Progress City, U.S.A.

There’s been a lot of chatter about rising fuel prices spelling Walt Disney World’s doom of late on Disney fan sites - some reporting that if gas continues its increase and crude oil tops $160 a barrel (it’s currently at $133), it would be practical for Disney to sell off Walt Disney World and take liscencing fees.

Others talk of parks closing down during different weekdays, plans of DCA being shelved until something stablizes, etc. Personally, I don’t think anyone would buy all of WDW even if Disney wanted to part with it, but that’s just me.

Regardless, I wanted to take a series of articles and discuss this. Particularly, how it relates to the early years of the Resort, when the Oil crisis of the ’70s was happening. EPCOT was being planned, as were new resorts and attractions for the Magic Kingdom. Some of my favorite WDW ideas were shelved permanently during this time, including Thunder Mesa, The Venetian, Asian, and Arabian hotels (all pictured in this overview provided by Jim Hill media and copywrited 1969 Walt Disney Productions). What happened last time? What will happen this time?

stay tuned.

I feel that I am perhaps the last individual in the Disney blogosphere to post any sort of public comment about the recent controversy surrounding the rumored changes to Disneyland’s version of it’s a small world. This is due to a number of reasons, but mostly, as a grizzled veteran of Eisner’s last decade at the helm of the Walt Disney company, I have attained a degree of scandal fatigue. Quite simply, I have seen so many desecrations and obscenities foisted upon the art of themed entertainment and design that I have become inured to such grand disappointments.

I fought in the Toad Wars of 1998, had the first website devoted to saving Horizons and wrote a letter so incensed by Journey Into YOUR Imagination that I got a call at home from the then Vice President of EPCOT Center. I watched Disney built a park with amazing theming but little to do (Animal Kingdom), minimal theming and nothing to do (California Adventure) and no theming and nothing to do (Disney Studios Paris). I consider Hong Kong Disneyland something of a gated botanical gardens. After wands and hats and Pop Century, I had no store of indignation left.

Young revolutionaries on the barricades - the last Toad-In, September 7, 1998.
I seem distracted.

But just as things looked bleakest, there was a ray of hope. Paul Pressler left to destroy another company. Michael Eisner left to hang out with Bette Midler and trade baseball cards. John Lasseter and the Pixar squad rode in on their white horses to give the triage badly needed by a dying WDI and dead Feature Animation department. Even Bob Iger, Eisner’s hand-picked successor, proved me wrong and wound up not being a proxy for the departed CEO but a fairly bold new leader who embraced a far more progressive view of new technologies than his predecessor. Surely, everyone would live happily ever after.

Still, all was not well. The management purges and noxious politics of the last decade had left Imagineering paranoid and factionalized, split between the embattled creatives who had managed to survive in the hope of better days ahead and those who, bolstered by political maneuvering and their ability to “play the game” successfully had risen through the ranks. Not since the Augean stables had an organization so desperately needed a flushing out of the dross and a complete rebuilding.

While change came, however, it came slowly. Sub-par attractions still filtered out into the parks, and more alarmingly, newly announced attractions started to have a noticeably Pixar-centric tilt. The “toonification” of the parks amped up in earnest, and areas that once whisked guests away to adventure in fantastic but real-world settings became new venues for promoting the Franchise of the Month. It seemed that at our moment of greatest triumph, the folks from marketing had won after all. The parks were going to become ads for character merchandise, and the days of the great non-”property” rides like Pirates or Mansion might never return.

Oh noes.

There remained reasons for optimism, though, and obviously a great deal of wonderful, devoted and creative staff continue to try their best to keep the company living up to Walt’s ideals. I’ve tended to cut them slack even in times of irritation, and even though I might disagree with their choices I’m usually eager to see where they’re going in the hopes that the ship will eventually get turned around completely. So, for a while, my crusading came to an end.

Recently, though, rumors emerged of something so strangely unnecessary, blinkered and contrary to both good taste and Disney legacy that I felt that old activist drumbeat once more. Something had been planned so purely based in concepts of “marketing” and “brand awareness” and intended to move merchandise that it can’t help but to raise the hackles of fans. Something that strikes right at the nexus of several “sacrosanct” movements in Disney park history, and something that was neither asked for or needed.

