1989:
Disney Channel airs episode 16 of MMC. The musical group
Was (Not Was) appears on Music Day performing their hit "Walk the Dinosaur."
1974:
Card Walker, Disney president and chief operating officer, announces to a
meeting of the American Marketing Association that Walt Disney Productions will be
moving ahead "in a phased program" with the development of Walt Disney's
concept for EPCOT. The process of taking Walt's EPCOT (an idea for a real city) apart and concocting
something different with the pieces has begun.
2004:
Animator & cartoonist Jack Bradbury passes away at the age of 89. Born in 1914, he first joined the Disney Studio at age 20 and worked as an inbetweener from 1934-1938 on such cartoons as The Band Concert and Through The Mirror. He later became a full animator and worked on several key scenes in Disney features, including the stag fight in Bambi, the Pegasus family gliding into a watery landing in Fantasia, and Figaro walking across Gepetto's bed in Pinocchio. Leaving after the 1941 strike, Bradbury worked for the Schlessinger studio, which produced cartoons for Warner Brothers. Towards the end of his time at Warner's, he started drawing comic book stories. A short time later he took a job with Western Publishing who were producing all of the Disney comics. Bradbury spent the next three decades drawing mostly Disney comic books for Western, and later (from about 1968-1977) directly for Disney Studio.
1908:
Illustrator/writer & Disney Legend Joe Grant is born in New York City.
He first became interested in drawing while watching his father (an art director for William Randolph Hearst's newspapers) illustrate. In 1933, Walt Disney discovered Grant through his celebrity caricatures in the Los Angeles Record and invited him to design the movie star caricatures for the cartoon Mickey's Gala Premiere.
Grant went on to work on such early classics as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Dumbo and Fantasia as a conceptual artist and story man. Although temporarily leaving Disney in 1949 to pursue other artistic ventures, he later returned in the late 1980s to contribute concepts, character designs, story ideas and gags for Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules and Fantasia 2000.
1928:
Plane Crazy, Walt Disney's first silent short to feature
Mickey & Minnie Mouse, premieres as a sneak preview at a theatre on Sunset
Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. The film, a parody of the Charles
Lindbergh craze, has cost $1,772 to make. Plane Crazy also features the very first appearance of Clarabelle Cow. It is co-directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. Iwerks is also given credit as the main animator,
although he is assisted by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising. This is the last Disney project Harman and
Ising worked on as they have jumped to a new studio formed by Charles Mintz. (The two will later leave
Mintz's studio and go on to start Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation studios!) Sound will
later be added to Plane Crazy and officially released in March 1929, 4 months after Steamboat Willie.
1937:
Disney's Silly Symphony cartoon Little Hiawatha is released.
Directed by David Hand, a young Indian brave sets off into the forest to prove his
worth by hunting big game. Unfortunately, he finds that some of the game is a lot bigger than he is!
"Donald and Donna," the first Donald Duck adventure ever, is published in Mickey Mouse Weekly # 67 by Fleetway (a publishing company mainly producing comic magazines for the United Kingdom). The story (drawn by William A. Ward) is 15 pages long and will be published in weekly episodes.
1952:
Actor Chazz Palminteri, the voice of Buster in Disney's 2001 Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure, is born in New York City. (He is best known for his performances in The Usual Suspects, A Bronx Tale, Mulholland Falls and his Academy Award nominated role for Best Supporting Actor in Bullets Over Broadway.)
1998:
Bill Nye - of the syndicated television show Disney Presents Bill Nye the Science Guy - wins a Daytime Emmy for Performer in a Children's Series.
Disney's Touchstone Pictures releases The Horse Whisperer starring Robert Redford and based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Nicholas Evans.
2001:
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in California, features "Walt Disney - The Man and His Magic," an exhibit about Walt.
(The exhibit will run through September.)
Over 200 Disney Cast Members perform in "FLASHBACK: When You Wish
Upon A Star" for family, friends and fellow cast members at the Hyperion
Theater in Disney's California Adventure. Four different musical stories are
performed by groups of cast members representing areas of the Disneyland
Resort. Ticket and food sales are donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation of
Orange County. The event raises $16,000.
1938:
"Old MacDonald," the 20th (and final) episode of the radio series Mickey Mouse
Theatre of the Air is broadcast on the NBC radio network. Originally scheduled to
run as a thirteen-program series, it had been extended to twenty due to its
popularity. (Because the programs took Walt away from his animation, he isn't
entirely unhappy to see the weekly radio series end.)
