August 18 - John Debney

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On this day, in 1956, John Cardon Debney was born in Glendale, California. John’s father, Louis, was a television producer for the Walt Disney Studio throughout his childhood. Louis was responsible for episodes of The Mickey Mouse Club, Zorro and the Disneyland anthology show. You name it and if it occurred during those early years, Louis had a hand in it. As a result, John did a whole lot of growing up on Disney soundstages and backlots. He also received the musical talent in his family, having started guitar lessons when he was just six years old. He also became proficient at a keyboard (the piano kind not the computer kind) and rotated through a number of bands right on into his college years. He was talented enough to get into the music program at CalArts and dedicated enough to graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in Music Composition in 1979. He then had to wait two whole weeks before starting a new job at the same place his father earned his living for so many years.

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John started out at Disney about as low on the totem pole as you can get. He was in the copying department and was basically what they call a runner. He gathered up sheet music and recordings and ran them to wherever they needed to go. Until the day the Legendary composer Buddy Baker, who undoubtedly was aware of both John’s parentage and his musical degree, dropped a little project in his lap. Buddy needed someone to arrange some French classical music into a medley and if it could seamlessly repeat itself, that would be great. Could John accomplish that? Sure, no problem. Soon Buddy was bringing John all sorts of tasks like that. One week it might be German oompah bands, the next traditional Japanese melodies. It might sound like a bunch of eclectic busywork, but by the end of three years, John had arranged and composed a big chunk of the background music that was going to be heard continuously in the pavilions of the World Showcase area of Disney’s newest park, EPCOT Center. So the next time you find yourself drinking around the world, pause a moment in each country and enjoy some of John’s early work.

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After three years of cutting his teeth with Disney, John was ready to cut himself loose and began freelancing as a composer of musical scores. He worked exclusively in television to begin with, collaborating with Mike Post, the legendary producer of series like Magnum, P.I., Quantum Leap and Hill Street Blues. He also dove into the madcap world of television animation with the Hanna-Barbera Studio apprenticing under their long-time musical director, Hoyt Curtin. During this period John wrote the scores for series as diverse as Star Trek: The Next Generation and The Young Riders (which earned him his first of three Emmy Awards for musical composition) and Dink, the Little Dinosaur.  As the Eighties turned into the Nineties, John began getting work writing scores for independent films, including two directed by Beau Bridges, The Wild Pair and Seven Hours to Judgement. Those projects led to his first studio film and the resurrection of a long relationship with the Walt Disney Company, for the second generation of Debneys.

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John returned to Disney in 1993 with the score for a little Halloween film that has since become a cult classic, Hocus Pocus. Since then he’s provided the music for all sorts of Disney films including White Fang 2, Houseguest, the Mickey Mouse short Runaway Brain, I’ll Be Home for Christmas, My Favorite Martian, Inspector Gadget, The Emperor’s New Groove (which nabbed an Annie Award nomination), The Princess Diaries (and its sequel), Snow Dogs, The Hot Chick, Raising Helen, The Pacifier, Chicken Little, Hannah Montana: The Movie, Old Dogs, Iron Man 2, and 2016’s live action remake of The Jungle Book.

Highlights of John’s work outside of Disney include several more collaborations with Garry Marshall (Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve) and John Favreau (Elf, Zathura: A Space Adventure). He nabbed his only Academy Award nomination so far for his work on Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (he lost to Finding Neverland). He also picked up two more Emmy Awards, one for writing the main theme for SeaQuest DSV and another for scoring the pilot episode of The Cape. Currently you can hear John’s work on two television series, The Orville on Fox and Santa Clarita Diet on Netflix, as well as in movie theaters, if Dora and the Lost City of Gold is your thing. And of course, you can always take a stroll around World Showcase, where John’s music has been playing for over thirty years and will continue to underscore your Epcot adventures for many more to come. Happy 63^rd birthday John!

July 26 - Buddy Baker

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On this day, in 2002, Norman Dale Baker passed away in Hollywood, California. Born in Springfield, Missouri on January 4, 1918, Buddy, as most people called him, learned to read music before he could read lyrics. He began playing the piano at the age of 4, learned the trumpet at 11 and had formed his own band by his teen years. He studied music at Southwest Baptist University, eventually earning his doctorate in it before moving to Los Angeles in 1938.

