October 29 - The Nightmare Before Christmas

On this day, in 1993, one of my favorite films of all time, Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, opened in theaters. In 1982, when Tim was an animator with Disney, he wrote a three page poem about a Halloween skeleton who discovers Christmas, takes it over and the chaos that ensues. He'd had some success with his delightful little short Vincent earlier that year and thought maybe his poem could be developed into a half hour special or something. The studio, however, didn't think it (or Tim, for that matter) fit in with the Disney aesthetic and fired him instead. The poem decided that it wouldn't let Tim forget about it.

After the major successes of Beetlejuice and Batman, Tim's thoughts kept returning to Halloween Town and its Pumpkin King. It turned out that Disney still owned the production rights to his poem, but now that he was a big time movie director, suddenly the studio thought that a deal could be made. Tim teamed up with another former Disney animator, Henry Selick, to flesh things out. While Tim would produce the movie, he wasn't interested in the long process of stop motion animation, so the directing chore fell to Henry.

As work on the story progressed, Tim became convinced that it should be a musical and knew that Danny Elfman, who has done most of the scores for Tim's films, would be able to make that happen. Danny once said that writing the eleven songs for Nightmare was one of the easiest gigs he ever had. And he got to be the singing voice for Jack Skellington.

Filming began in July 1991 in San Francisco, California. A crew of over 120 toiled away, using 20 sound stages simultaneously. 227 figures were created for all the characters and Jack Skellington alone had over 400 heads that could be swapped out to represent any emotion or facial expression. By contrast, Sally only had around 110 heads.

When Nightmare opened, it was the first feature length stop motion animated film by a major US studio. And even though some Disney executives felt it would showcase the fact that the studio could think outside the box when it came to kinds of entertainment, they still didn't know what to do with it. They even released it under the Touchstone Pictures name because they thought it would be too scary for kids. Without a whole lot of support from the studio, Nightmare would still earn 50 million dollars on an 18 million dollar budget. The initial reviews were positive and, since then have basically recognized the brilliance of the film. It was nominated for a Best Visual Effects Oscar, a Best Musical Score Golden Globe and won the Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film.

Since its initial release, Nightmare has grown almost exponentially for Disney. It's been re-released several times in theaters and is the only stop motion feature to be converted into 3-D.  It is both a bona fide cult classic (I count myself among the people who have loved it since day one and just smile knowingly at more recent fans, especially if they're old enough to have seen its debut) and a commercial success. The only question that remains about Nightmare: is it a Halloween movie or a Christmas movie?

Also on this day, in American history: Black Tuesday

October 28 - Elsa Lanchester

On this day, in 1902, Elsa Sullivan Lanchester was born in Lewisham, London, England. As the daughter of severely Bohemian parents, Elsa was born into a life with theatrical leanings. Her older brother Waldo would start his own marionette company. Prior to World War I, Elsa spent time in Paris studying dance under Isadora Duncan. She hated it so much that she was probably the only person who wasn't terribly sad that war broke out and closed the school. Not that she was done with dance.

During the Great War, as it was then known, 12 year old Elsa began earning extra money for her family by teaching little girls in her South London neighborhood how to dance. And not just how to dance, but how to dance like Isadora Duncan. She wasn't even a teenager yet and she'd already learned how to give the people what they want.

After the Great War ended, Elsa continued in her entrepreneurial vein and started a children's theater and then a nightclub, Cave of Harmony. In the Cave, she performed in both plays and a cabaret act, singing everything from old Victorian ballads to modern tunes. Elsa gained enough notoriety that Columbia Records made a couple of 78 recordings of her (one of the songs being "Please Sell No More Drink to My Father").

Elsa began doing more serious work in the theaters of London. An appearance in a 1927 play called Mr. Prohack introduced her to a fellow cast member she found intriguing, Charles Laughton. Within two years, the pair was married and would act together on stage and screen throughout their lifetimes, including a turn in 1936 when Elsa played Peter Pan to Laughton's Captain Hook.