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2003:
Mexican American billionaire Arturo "Arte" Moreno makes history by becoming the first Hispanic to own a major sports team in the United States when he purchases the Anaheim Angels baseball team from the Walt Disney Company.
Plane Crazy was the first
animated film to use a camera
move. The point-of-view shot
from the plane makes it appear
as if the camera is trucking into
the ground. In fact, when the
scene was shot, books were
piled under the spinning
background to move
the artwork closer to
the camera!
2007:
The Broadway adaptation of Mary Poppins receives 7 Tony nominations for
Best Musical, Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical (Gavin Lee),
Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical (Rebecca Luker), Best
Scenic Design of a Musical, Best Costume Design of a Musical, Best Lighting
Design of a Musical, and Best Choreography.
1999:
The Disney Channel Original Movie The Thirteenth Year debuts. A teen (played by
Chez Starbuck) learns that his birth mother is a mermaid after he begins to grow fins and slimy scales on his
thirteenth birthday!
"They want more production and they want it cheaper. But no matter what happens, the creative idea will be perpetuated by somebody who comes up with a vision. I don't care if there are three CEOs - it takes one guy with an idea." -Joe Grant (born This Day 1908)
2008:
Florida Governor Charlie Crist applauds Walt Disney World Resort for its achievement of 100 percent of its lodging properties earning the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Lodging Program designation - covering all 23 of its resort hotels plus Disney’s Vero Beach Resort. Launched in 2004 by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Florida Green Lodging Program establishes environmental guidelines for hotels and motels to conserve natural resources and prevent pollution.
1978:
Actor David Krumholtz is born in New York City. Disney fans known him best as the sarcastic head elf Bernard in The Santa Clause (1994) and its 2002 sequel The Santa Clause 2: The Mrs Clause. (Fans of TV's Numb3rs knew Krumholtz for his role of Charlie Eppes.)
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MAY
MAY 15
Today is National Chocolate Chip Day
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Joe Grant
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1977:
The Wonderful World of Disney airs the episode "Disney's Greatest Villains" hosted by Hans Conried on NBC-TV. It showcases Disney's upcoming release The Rescuers and introduces its arch-villain, Madame Medusa. The Rescuers will be released in June. (Conried's long list of Disney credits include Peter Pan (as the voice of Captain Hook), One Hour in Wonderland, Ben and Me, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, and The Story of Anyburg U.S.A.)
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1930:
The Disney Mickey Mouse short The Cactus Kid, directed by Walt Disney, is released. Riding in on Horace, Mickey visits a western town but fails to impress a Mexican Minnie with his mischievous antics. He later succeeds in saving her from the dastardly Pegleg Pedro! It is the last Mickey short to be animated by Ub Iwerks (who weeks before left the Disney Studios).
2009:
Disney Theatrical Productions' The Lion King has its official grand opening at
Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Walt Disney Company launches Disney’s Friends for Change: Planet Green
- a new multiplatform environmental initiative that will help kids help the planet.
Among the 29 young Disney stars participating in outreach messages (to debut on Disney Channel, Disney
XD, Radio Disney & Disney.com) are Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, the Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato.
Starting this day, Central Florida motorists can ride a toll road that bypasses
Apopka, serves as a crucial east-west artery and offers a back way to Walt
Disney World. The first two-thirds of the John Land Apopka Expressway, also called State Road 414,
actually debuted in February. But two more miles open today at noon, stretching the highway to 5.5 miles.
The 414, which cost $247 million to build, allows motorists heading to Disney World to skip heavily traveled
Interstate 4 through downtown Orlando.
1995:
The California Grill restaurant opens on the 15th floor of the Contemporary
Resort (former site of Top of the World) at Walt Disney World. Located on the
resort's top floor, the restaurant offers dining guests a spectacular view of the nightly fireworks
extravaganza at the nearby Magic Kingdom.
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MAY 15
THIS DAY MADE IN THE USA
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2011:
Epcot's 18th International Flower & Garden Festival comes to a close.
Disneyland cast members and their select guests preview Star Tours - The
Adventure Continues. The revamped Tomorrowland attraction based on Star Wars will open June 3.
Disney's The Lion King at Mandalay Bay celebrates its second anniversary on the
Vegas Strip. Following this evening's performance, the show's cast and crew gather to celebrate the
occasion with champagne and a spectacular Lion King cake standing four feet tall and weighing 75 pounds in
a magnificent portrayal of Simba's mask and body.
The only Disney artist to have worked on both Fantasia's!
