1969:
Russian cosmonauts Major General Georgiy Beregovoy of the Russian Air Force and civilian scientist Konstantin Feoktistov begin the Disneyland part of their two-week tour of the U.S. At special ceremonies held in front of Flight to the Moon, Mickey Mouse and Pluto (dressed in space helmets and space suits) present the Russian space travelers with Mickey Mouse watches and hats. Beregovoy had commanded the space mission Soyuz 3 in October 1968 at the age of 47, making him the oldest human (at that time) to go into space. Feoktistov became the first civilian to make a space flight when he flew in October 1964 aboard Voskhod 1.
1970:
Musician, songwriter, and producer Ted Bruner is born in St. Louis, Missouri. He's written and/or produced songs for Katy Perry, Marie Digby, Selena Gomez, Plain White T's, Bowling For Soup, Jason Castro and Miley Cyrus (most notably her song "Breakout" co-written with Gina Schock & Trey Vittetoe).
2005:
As a result of Hurricane Wilma, all 4 Disney World theme parks, 2 water parks, resort amenities (Downtown Disney, the golf courses) and Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground are closed for the morning. All theme parks (except Disney's Animal Kingdom and the Disney-MGM Studios) and Downtown Disney are re-opened at 1:00pm.
After two years of testing and development, the first version of Club Penguin (an online game developed by New Horizon Interactive) is made available to the general public. Using cartoon penguins as avatars, players waddle around, chat, play minigames and participate in other activities with one another in a snow-covered virtual world. Disney will buy Club Penguin in August 2007.
"May EPCOT Center entertain, inform and inspire, and above all, may it instill a new sense of belief and pride in man's ability to shape a world that offers hope to people everywhere."
-EPCOT dedication This Day in Disney History 1982
1910:
Publisher & Disney Legend Poul Brahe Pederson is born in Heidelberg, Germany. In 1954 he first joined Disney licensee Gutenberghus Publishing
(today called Egmont Group) in Copenhagen as its managing director of weekly publications.
1929:
Disney's third Silly Symphony cartoon Springtime is released. Directed by
Ub Iwerks, it is the first of the Silly Symphony cartoons based on the 4 seasons.
1947:
In Washington, D.C., Walt Disney heads a list of "friendly" witnesses testifying to the first House Un-American Activities Committee investigation on Communist subversion in Hollywood, California.
Actor Kevin Kline, the voice of Captain Phoebus in Disney's 1996 release The Hunchback of Notre Dame (and its 2002 sequel), is born in St. Louis, Missouri.
1955:
Mickey Mouse Club airs on ABC-TV. Today is Fun With Music Day.
1958:
The TV series Walt Disney Presents airs the episode "Rusty and the Falcon."
1965:
The Sentinel-Star runs the headline: WE SAY OUR 'MYSTERY'
INDUSTRY IS DISNEY! An unknown buyer has been purchasing large parcels of land in the Orlando, Florida area and rumors are spreading about who it might be.
1982:
EPCOT Center (Disney's third theme park) is officially dedicated by Disney Chairman E. Cardon Walker 23 days after the park's opening day.
1994:
The animated series Gargoyles airs for the first time. Created and produced by Greg Weisman, it is hailed as one of the more ambitious Disney animated series in history. Known for its complex and dramatic stories, Gargoyles is targeted at an older demographic.
1997:
The Orlando Sentinel runs an article over the controversy raging in Florida about Disney World closing the Mr. Toad's Wild Ride attraction. Actors Steve Guttenberg and Kirsten Dunst, stars of The Wonderful World of Disney's upcoming "Tower of Terror," come out strongly pro-Toad while Darius Rucker, lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish, makes it clear that he's a Pooh man.
2001:
The Walt Disney Company completes its acquisition of Fox Family Worldwide,
Inc. from Haim Saban and Fox Broadcasting Company. The acquisition closes
on this day with a final purchase price of $5.2 billion, including approximately $2.9 billion in cash and the
assumption of $2.3 billion in Fox Family obligations. (The Fox Family channel will be turned into the ABC
Family channel.)
John R. "Jack" Shively Sr., one of the original builders of Walt Disney World,
passes away at age 71. Starting in 1969, Shively carved designs into the theme
park's walls, put up fences and helped construct many attractions. He retired in 1992.
NYSNC's Lance Bass and Joey Fatone visit Disney World to lead the new
"Share a Dream Come True" parade at the Magic Kingdom and to star as grand
marshals in the new "Disney Stars and Motor Cars" parade at the
Disney-MGM Studios.
2002:
It is reported that Disney's Monsters, Inc. has sold 13 million units worth $250 million on DVD and VHS internationally.
2003:
Disney's Brother Bear (featuring 5 new songs by Phil Collins) premieres at the El
Capitan Theater in Hollywood. The 44th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics, it is
also the third and final Disney animated feature produced primarily by the Feature Animation studio at Disney-MGM
Studios in Florida. Brother Bear will be generally released November 1.
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1983:
Adrienne Bailon, a member of Disney's The Cheetah Girls (from 2005-2009),
is born in New York City.
2006:
Walt Disney Records releases The Hannah Montana Soundtrack - from
Disney Channel's hit original series. (It will shatter industry records as the first-ever TV soundtrack to enter the Billboard Top 200 at No 1!) Disney also unveils The Nightmare Before
Christmas 2-Disc Special Edition Soundtrack in celebration of the 13th anniversary of Tim Burton's cult classic animated feature.
