1989:
The TV sitcom The Golden Girls airs "Two Rode Together." Dorothy (Bea Arthur) takes Sophia to Walt Disney World for "quality time," but Sophia (Estelle Getty) wants to ride Space Mountain instead.
1995:
Disney's The Lion King is released on videocassette in the U.S.
(Some 20 million copies will be sold in the first week.)
2000:
A new fireworks show entitled "Believe ... There's Magic in the Stars," officially debuts at Disneyland. It has been created especially for the park's 45th anniversary.
2004:
The Walt Disney Company and The Jim Henson Company announces that they have entered into an agreement under which Disney will acquire the Muppets and Bear in the Big Blue House properties from Henson.
1903:
George Givot, the voice of Tony in Disney's 1955
classic Lady and the Tramp, is born in Omaha, Nebraska.
1907:
Actor-comic Billy De Wolfe, who appeared in the 1973 live-action Disney feature
The World's Greatest Athlete, is born in Wollaston, Massachusetts. (With a career
that lasted 5 decades, he was active in films from the mid-1940s until his death in 1974. You may recognize
him as the voice of Professor Hinckle in the classic animated holiday TV special Frosty the Snowman.)
1933:
Disney's Mickey Mouse cartoon Mickey's Pal Pluto is released. Pluto rescues several tiny kittens from drowning and then becomes jealous of the way they are welcomed into Mickey's home.
1939:
Disney's animated Mickey's Surprise Party is released to Nabisco. The commercial short is made for the National Biscuit Company and will be shown at the 1939 New York World's Fair.
1949:
Actor Pat Fraley, whose voice can be heard in such animated features as Chicken
Little, Monsters, Inc. and Toy Story 2, is born in Seattle, Washington. Fraley is best
known for voicing 7 of the characters in the animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
1953:
Disney's first People and Places film - The Alaskan Eskimo - a short documentary
shot by the team of Alfred and Elma Milotte, is released. (It will win an Academy Award for
Best Documentary, Short Subject.)
1960:
Under storm-threatening skies, the greatest winter athletes in the world gather in Squaw Valley, California, to begin the VIII Olympic Winter Games. The opening (and closing) ceremonies are orchestrated by Walt Disney (the Head of Pageantry for the Games), and involve 5,000 participants, 1,285 instruments and 2,645 voices from 52 California and Nevada high school bands. Disney artist John Hench has designed the massive Tower of Nations, located at the entrance of the valley, and the Olympic torch. The huge ceremonial Tower of Nations measures 79 feet high and 20 feet wide. Hench's unique Olympic torch design will be the basis for all future torches! The valley also features 30 flagpoles for the flags of the participating nations. Each flagpole has a plaque signed by Walt Disney. After the Games the flagpoles will find homes in such places as the Walt Disney Elementary School in Marceline, Missouri, and the Disney Studio Commissary in Burbank, California. (The Olympics will run through February 28.)
1962:
The NBC-TV series Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color airs episode 200 - part 1 of "Comancho."
1964:
Canadian inventor Joseph-Armand Bombardier (designer of the modern snowmobile) passes away at the age of 56. His company Bombardier, a manufacturer of innovative transportation solutions, built Walt Disney World's Mark VI Monorails!
Actor Matt Dillon - Trip Murphy in the 2005 Herbie: Fully Loaded - is born in New Rochelle, New York. His credits include Walt Disney Pictures' Old Dogs, and the Miramax Films Beautiful Girls and Albino Alligator. (Dillon first gained fame as a teenage idol during the 1980s in films like The Outsiders and The Flamingo Kid.)
1970:
and the Beast, is born in Seal Beach, California. She played Belle for a year
on Broadway and then reprised her role in the Los Angeles Production in 1995. Her Disney voice credits
also include Lady and the Tramp II, House of Mouse, Spirited Away, and Hercules (as Megara).
1979:
The Wonderful World of Disney airs part 2 of "Ride a Wild Pony."
2001:
The Disney Channel presents Eye On LA:
First Look at Disney's Newest Theme Park.
2002:
Disney World celebrates Presidents' Day with the official dedication of the updated Hall of Presidents attraction (which now includes an Audio-Animatronics figure of President George W. Bush). Fifty students from Lost Lake Elementary School (in Lake County) lead cast members and park guests in the Pledge of Allegiance. The Disney World Philharmonic Orchestra and Voices of Liberty choral group perform patriotic music.
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2007:
The China Pavilion at Epcot celebrates the Chinese New Year.
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Disney Transport is
the privately run
transportation system at
Walt Disney World.
Disney World's
buses cover almost
12 million miles
every single year!
2008:
Disney's Vero Beach Resort honors baseball Hall of Famer Tommy Lasorda by officially naming the resort's recreation lawn "Lasorda Field" during a special ceremony. During the more than six decades in which the Dodgers have called Vero Beach, Florida
their spring home, Lasorda has become one of the most recognized figures in baseball as a player, coach,
manager and executive.
FEBRUARY 18
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FEBRUARY 18
THIS
SITE MADE
IN THE USA
VIII Olympic Winter Games begin
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First People & Places film
1950:
Film director, producer, and writer John Hughes is born in Lansing, Michigan.
He produced and wrote for Disney's 1997 Flubber and 1996 101 Dalmatians. But Hughes is best known for
his classic comedy features Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Home Alone, and
Planes, Trains & Automobiles.
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"I did 'Beauty and the Beast' like 780 times. And so there are going to be nights when things go
wrong, like the set breaks down or the Beast mistakenly pulls your wig off." -Susan Egan
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"That opening ceremony was the most remarkable thing I ever saw. No matter how much credit you give Walt Disney and his entire organization, it isn't nearly enough." -Braven Dyer (Los Angeles Times)
1944:
Disney's Donald Duck cartoon Trombone Trouble, directed by Jack King, is released.
1956:
Academy Award nominations are announced with Disney receiving 3:
No Hunting - Short Subjects, Cartoons
Switzerland - Short Subjects, Two Reels
Men Against the Arctic - Documentary, Short Subjects
Oscars will be awarded March 21.
1957:
Disney receives 3 Academy Award nominations on this day:
Cow Dog - Short Subjects, Two Reels
Samoa - Short Subjects, Two Reels
Man in Space - Documentary, Short Subjects
Oscar night will be March 27.
1983:
The Daily News reports: "Award-winning theater producer Joseph Papp is negotiating
with the Walt Disney organization to acquire the legitimate theater rights to the 1937
film version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The stage version would include the film's
original songs and would feature Linda Ronstadt in the leading role. The Papp-Ronstadt Snow White will be
presented free of charge during the summer of 1983 in the Delacourt Theater in Central Park."
(Unfortunately this show will never be produced.)
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1977:
Terri Perrotta, an 11-year-old tap dancer from Hyde Park, Massachusetts, and Kevin Brando, a 6-year-old trombone player from Santa Monica, California, are featured Showtime Day guests on episode 25 of The New Mickey Mouse Club.
Little Toot, a carefree tiny tugboat, stars in the cartoon for the day.
FEB
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