Buddy began his professional career as a trumpet player and musical arranger on the radio programs of the day. He started on The Bob Hope Show before moving on to Jacky Benny and Eddie Cantor's shows. When World War II started, he returned to Bob Hope and became his show's musical director. Buddy brought big band leader Stan Kenton to the show and arranged Ken's first big hit, And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine. Following the war, he added Professor to his resume taking a job at Los Angeles City College in their school of music. He wasn't above helping out his students though. In 1954, he composed the hit jazz song Journey into Love with drummer Louis Bellson. And then one day later that same year, he got a call from another former student, George Bruns, who worked over at the Walt Disney Studio.

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George was looking for someone to compose some music for a couple of episodes of the Disneyland television series and he thought of his former professor. Buddy agreed to spend a couple of weeks at the studio coming up with something for Davy Crockett and the River Pirates. It ended up being a really long two weeks as Buddy wouldn't retire from Disney until 29 years later. In those three decades, he became the studio's musical director and one of the most prolific composers Disney ever had.

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Buddy wasn't as flashy as his contemporaries at the studio. Most people have at least heard of the Sherman Brothers, and don't get me wrong, Robert and Richard Sherman produced some fantastic work over the years, but even though you might not know Buddy's name, a walk through any of Disney's theme parks would be awfully quiet if none of his work existed. The first category we'll talk about is movie scores. He did dozens of them for Disney but a short list of his live action work would have to include Summer Magic, The Monkey's Uncle, The Gnome-Mobile, The Million Dollar Duck, The Apple Dumpling Gang, The Shaggy D.A. and Hot Lead Cold Feet. In 1972, he earned an Oscar nomination for Napoleon and Samantha, which also happened to be Jodie Foster's screen debut. On the animated side of things, Buddy scored several shorts including the classic Donald in Mathmagicland and all three of the original Winnie the Pooh shorts (including additional material for the 1977 Winnie the Pooh feature). In 1981, he made his second foray into animated features providing the score for The Fox and the Hound.

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As impressive as Buddy's film work is, it's in the category of music written for theme parks that some of his most recognizable tunes occur. His most famous song has to be Grim Grinning Ghosts which he wrote with fellow Legend Xavier Atencio for the Haunted Mansion. He also scored the eerie music that can be heard throughout that same attraction. Buddy and Xavier also wrote the original music that is used in the classic Country Bear Jamboree show and the song It's Fun to Be Free for the World of Motion pavilion at EPCOT. Buddy's other music written and arranged for attractions includes The Universe of Energy, America Sings, If You Had Wings, Kitchen Kabaret, Impressions de France, the American Adventure and Tokyo Disneyland's Journey to the Center of the Earth and Sinbad's Seven Voyages. Buddy also came out of retirement briefly in the nineties to arrange his own music for the various Winnie the Pooh rides that popped up in Disney theme parks at that time.

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By the time Buddy retired in 1983, he had over 200 Disney credits to his name. Much of the background music you hear just walking through areas of parks like the Mexican Pavilion at Epcot or Tomorrowland in Disneyland is arrangements of his compositions. When he left Disney, Buddy also had the distinction of being the last composer at a major Hollywood studio. They literally don't make them like him anymore. Buddy didn't stay retired for very long, though. In 1987 he became the director of the University of Southern California's Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television program and taught courses there for the remainder of his life. He received the ASCAP Foundation Life Time Achievement Award in 1999 and having already been declared an official Disney Legend the year before. Three years later, Buddy would pass away from natural causes at the age of 84.

January 2 - World of Motion

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On this day, in 1996, the last guests rode the World of Motion attraction in Future World at Epcot. Built as one of Epcot's opening day attractions, World of Motion had some heavy hitters behind its development. Animator Ward Kimball, one of Walt's Nine Old Men, actually designed the attraction. If you didn't know that Ward dabbled in ride creation that would be because this was the one and only time he ever did. His brand of humor was evident throughout, from cavemen blowing on their overheated feet to the world's first traffic jam involving a horse and an ice truck.

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Ward got some help from a couple more Disney Legends for the ride's theme song. Buddy Baker composed the music and Imagineer Xavier Atencio wrote the lyrics to It's Fun to Be Free. One of the unique aspects of Free is that unlike most attractions where the same version of a song might get repeated at different points (think about Pirates of the Caribbean), for World of Motion the song kept changing to suit the changing periods in history. It had a ragtime feel for one scene, an Asian sound in another and at one point was played exclusively on a kazoo. All due to the genius of Buddy.