So why not? Once more into the breach, dear friends. Start your petitions and phone calls, emails and letters. Grab the pitchforks and light up those torches, because they’re going to screw around with it’s a small world.

(more…)

Frank Thomas, left, and Ollie Johnston in 2004’s The Incredibles

As I predicted, many heavy-hitters of the animation community have begun to share their thoughts and remembrances of Disney animator Ollie Johnston. One thing that is obvious from reading all these posts is that Johnston was universally loved and respected; it’s rare in any industry for such a prominent individual to pass on without anyone having something nasty to intimate about them. Johnston has been repeatedly described as a gentle, incredibly friendly and giving man as well as a fiercely talented animator. He was also one of the greatest personality animators in Disney history.

Below are some of the better tributes I’ve found to Ollie. I’ll add to this list as I come across more.

Cartoon Brew has a list of links, information and videos.
Animated News
Rhett Wickham
Will Finn
Steve Hulett
John Canemaker
Hans Perk
Floyd Norman
The extensive official Disney press obituary

Ollie, seated, with frequent collaborator Frank Thomas

Jenny at the Blackwing Diaries has posted the very sad news that Ollie Johnston, Disney animator and the last of Walt’s Nine Old Men, passed away today at the age of 95. I’m sure that many tributes will begin to appear very soon, so any attempt for me to eulogize Ollie here would be glaringly deficient. I never met the man in person, but his work and the work of his peers has affected my life greatly. His contribution to the art of animation is incalculable, as is the effect of his training and mentoring on the subsequent generation of animators that studied under him. He was an artist, a teacher, a family man and a heck of an engineer. His passing marks the end of an era; he is the last of the titans to fall. He will be missed.

I was extremely saddened to read on Blue Sky Disney this evening that artist and illustrator Dave Stevens passed away yesterday. Stevens, 52, had been fighting a long battle with leukemia.

A masterful artist, Stevens specialized in styles reminiscent of the 1930s and 40s. He reveled in the lost art of the pinup girl, and his drawings crackled with art-deco style and film serial excitement. He wasn’t prolific; a notoriously slow artist, he did things with pen and ink that most artists could not achieve with an array of brushes and paint. I’ve always been fascinated by artists that work in pen and ink; such simple tools can yield amazing results in the hands of someone as meticulous as Stevens.

Sadly, many might not even know of Stevens’ work, or what place it has on a Disney blog. In 1982, Stevens created the Rocketeer in the pages of Pacific Comics’ Starslayer #2. Over the next thirteen years the Rocketeer would make occasional appearances in print but his connection to Disney comes through the 1991 film adaptation, The Rocketeer. This film, perhaps more than any other, is the most underrated film in the entire Disney canon. Directed by Joe Johnston and with a fantastic cast and score by James Horner (portions of which are still played at EPCOT Center’s “Fountain of Nations”), The Rocketeer deserves far more attention than it has received.

Improperly marketed by Disney, and opening the same weekend as Terminator 2: Judgement Day, The Rocketeer underperformed at the box office and plans for a sequel were scuttled. This was a character that deserved a franchise, and one of my personal obsessions is the idea of creating a ride based on the film for the Hollywood Studios park. Oh, what one could do with a KUKA robocoaster and The Rocketeer…

Unfortunately, Stevens rarely returned to the character himself, and plans to continue the Rocketeer’s adventures after 1995 never came to fruition. We only have a handful of stories scattered amongst different publishers by which to remember Cliff Secord, the Rocketeer. Thankfully Stevens himself continued to work, but not on comic projects. Mostly it seems he spent recent years doing art by commission, and selling his famous pinups at comic shows across the country. Perhaps someday the Rocketeer will continue in some form - it would be a fitting tribute to an artist lost far before his time.

Read an excellent remembrance of Stevens at The Beat
Contribute to the American Cancer Society, because… screw cancer.
More at The Comics Reporter

UPDATE: Thanks to Pat in the comments, who pointed out that Stevens’ mother has requested that fans donate to the Hairy Cell Leukemia Research Foundation.