Elsa made her first film appearance in 1925 in The Scarlet Letter. She continued doing British movies throughout the remainder of the Twenties and the beginning of the Thirties. Sometimes she appeared with her husband, sometimes she worked with the likes of Laurence Olivier or H.G. Wells. By 1935, Laughton had begun appearing in American films and Elsa joined him in Hollywood. After a couple of minor roles, she landed the most iconic role of her career: the title character in 1935's Bride of Frankenstein.

During the Forties, Elsa took on all sorts of supporting roles in multiple films, playing everything from a housekeeper to an artist. She was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar as a nativity scene painter in 1949's Come to the Stable. As the Fifties rolled on, Elsa continued to work steadily with people like Danny Kaye, Shelley Winters and Jerry Lewis. In 1957, she appeared with her husband in Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution, for which they both earned Academy Award nominations and she won a Golden Globe.

Elsa's first job with Disney was as the beleaguered departing nanny, Katy Nanna, at the beginning of Mary Poppins. She would then play Mrs. MacDougall in That Darn Cat! with Dean Jones and Emily Stowecroft in Blackbeard's Ghost, with Jones and Peter Ustinov. Later she would be Mrs. Formby for two episodes of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color entitled "My Dog, the Thief."

For the remainder of her career, Elsa would do everything from memorable guest appearances on I Love Lucy to singing a duet with Elvis in Easy Come, Easy Go. You might see her on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. on your television set and then go to the movies and see her with Ernest Borgnine in Willard. The last thing you would have watched her in was the film Die Laughing, which also starred the voice of the Beast, Robbie Benson.

In 1983, Elsa published her autobiography, Elsa Lanchester Herself, detailing her 64 year career in entertainment and her 33 year marriage to Charles Laughton. Sadly, several months after the release of her book, Elsa would suffer a stroke followed by another one the next year. Left completely incapacitated, she would be confined to bed until her passing on December 26, 1986. She was 84.

Also on this day, in American history: Macy's Department Store

October 27 - Walt Disney's Disneyland

On this day, in 1954, the first Disney television production, Walt Disney's Disneyland, debuted on ABC. As the plans for his theme park proceeded, Walt had his brother, Roy, explore any and every avenue for funding. One way Roy came up with was to provide programming for a television network. The idea almost didn't take hold, CBS and NBC both passed, but finally Roy convinced ABC that it would work. The result was an anthology series that would give Disney some much needed money and advertising and the fledgling network something for people to watch for decades to come.

The original premise of the show was that Walt would come into people's homes each week and give them a taste of what was being built in Anaheim, then present some sort of story for their enjoyment. The opening of the show not only mentioned Disneyland as a whole but named four of the lands that guests would be able to experience once they got there: Adventureland, Tomorrowland, Fantasyland and Frontierland. One of the lands would be highlighted each week. For instance, when the Davy Crockett episodes aired, Frontierland was the theme. If a behind the scenes look at Lady and the Tramp was on, the theme was Fantasyland. Tomorrowland night might be a look at the future of cars and a showing of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea would mean it was an Adventureland show. This format would define the show until the early Eighties, even though the name would change on a semi-regular basis.

In 1958, the name of the show changed to Walt Disney Presents and went from Wednesday nights to Friday nights (for two years) before settling on Sunday nights, a time slot it would occupy for the next 21 years. During this period, Walt promoted anything that needed it, from Sleeping Beauty to any additions to Disneyland. Westerns were popular at this time and Disney obliged with series like "Texas John Slaughter." Some episodes even featured a mix of animation and live action, with Walt having conversations with everyone from Mickey Mouse to Jiminy Cricket.