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The ride itself took guests on a tour through the history of transportation narrated by Gary Owens, best known as the announcer on Laugh-In. World of Motion boasted on of the largest casts of Audio-Animatronic figures ever assembled with a total of 188 characters. At the end of the line, literally taking a page from the Haunted Mansion, guests saw their Omnimover vehicles transformed into cars of the future through a Pepper's Ghost illusion. After disembarking, guests moved into a mini Innoventions type area dedicated almost exclusively to cars. Exhibits spanned topics on everything from how wind tunnels help make cars more fuel efficient to an Audio-Animatronic show about assembly lines. The most popular part was, as always, the concept cars on display.

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The whole shebang was sponsored by General Motors from its opening to its closing. After Ford's successful sponsorship of the Disney produced Magic Skyway ride at the 1964 World's Fair, GM wasn't about to miss out again. They signed a 10 year deal just to begin with, renewed several times and still sponsor the replacement attraction today.

Speaking of the replacement attraction, it was GM who would ultimately spell out the demise of World of Motion. In the early Nineties, sales began to slump for them and they felt a new attraction devoted to cars and cars only, not the whole of transportation, would be a better use of their sponsorship money. Since World of Motion was beginning to show its age at that point, Disney agreed and Test Track was created. Even though I personally miss the charm of the old ride, it was ultimately a smart move. While Test Track was plagued with problems and delays in its early days, it is now one of the most popular rides in all of the Florida Project, although the concept cars at the end are still, arguably, the best part.

September 4 - Francis Xavier Atencio

On this day, in 1919, Francis Xavier Atencio was born in Walsenburg, Colorado.

Xavier, who frequently went by simply X, moved to Los Angeles, California in 1937 to attend the Chouinard Art Institute. A shy but talented young man, his instructors had to almost force him to submit his work to the Disney Studio for consideration for a job. X later managed to amuse his neighbors when he went running by their houses shouting at the top of his lungs "I got a job at Disney!".

X joined the Disney Studio in 1938 and three years later he was an assistant animator working on Fantasia. By then World War II was heating up for America. X left the studio to join the United States Army Air Forces as a photo interpreter. Stationed in England, he spent over three years analyzing aerial surveillance pictures for information to pass on to the boys at the front. Serving with the 2nd Photo Tech Squadron, X attained the rank of captain before being discharged in 1945.

Upon his return to the Disney Studio, X went right to work as an animator in the shorts department. In 1953, he received his first screen credit for the Academy Award winning "Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom". X also contributed to two other Oscar nominated films: the first stop motion animated film produced by the studio, 1959's "Noah's Ark", and 1962's "A Symposium on Popular Songs." He would become something of an expert on title sequences for live action movies, helping to create the openings for the likes of The Parent Trap, Babes in Toyland and Mary Poppins. You can even find evidence of his artistry in the "I'm No Fool" series that originally ran on the Mickey Mouse Club. But some of his greatest work was yet to come.

 In 1965, Walt asked X to change departments and join the team at WED Enterprises, the group that eventually became known as Imagineers. The first project he worked on was re-purposing animatronic dinosaurs from the 1964 World's Fair Ford pavilion into a scenic view for the Disneyland Railroad.  X then began not only writing scripts for some of most beloved Disney attractions of all time, he wrote music for them, too, much to his own surprise. He once said "I didn't even know I could write music, but somehow Walt did."

The next attraction of X's to open was Pirates of the Caribbean, in early 1967. He wrote the show script for it, wrote its theme song, "Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)" and provided various voices for it. The next ride boasting an X Atencio script was Adventure Thru Inner Space, opening later the same year. Two years later, in 1969, another X masterpiece opened: The Haunted Mansion. Again, he wrote the script, its theme song, "Grim Grinning Ghosts" and his voice can be heard coming from the coffin in the conservatory. As an added bonus, if you ever get stuck on the Disneyland version of Mansion, X provides the emergency spiel.

X's contributions to Disney attractions continued throughout the 1970s. When the Florida Project came along, X wrote lyrics for Buddy Baker's theme music for If You Had Wings and helped design Space Mountain. When plans for Epcot began rolling out, he had a hand in Spaceship Earth, World of Motion and the Mexico Pavilion. And, just so the sun will never set on his handiwork, in 1983, X made multiple trips to Tokyo Disneyland to supervise all the recordings that went into their version of the Haunted Mansion.

X retired in 1984 after spending 47 years creating a spectacular body of work for the Walt Disney Company. He was officially declared a Disney Legend in 1996 and passed away at the ripe old age of 98 in 2017.