The stage show, Sister Act the Musical (based on the motion picture and
licensed by Disney) opens at the Pasadena Playhouse in California.
The show features the music of Alan Menken and Glenn Slater.
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1998:
The third annual Epcot International Food & Wine Festival begins in Florida.
Epcot's World Showcase Lagoon is 15 feet deep and has a circumference of one and a
quarter mile.
The World
Showcase water area is
185 acres ... that's larger
than the original
Disneyland!
OCTOBER 24
1957:
Disney's third Zorro episode "Zorro Rides to the Mission" airs on ABC-TV.
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2007:
Disney announces that it will contribute $2 million in aid towards relief efforts for the nearly one million victims of the ongoing Southern California wildfires.
1956:
The Disneyland TV series airs the episode "Behind the Cameras at Lapland / Alaskan Eskimo" on ABC.
1940:
Disney's Pinocchio is released in Australia.
2008:
Pixie Hollow, a new meet & greet featuring Tinker Bell and her fairy friends, debuts at the Magic Kingdom's Mickey's Toontown Fair (at Disney World).
(Tinker Bell, a brand new movie, will be released 4 days later on DVD.)
High School Musical 3: Senior Year, the third installment in Disney's High School Musical franchise, has its theatrical release in the United States.
Meanwhile over at Disney's California Adventure, The High School
Musical 3: Senior Year - Right Here! Right Now! street show premieres.
Roadside Romeo a computer-animated film written and directed by Jugal Hansraj is released in the U.S. The film, about a dog named Romeo,
is co-produced by Walt Disney Pictures.
1968:
Voice actor, storyboard artist, and writer Mark Walton is born in Salt Lake City, Utah. He supplied the voices for Rhino in Bolt and Goosey Loosey in Chicken Little. His animation credits include Meet the Robinsons, Chicken Little, and Tarzan.
1908:
Preston Blair, character animator best known for his work at Walt Disney Productions and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation department, is born in California. At Disney, Blair animated some of the Mickey Mouse scenes in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" section of Fantasia, and the hippo-aligator dance in Fantasia's "Dance of the Hours" sequence. He also worked on Disney's Pinocchio and Bambi. Brother-in-law of artist and Disney Legend Mary Blair, Preston wrote one of the first books on how to animate.
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THIS DAY MADE IN THE USA
OCTOBER 24
EPCOT Center dedicated
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Cosmonauts visit Disneyland
2009:
Disney's A Christmas Carol Train Tour pulls into Charleston, South Carolina
for 2 days.
SEASON 3 EPISODE 7
1930:
Voice actor Jack Angel, the voice of Chunk in Toy Story 3, is born in Modesto, California. His long list of Disney credits include Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, A Bug's Life, Cars, Darkwing Duck, and the original Toy Story.
1941:
The Disney short Donald's Camera, directed by Dick Lundy, is released. Donald
Duck's new hobby is photography - which he takes into the wilderness to snap
pictures of wildlife.
"Nearly 40,000 visits – the biggest crowd yet – jammed Walt Disney World turnstiles Saturday (October 23)
as the $400 million "Magic Kingdom" kicked off its three-day formal opening celebration with the arrival of a plane-load of Hollywood notables." -Orlando Sentinel Oct 24
1919:
Robbins Wolcott Barstow Jr. is born in Woodstock,
Vermont (though he will grow up in Hartford).
An amateur filmmaker (starting at the age of 12), his 30-minute
16mm film Disneyland Dream (shot in July 1956) was born of a nationwide contest. In 1956, the 3M Company
offered free trips to Disneyland to the 25 families who best expressed why they loved Scotch Tape and Barstow's
youngest son Danny was one of the winners.
"I first showed the home-edited version of Disneyland Dream to a gathering of neighborhood families and friends, projected on a sheet attached to the side of our house in Wethersfield (CT), with my 16mm movie projector set up in our backyard, on Labor Day weekend, 1956, with me providing on-the-spot narration as the film went along. It proved to be an immediate favorite and became very popular. Over the years, I received dozens of requests to show it to community groups, PTAs, schools, church and other social groups, extending throughout the state, as well as to relatives and at family gatherings.
Finally, in 1995, after nearly 40 years, I had the film transferred to VHS Video, for wider distribution, and I recorded the narration on tape. I was then able to have it broadcast over our local Wethersfield Public Access Community Television Channel. When I heard that the Library of Congress was interested in adding home movies to their collections, I sent Dr. James H. Billington, the distinguished Librarian of Congress, a copy of Disneyland Dream, along with a dozen other home movies which I had produced with our family over a period of some 70 years." -Robbins Barstow
October Preview Month
1971:
Day 2 of Walt Disney World's three-day grand opening celebration takes place.
The formal dedication of the Contemporary Resort takes place at noon on this Sunday with Bob Hope, followed
by the dedication of the Polynesian Village Resort at 6 p.m. A special luau takes place at the Polynesian followed
by the debut of Disney World's Electrical Water Pageant (the predecessor to the Main Street Electrical Parade) in the Seven Seas Lagoon. Although opened to the public since October 1, Disney World debuts its very first official
fireworks display called Fantasy in the Sky Spectacular on this evening.