Big changes came to both television and the show in 1961. While the format stayed the same, the show began airing on NBC, who was the first network to broadcast in color. As a result the show's name was changed to Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. The first show featured the first Disney character ever created specifically for television, Ludwig Von Drake, singing a song about all the colors that could now be seen on the screen. It's said that song alone sold more color television sets than anything else that year. Because Walt had the foresight to film everything from the earlier versions of the show in color, saving money and showing reruns wasn't a problem. When Walt died in 1965, he had already filmed the openings for the remainder of the season so the studio went ahead and used them. Following that season, however, everyone realized that to try to replace Walt with a different host would be a mistake and the openings were cut.

By 1969, all three networks broadcast in color, which naturally meant it was time to change the shows name once again. Now called The Wonderful World of Disney, the show would continue to gain in popularity and was ranked in the top 20 shows well into the mid Seventies. A big change to the show during this era was the airing of popular Disney films, edited into special two hour blocks. Unfortunately, as NBC began losing viewership as a whole, the show itself slipped in the ratings. As America's tastes changed throughout the second half of the Seventies, the CBS news show Sixty Minutes began to regularly clobber The Wonderful World.

In 1979, in an effort to save the show, the name was shortened to Disney's Wonderful World. A new disco themed opening was added over a computer created logo. None of that helped. Sixty Minutes remained the new king of Sunday night and by 1981, NBC called it quits. CBS picked the show up, changed the name to Walt Disney and moved it to Saturday nights. By this time there was little new content to air and the show couldn't compete with Diff'rent Strokes and Silver Spoons on NBC. On September 24, 1983, the 29 year run of Disney's anthology show came to an end on network television.

Which didn't mean the show was never seen again. At the time of its ending, The Disney Channel was launched and reruns would appear there for the next two decades. Disney would sort of revive the show in 1986, with the company's new CEO Michael Eisner as host, as The Disney Sunday Movie. My personal favorites from this era were the two Mr. Boogedy halloween films. In 1988, the format would change from a two hour block to just one hour and be called The Magical World of Disney. Both of these versions suffered from lackluster ratings however and the plug was pulled in 1990.

Since 1991, a show called The Wonderful World of Disney (not to be confused with the earlier version of the same name) has aired with less and less frequency on various networks, until Disney purchased ABC where it now resides exclusively. Now mostly used as a format to showcase special events, it is still technically on the air. This gives it the distinction of being the second longest-running prime time television series. The first is another anthology series, Hallmark Hall of Fame.

Also on this day, in American history: The Federalist Papers

October 26 - Bob Hoskins

On this day, in 1942, Robert William Hoskins was born in Bury St. Edmonds, West Suffolk, England. Bob suffered from dyslexia, which made school difficult for him, so much so he was actually written off by his teachers who assumed he was just stupid. After leaving school at the age of 15, he bounced around doing whatever jobs he could find: window washer, porter and truck driver to name a few. He eventually found himself in Israel where he worked for six months on a farm before moving on to Syria to tend camels for a tribe of Bedouin for two years.

By 1968, Bob had wandered back to England where one of the jobs he landed was a small role in a production of Romeo and Juliet at the Victoria Theatre in Stoke-on-Trent. Less than a year later, he was waiting for an actor friend in the bar of London's Unity Theatre, when someone handed him a script and said "You're next." His unintended audition was not only a success, his friend ended up being his understudy.

Bob's increasing successes in the theater eventually led to roles on British television. His first major turn came in 1975's On the Move. The show was designed to highlight the issue of adult illiteracy with Bob's character, Alf Hunt, being a moving man who had problems reading. It ran for 100 episodes. His next high profile role came in 1978 on the BBC series Pennies From Heaven. Bob's portrayal of an adulterous sheet music salesman earned him a BAFTA nomination.

Around this time Bob began to get roles in film. His first big part was Harold Shand in 1980's The Long Good Friday, which earned him another BAFTA nomination. Bob followed that performance up with one of my favorite bit parts of his, the band manager in Pink Floyd The Wall. In 1983, he would get another BAFTA nomination for his portrayal of Colonel Perez in The Honorary Consul. Bob would finally win a BAFTA, plus a slew of other awards and an Oscar nomination, three years later as George in Mona Lisa.

