1971:
The Orlando Evening Star runs the front page headline:
"Monster Crowd Too Much For Mickey DISNEY GATES CLOSED" Traffic-choking
crowds jam Walt Disney World to capacity on this day after Thanksgiving. Shortly
before noon it is announced that the Florida park must close its gates to outside
visitors! (Among those in the Magic Kingdom on this day ... the webmaster of This Day in Disney History.)
2010:
As many as as 130 Disney stores across the nation open at midnight on "Magical
Friday" – Disney’s answer to Black Friday.
The first Candlelight Processional of the season takes place at Epcot. Disney World's
long-running telling of the Christmas story features a live orchestra and a massive choir performing traditional
holiday songs. Tonight's first guest narrator is actress Isabella Rossellini.
2009:
Happy Thanksgiving
The 83rd Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade takes place in New York City. Mickey Mouse rejoins the parade this year with a new "Cruiseship Mickey" balloon. It is the 4th parade version of Disney's famous mouse. Not only is Sailor Mickey the newest balloon in the parade, he's also this year's "Macy's official holiday ambassador." Mickey is approximately 61 feet high, 33 feet wide and 48 feet long, and takes about 14,000 cubic feet of helium to fill! He is joined by fellow helium-powered Disney-owned characters Buzz Lightyear and parade veteran Kermit the Frog.
2005:
Disney Legend and pioneering film distribtution executive Irving Ludwig passes away at his home in Santa Monica, California. He is 95. His 40-year career with Disney began in 1940 when he was hired to manage the road-show engagements of Fantasia. Ludwig later served as president of Buena Vista Distribution.
1864:
Charles L. Dodgson sends a handwritten manuscript to 12-year-old
Alice Liddell, one of the three daughters of Henry George Liddell, the dean of the
local church. The manuscript titled "Alice's Adventures Underground" (a story first created in July 1862) is an
early Christmas present. The manuscript will later be renamed and published as "Alice in Wonderland" and
"Through the Looking Glass" under his pen name Lewis Carroll. Dodgson, a proficient photography hobbyist, uses
family, friends and colleagues (including Alice) as subjects for his photographs and creative inspiration.
1937:
Disney's Pluto cartoon Pluto's Quin-Puplets is released.
1938:
Tragedy strikes when Walt's mother, Flora Disney, dies of asphyxiation caused
by a defective furnace in the house in Los Angeles that Walt and Roy had built
for their parents less than a month earlier. She is 70 years old.
1946:
Disney animator Woolie Reitherman (one of Disney's "Nine Old Men") weds Janie McMillan at Ermita Presbyterian Church in Manila.
1961:
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color airs
"Holiday for Henpecked Husbands."
1967:
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color airs part 1 of "The Monkey's Uncle."
1972:
The Wonderful World of Disney airs part 1 of "Chander, the Black Leopard of Ceylon."
1976:
Disney airs The Moonspinners and Prowlers of the Everglades as a TV special.
1987:
Tokyo Disneyland welcomes its 50-millionth guest!
1997:
Disney's Flubber (starring Robin Williams & Marcia Gay Harden) is released. A remake
of the 1961 film The Absent-Minded Professor, Williams portrays Professor Phillip Brainard who along with his
robot assistant Weebo (voiced by Jodi Benson) creates an energetic "substance."
1998:
Thanksgiving Day
Winnie the Pooh Thanksgiving airs on ABC-TV.
2001:
The Walt Disney Company reiterates its commitment to support
U.S. troops at home and abroad, and assist in the nation's relief
and rebuilding programs. (Disney has become a USO World
Sponsor providing more than $1 million financial aid.)
2003:
Disney's feature The Haunted Mansion opens in theaters. The movie stars Eddie Murphy as real estate agent Jim Evers who drags his family to see the Gracey mansion when he learns it is being put up for sale!
2004:
The popular Disney World holiday event the Candlelight Processional is performed
at Epcot for the first time this season as Holidays Around the World begins.
The Disney/Pixar animated feature The Incredibles is released in the United Kingdom
and the Republic of Ireland.
2006:
The Wonders of Life pavilion including the attractions Body Wars, Cranium
Command, and The Making of Me reopen in Epcot. Closed since January 2005, the pavilion
now opens seasonally.
A Mickey Mouse balloon was first added to Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (then called the Macy's Christmas Parade) in New York City in 1934.
 | ||||
1951:
MGM releases the comedy Grounds for Marriage featuring Van Johnson and Kathryn Grayson. Among the musical numbers is one by the Firehouse Five Plus Two (a Dixieland jazz band led by Disney animator Ward Kimball).
1942:
The Warner Brothers romance film Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Peter Lorre, is released. (A scene from this film is represented in Disney's Hollywood Studios' The Great Movie Ride. It is also among the trailers shown in the ride's queue area.)
1933:
Legendary star of stage, screen, television and records, Robert Goulet is born in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He is the singing voices of Mikey in Recess: School's Out and Wheezy the Penguin in Toy Story 2 - who sings his own version of "You've Got a Friend In Me." (Goulet first rose to international stardom in 1960 as Lancelot in Lerner and Loewe's hit Broadway musical Camelot. In 1988 he was cast by Tim Burton as a houseguest blown through the roof by Beetlejuice.)
1986:
The Disney Channel first airs "How to Haunt a Haunted House,"
the 75th episode of The Edison Twins.
advertisement
NOVEMBER 26
THIS DAY MADE
IN THE
USA
NOVEMBER 26
N
O
V
| ||||
| ||||
2004 Holidays Around the World begins
| ||||
Traffic-choking crowds jammed Walt Disney World to capacity today, forcing the giant playground to close its spinning turnstiles.
-November 26, 1971 issue of Orlando Evening News
WDW closes gates for first time in history!
| ||||
1943:
Disney's Donald Duck short Home Defense, directed by Jack King, is released.
When Donald, a civilian war aircraft spotter, falls asleep at this post ... his nephews trick him by launching a
toy plane and toy parachutists!
"... used to sit on the big sofa on each side of him, while he told us stories, illustrating them by pencil or ink drawings as he went along ...
He seemed to have an endless store of these fantastical tales, which he made up as he told them, drawing busily on a large sheet of paper
all the time. They were not always entirely new. Sometimes they were new versions of old stories; sometimes they started on the old
basis, but grew into new tales owing to the frequent interruptions which opened up fresh and undreamed-of possibilities." -Alice Liddell
1959:
Thanksgiving Day
Disneyland's "Zorro Days," featuring the cast of Disney's popular
ABC-TV series, returns to the park for the 4th time. The 4-day event
includes parades and live performances in Frontierland.
"Disney always liked the casts of his shows to make appearances at Disneyland. It was great for attendance at the park and a lot of
Zorro products were sold at the same time. Things like little Zorro costumes, play swords, puzzles, games and dozens of other items
relating to the series. Money would pour into the Disney coffers. These personal appearances were a great moneymaker for the studio
and Walt knew it certainly helped in the ratings which made ABC a very happy puppy." -actor Britt Lomond (best remembered as the
sinister yet dashing Captain Monasterio on Disney's TV series Zorro)
with definite guarantee of MB3-408.
advertisement
2008:
The Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough reopens at Disneyland after being closed since 2001. The attraction allows guests into a dark castle with narrow hallways, where they can relive the fairy tale via a series of dioramas that portray passages from the story.
| ||||
1992:
Thanksgiving Day
Santa Goofy takes the spotlight in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, as the "new" balloon. The procession also features 6,000 amateur tap dancers donning Mickey Ears, tapping to set the Guinness World Record for Largest Assembly of Tap Dancers.
