1918:
Singer & radio personality Dennis Day is born Owen Patrick Eugene McNulty in The Bronx, New York. He can be heard in Disney's 1948 feature Melody Time, narrating and providing all the voices for "The Legend of Johnny Appleseed" segment.
1928:
Walt Disney's trademark application for "Mickey Mouse"
is filed with the United States Patent Office.
1933:
A 23-year-old artist named Wolfgang Reitherman is hired at the Disney Studios in Hollywood, California. "Woolie" as he will be nicknamed, will start work in June
and go on to become one of Walt's legendary "Nine Old Men".
1934:
Disney comic illustrator Luciano Gatto is born in Venice, Italy.
1948:
Disney's Donald's Dream Voice, directed by Jack King, is released. Donald tries his hand at selling brushes door-to-door ... but since nobody can understand him, nobody buys anything!
1954:
The Disney cartoon Pigs is Pigs is released. Narrated by Gary Owens, the short
features the sounds of the Mellomen - a vocal group which includes Thurl
Ravenscroft. (It will be nominated for an Academy Award.)
1961:
The TV series Walt Disney Presents airs "Wonders of the Water World."
1993:
CBS-TV airs the 2nd part of the Disney special "The Best of Disney Music: A Legacy in Song."
1998:
The new Disneyland Tomorrowland is unveiled
after being given an extreme facelift. Various dedicationswill take place over
the next 2 days. Among the special guests are legendary astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Wally Schirra.
1999:
Disney Presents: Bill Nye the Science Guy wins a
Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Children's Series.
2001:
In Hawaii, Disney turns the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis into a party ship and outdoor movie theater for the premiere of its summer blockbuster, Pearl Harbor. Movie stars mingle with survivors and top military officers as some 2,000 guests gather on the flight deck of one of America's biggest ships for the screening.
2005:
Howard Morris, the voice of Gopher in Disney's Winnie the Pooh features, passes away in Los Angeles, California. Since the early 60s, he has been a main staple of the Hanna-Barbera Productions vocal team, offering hundreds of voices for The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. As a director Morris was responsible for the classic black-and-white pilot of TV's Get Smart.
1957:
Actor Judge Reinhold - Neil Miller in Disney's live-action features The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, The Santa Clause 2: The Mrs. Clause, and The Santa Clause - is born in Wilmington, Delaware. (Movie fans will recognize him from such features as Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Beverly Hills Cop.)
Walt Disney first leased the 708-acre Golden Oak Ranch (just north of their Burbank studio) in the late 1950s as a film location for the "Spin and Marty" segments of the Mickey Mouse Club.
2008:
During the season finale of American Idol, Jordin Sparks, last year’s winner, announces that The American Idol Experience, a theme-park version of the show, will open at Disney Hollywood Studios in January 2009. David Cook, who is voted this season's American Idol, shouts "I'm going to Disney World!" during the celebration following the live announcement. It is a rare off-field exception for those famous promotional words, which have almost always been uttered by sports figures. (The attraction will officially open February 14, 2009.)
Disney’s VirtualMagicKingdom.com shuts down at 10 p.m. The free social gaming site, also known as VMK, let players choose and style avatars, chat with other players and play games - all in a virtual theme park environment.
1914:
John Hubley, an animator and animation director, is born in Marinette,
Wisconsin. In 1935, he will get a job as a background and layout artist at Disney, where he will
work on such classic films as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Dumbo, and Bambi, as
well as "The Rite of Spring" segment from Fantasia. He will leave Disney in 1941 and eight years later
help create the cartoon character Mr. Magoo.
1940:
Disney's Pinocchio is generally released in the U.K.
2007:
Actress Scarlett Strallen returns to the title role of the West End production of
Mary Poppins. She had first joined the London show at the end of 2005 to
replace original cast member Laura Michelle Kelly.
(In 2008 Strallen will play 'Mary' on Broadway.)
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MAY
MAY 21
In 1959, Disney purchased Golden Oak Ranch, and over the years acquired additional land which brought the total to just under 900 acres!
2009:
ASIFA-Hollywood celebrates the 20th anniversary of Walt Disney Animation’s The
Little Mermaid, with an evening of lively discussion with some of the animators and
crew members at the Fletcher Jones Foundation Auditorium at Woodbury
University (in Burbank, California). Special guests include the film’s writers and directors John Musker & Ron Clements, and animators Andreas Deja, Mark Henn, Duncan Marjoribanks, Reuben Aquino and Tina Price.
"I'm going to Disney World!" -David Cook
1943:
Walt Disney writes to painter/illustrator Norman
Rockwell, thanking him for the painting of The
Saturday Evening Post cover (dated March 1, 1941).
Walt tells him that members of the Disney staff have been trooping up to
his office to admire the gift. "To all of them," Walt writes, "you are some
sort of a god." Rockwell is enjoying a broad popular appeal in the
United States as he is famous for the cover illustrations of everyday
life scenarios he creates for The Saturday Evening Post magazine.
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MAY 21
THIS DAY MADE IN THE USA
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Disney hires Woolie Reitherman
"The more you find out about the world, the more opportunities there are to laugh at it."
-Bill Nye the Science Guy
2002:
The CD You Were Mad for Me/In Disneyland, made up of 2 Freddie & the
Dreamers' albums - 1964's You Were Mad for Me and 1966's In Disneyland, is
released. You Were Mad for Me was the group's second album and features covers such as "It Doesn't
Matter Anymore" and "What I'd Say." In Disneyland, originally only issued in the U.K., is made up of covers of
songs associated with Disney films including "When You Wish Upon a Star," "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,"
and "Whistle While You Work." (Freddie & the Dreamers were one of the many British bands that rode on the
popularity wave created by the Beatles in the mid-1960s.)