In 1988, Bob would appear in what is probably his most well known role, Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, a joint production between Touchstone Pictures and Steven Spielberg's production company, Amblin Entertainment. Bob was not the producers first (or second or third) choice for the part of Eddie, but he was clearly born to play him. The film didn't come without some side effects, though. Because he had to constantly play against characters that wouldn't be there until they were animated in, Bob suffered from hallucinations for months after filming stopped. Launching himself into the role paid off, however, in a British Evening Standard Award for him and a stellar performance for us.

Bob's next role to have a Disney connection also had a Spielberg tie in. 1991's Hook started out life as a Disney production and would have been more of a remake of the 1953 animated film. Development issues caused that project to be shelved. When it was revived, Disney was no longer part of it. Bob's take on Mr. Smee was, for me at least, a bright spot in an otherwise mediocre film. Dustin Hoffman, who played Captain Hook, once said that he and Bob had decided that they would play the two pirates like an old gay couple and they pulled it off brilliantly. Too bad the rest of the movie couldn't keep up with them. Bob's final television role would also be Mr. Smee in the SyFy Channel miniseries Neverland.

The worst experience Bob ever had making a movie is, unfortunately, also one he did for Disney's Hollywood Pictures label: the megaflop Super Mario Bros. He has gone on record as saying it was "the worst thing I ever did." Bob was injured several times during filming and reportedly spent a good deal of down time getting drunk with his costar, John Leguizamo (which may explain some of the injuries).

Bob appeared in several more films produced under the Disney umbrella of studios, including 1995's Nixon as J. Edgar Hoover, 2006's Hollywoodland as Eddie Mannix,  and 2009's A Christmas Carol as both Mr. Fezziwig and Old Joe.

In 2011, Bob was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, which caused him to retire from acting the following year. After a multiple award winning career that spanned 43 years of entertaining people all over the world, Bob passed away on April 29, 2014 from pneumonia in London, England. He was 71.

Also on this day, in American history: The Erie Canal

October 25 - Walt Disney World

On this day, in 1971, Roy O. Disney officially dedicated the "Florida Project" as Walt Disney World. Yes, the Magic Kingdom and a couple of resorts had already been operating for over three weeks by this time, but it was at this point, ceremonially at the very least, that the name of the resort was given weight and Roy could finally say that his brother's last big project had been taken care of.

A dozen years earlier, the concept of a second Disney park had taken root in Walt's mind. He was generally frustrated by all the stuff that had grown up around Disneyland in just a few short years. He began to dream of a place that was big enough to hold all the plans he could ever come up with and still give him control of everything guests saw while inside his park. The big question of course was where to build it.

Walt considered dozens of sites, but it was when he did a flyover of the Orlando, Florida area that he decided he had his spot. There was a good road network, I-4 and the Florida Turnpike were being developed and McCoy Air Force base (which is currently known as Orlando International Airport) was already in place. The next problem was how to acquire some land without paying exorbitant prices.

The answer came through an elaborate buying scheme involving multiple dummy corporations, real estate agents who didn't know who they were working for and a fair dose of lying. The purchasing of that much land certainly didn't go without notice locally. Several different entities were floated around as the developer including NASA and the Ford Motor Company. My favorite story from this time centers around a reporter from the Orlando Sentinel, Emily Bavar. She was visiting Disneyland for its 10th Anniversary celebration when she asked him point blank if he was the one buying up all the land in Orlando. Supposedly, Walt's point blank reply was "What would I do with a bunch of swamp land?" Emily didn't buy his story and the Sentinel soon blew Walt's cover. Land prices of course immediately went up but the deed was done. The Disney Company had purchased over 30,500 acres of land, some for as little as $100 an acre.

