Last week, I visited the Walt Disney Family Museum, dedicated to the life of Walt Disney before, during and after Disney was found. I really didn't understand the "family" part in that name, since it was mostly just pictures and text and a couple of videos, so I don't see younger kids enjoying 70% of the museum. It was a huge exhibit though, it took me almost 4 hours to go through it all.

The lobby has a collection of all the awards Walt Disney won (284) including a key to the city of San Francisco. The most noted one was probably the honorary award for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which was basically an Oscar with seven miniature ones beside it. Haha, I just understood the reference there...

When you walk into the actual exhibition part, there's a room full of pictures of the Disney family, including Walt when he was about 9 months old. I just couldn't help laugh at the fact that in the middle of all those serious-looking men and women, the baby was the one who would change all their lives for good. After those there was a long narration of Walt and his brother  Roy when they lived on a family farm and when they moved to Chicago. I never actually knew that he started off with his brother…

TIL: Walt Disney came very close to death during WWI.

"[The post office] had a big bombing during the First World War. I was right in the lobby when --vroom! -- this thing went off and here comes dust shooting out and everything. And that was the way I came out every night. I missed the darn thing be about three minutes. They locked the doors.... There were several people killed." --WALT DISNEY

Walt at nine months old, he looks so cute :3

Anyhoo, all the information there could have probably been read from a wikipedia article, but there were so many cool artifacts on display that I say it was worth it. They had the original drawings of Disney's first characters from Alice's Wonderland and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Also, there's a rough idea of how many slides it took to create 60 seconds of Steamboat Willie. If I recall correctly, there were a total of almost four hundred drawings, each one just slightly different from the previous one. All done by hand. Must say that it blew my mind up and out the window.

384 drawings, 60 seconds of Steamboat Willie

Did you know that before dubbing was possible, they had to record all sounds at the same time and had to time the animation perfectly? This was how the sound to Steamboat Willie was created. They had a bouncing ball on the screen and everyone used it as a metronome to stay in sync. One person messes up, the entire crew starts over. Talk about no pressure... According to the kind museum lady, the first recording was a complete disaster.

After you got past all the life stories, the exhibit welcomes you to the Disney cartoon part with a really cool cinema-like room where they have small clips from behind the scenes footage. In the center there was the actual final-draft and next to them were the rough drafts and voice actors' comments etc. That was probably the only room I could see a child liking with all the flashing colors and sounds.

Photo by Frank Anzalone.

Early drafts on Peter Pan, with the finished product playing in the center

After passing through all of Walt's greatest and not-so-great accomplishments, there are a few more rooms dedicated to life after Walt's death in 1966. One of them was with a model of Walt Disney's Disneyland, the way he pictured it to be. The thing was enormous.

Lastly, you are shown clips of old news broadcasts following Walt's death. You are also given the chance to listen to commentaries made by his friends of his passing. His death came to a surprise for some of them, so they were quite interesting to listen to.

And that, my dear children, is where the exhibition ends. The last room is multiple screens showing Walt's life and comments from friends, family, co-workers etc. Then you get to the good part - gift shop! I am still mad at myself for not taking my time with that place, it seemed to have a lot of cool (and expensive) stuff that I reeeally want to have just for the sake of having it. Maybe I'll have another sneak peek at it sometime...

Pictures by Disney after Walt's death, Dec 15th 1966

Who can name this Disney movie? ;)

Drawings for Pinocchio

Animator's desk. Above are rough-draft pictures from Pinocchio

Donald Duck

The Duck was a good foil for Mickey. See, Mickey couldn't get mad, or he couldn't carry a gun, things like that, so we had to find a foil for Mickey. So it turned out to be the duck --WALT PFEIFFER, story artist

We worked [the duck] into a picture. And being a duck, we said, Well, he likes water, we'll make him a sailor. Put a middy blouse on him and a hat-- WALT DISNEY


Long post today, but as the Disney fan that I am, this was a necessary post. There would have been a hundred more pictures to see, but since flash wasn't allowed, most of them turned out blurry and unrecognizable...