On October 25, 1965, Florida Governor Haydon Burns, with Walt's blessing, confirmed that Disney was indeed planning a new park in his state. Walt joined him for an official news conference detailing some of his plans on November 15. Those plans did include a Disneyland East but most of the land would be dedicated to an experimental city. To that end, the state of Florida had granted the Florida Project (as it was then known) unprecedented autonomy, especially considering the sole beneficiary of the concessions was a corporation. All those plans, though, were thrown into doubt a month later when Walt died from lung cancer complications.

All the credit from this point on goes to Roy O. Disney. Roy, who had been a part of the company from its beginning, delayed his own retirement in order to see the Florida Project through. He rallied the troops, getting many of the same people who made Disneyland a success to lend their expertise to the new park. Walt had lived long enough for ceremonial ground breaking pictures to be taken, but that was it. Roy was the one who oversaw all the details in the actual construction of his brother's latest dream. He spent the next six years on a complete labor of love. The Magic Kingdom, the Contemporary Resort, the Polynesian Resort, and two golf courses were ready to go by October 1, 1971. Fort Wilderness campground would open a month later.

During his dedication speech on October 24, Roy waxed eloquent about his brother, declaring "Walt Disney World is in memory of the man who started it all, so people will know his name as long as Walt Disney World is here." While showing Walt's widow, Lillian, around she said that her late husband would have approved of Roy's results. It must have eased his mind quite a bit, but the damage to his health had already been done. Less than two months after his speech, on December 20, Roy would pass away.

The Florida Project itself would, of course, live on. It's currently grown to four theme parks, two water parks, 28 resorts (that the company owns, plus six others), four golf courses, two miniature golf complexes, a sports complex, a wedding pavilion and a huge dining/shopping district. Plenty more is already under construction and plenty more is merely a twinkle in some executive's eye. The experimental city never happened (and no I don't count Celebration as anything even approaching experimental), but Walt Disney World has managed to eclipse Disneyland in both size and scope, just as Walt dreamed all those years ago.

Also on this day, in American history: William Higinbotham

October 24 - Lucille Martin

On this day, in 2012, Lucille Martin passed away in Studio City, California. Some people become legends through grand gestures of bravery or touching fits of public creativity. Others become legends by quietly doing what they were born to do, just out of the limelight, making it possible for the other kind of legend to burn even brighter. Lucille is a legend who belongs to that second category.

Born on August 10, 1922 in Zeigler, Illinois, a small town at the southern end of the state, Lucille's dream in life was to be a teacher. To accomplish that goal, she went off to the big city of Carbondale to get her teaching certificate at Southern Illinois Normal University (now known as Southern Illinois University Carbondale). This would have been in the early Forties. The details of how she spent her life for the next couple of decades, as with most people who aren't celebrities, are sketchy at best.

Here's what we do know. Lucille gave birth to two daughters, Janet and Sue. Given the era, we can assume that she was married at the time, but by the time her girls were 5 and 10 years old, only the three of them moved to Southern California. I can't confirm whether as a widow or a divorcee, but Lucille was a single mother at that point. A single mother who would get the bad news that her Illinois teaching certificate was useless in the Golden State.

 According to Lucille, her children were not happy with the fact that mom was going to have to go to work to support the family until she said "What if I worked for Disney?" Since that seemed a reasonable trade off to the girls, Lucille decided to brush off her secretarial skills, typed up a resume and on a Friday in September 1964, stopped by the Disney Studio to see about that job. Her timing was impeccable and she was hired, on the spot, into the secretarial pool. The following Monday, she showed up for work and was immediately assigned to the Publicity department. Next, she moved to the office of the vice president of Labor Relations and by the beginning of 1965, Lucille got the call that would set the course of the rest of her career.

When Lucille had been told that her new assignment was as a personal assistant to Walt Disney, she wasn't sure she'd understood what was said. But, upon arriving at the head of the company's office, she knew she was in the big leagues now and quickly stepped up to the plate. Lucille did have a little period of adjusting to Walt's idiosyncrasies. She insisted on calling her new boss "sir" instead of "Walt". To fix that, Walt drew a sketch of Lucille carrying a sign that said "Down with Sir" and gave it to her. Lucille kept that sketch in her office until the day she retired. And she stopped calling him sir.

After Walt's death, Lucille spent nearly a year putting everything in Walt's office into some semblance of order. She then became personal assistant to Walt's son-in-law, Ron Miller. She stayed with Ron as he became President of the company in 1980 and CEO in 1983. When Michael Eisner was brought in as CEO in 1984, to Lucille's surprise he kept her on as his personal assistant. In 1995, she was promoted to a vice presidency as a special assistant to the Board of Directors, serving mainly as a liason between the Board and company management. Lucille would serve in that role until, after 42 years of greasing the wheels for everyone officially in charge, she retired in January 2006.

The following year Lucille was declared an official Disney Legend for her wizardry and genius in all things related to administration. At the ceremony, Bob Iger praised Lucille's compassion and dedication, calling her a "treasured friend." Lucille's career stands as one of the few people to bridge all the way from the company's founder to it's current leadership.

Also on this day, in American history: Blanche Scott

October 23 - Dumbo

On this day, in 1941, Walt Disney Studio's fourth animated feature, Dumbo, had its world premier at the Broadway Theater in New York City. With war raging in Europe, the studio had hit hard times. No foreign markets meant that both Pinocchio and Fantasia had failed to turn a profit. In desperate need of money, Walt decided to go cheap and simple. It was a gamble that paid off, both in the short and the long run.

In 1939, Kay Kamen, the head of the licensing department, showed Walt a prototype of a new toy, the Roll-A-Book. The scroll on the toy was a story by Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl. The entire scroll consisted of eight pictures and a few words of text. It was enough for Walt to want to buy the rights. He originally intended to turn it into a short, but as development of the story proceeded, it became a feature.

When it came time to start animating Dumbo, Walt instructed his team that they had to make this picture on the cheap. Gone were the lush details of the studio's earlier films. The backgrounds were done in watercolors instead of oils. Character designs were simpler and more cartoony. Exacerbating costs was the fact that rough animation was barely finished when the animators went on strike for five weeks starting in May of 1941. The strike was finally settled (not terribly amicably) and the film was finished that fall. The final cost of Dumbo was a mere $950,000 (about 15.8 million dollars today), half of Snow White and a third of Pinocchio.

When Walt went to turn Dumbo over to RKO Radio Pictures, his distribution company at the time, they didn't want it. At just 64 minutes, Dumbo remains one of the studio's shortest features. RKO wanted it either lengthened or cut down to a short or they'd release it as a B-movie. Walt refused all of that and RKO begrudgingly released it as it was. Naturally that turned out to be the best choice.

Dumbo would be the most financially successful Disney film of its decade, grossing 1.6 million dollars (about 26.6 million dollars today). The simple, charming story resonated with movie goers even with (or perhaps because of) the attack on Pearl Harbor and the outbreak of war. Dumbo would be nominated for two Oscars, winning for its score created by Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace. It currently enjoys a 97% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It's spawned two attractions, a television series in the Eighties and a new live action version set to come out next year. I don't think the story of the little elephant who gets bullied, finds an unlikely friend who gives him confidence and ends up saving the day will ever go out of style and might just be needed more today than ever.

Also on this day, in American history: Op Art

October 22 - Roger E. Broggie

On this day, in 1908, mechanical engineer Roger Edward Broggie was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. By 1927, he'd moved to a little town just west of Chicago and attended from Mooseheart High School. Roger had taken some machine shop courses while in school and was, quite frankly, a genius when it came to tools and mechanical objects. He moved further west after graduation, landing in  Los Angeles. Roger almost immediately got into the motion picture business, working for companies like Technicolor and Bell and Howell, a company that built things like movie cameras. He soon found himself on the lots of General Service Studios working with such legends as David O. Selznick and Charlie Chaplin.

In 1939, Roger found a position at the Walt Disney Studio, working closely with Ub Iwerks, installing the companies multiplane camera at their new Burbank location. While his official title may have been precision machinist, Roger spent a great deal of his time whipping up special effects with Ub. By 1949, Walt tapped Roger for a special project of his. Both men were avid train enthusiasts and, together, they would create the train for Walt's personal railroad, the Carolwood Pacific, famously located through Lillian's flower beds. Roger is credited with building the Lilly Belle, a 1/8th scale working steam engine for the backyard attraction.

Walt promoted Roger to the Head of the studio's Machine Shop in 1950. He was instrumental in creating the special effects for the epic movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. In 1952, Walt created a new division to oversee the mechanical aspects of Disneyland. Called WED Enterprises at the time, it's been known as Walt Disney Imagineering since 1986. The very first employee hand picked to be a part of this new endeavor? Rogie E. Broggie.  As plans for Disneyland developed, Roger personally oversaw the creation of the Railroad, the Monorail and the Matterhorn Bobsleds.

One of the best innovations that Roger came up with was the one he created with Bert Brundage: the Omnimover ride system. First used in 1967 for Adventure Thru Inner Space, the Endless Transit System, as it's known outside of Disney, is a fairly ubiquitous sight in Disney parks. It transformed the concept of the Haunted Mansion away from a walk-through attraction and can be seen in various forms in everything from Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin at the Magic Kingdom to The Great American Chocolate Tour in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The main difference between the Omnimover system and mere continuous ride systems is that the individual cars in the Omnimover system can rotate and tilt as needed.

The other innovation that Roger helped develop were Audio-Animatronics. Roger and his co-workers in the machine shop were the ones who created the figure of Abraham Lincoln for the 1964 World's Fair. In the years that followed, he helped create countless refinements to that initial design that continue to amaze and delight guests to this very day.

As the company marched into the Seventies, Roger was as integral a part of making the Florida Project work as he was for Disneyland. Even after he finally retired in 1975, Roger would still lend his expertise to his Imagineering friends for pretty much the rest of his life. For his 36 years spent making so much of the magic possible, Roger was honored in several ways. First, Engine No. 3 of the Walt Disney World Railroad is the Roger E. Broggie. Second, he was given one of the most deserved titles of Disney Legend in 1991. Third, Roger was posthumously given his own window on Main Street, USA in Disneyland that reads "Can Do Machine Works, Mechanical Wonders, Live Steam Engines, Magical Illusions, Cameras, Roger E. Broggie Shopmaster, Advisor to the Magic Makers."

On November 4, 1991, the man about whom Michael Eisner once declared "Without him, Disneyland wouldn't have happened" quietly passed away in his Carmel, California home. He was 83.

Also on this day, in American history: Pretty Boy Floyd

October 21 - Mary Blair

On this day, in 1911, artist Mary Browne Robinson was born in McAlester, Oklahoma. Her family had moved to Morgan Hill, California by the early Twenties. She had already graduated from San Jose State University when she received a scholarship to the Chouinard Art Institute. Mary graduated from Chouinard in 1933 and soon married another artist, and future Disney employee, Lee Blair. Her dream was to have a career in the fine arts but the Great Depression had other plans for her. To make ends meet, she ended up taking a job at MGM, in a medium she felt was beneath her: animation.

Mary continued to paint, and try to sell her work, whenever she could. Both Mary and her husband were devoted to watercolors. Even though her work at this time was saturated with color, few if any fans of her later work would recognize them as "Mary Blairs". Her paintings during the Thirties were probably influenced by the economic turmoil around her as they tend to be dark and moody.

By 1940, Lee, who had worked for several studios around Hollywood, had migrated to the Walt Disney Studio and Mary would join him there in April of that year. Her initial time with the studio would prove to be incredibly frustrating for her. She had plenty of work to do, making sketches and concept drawings for a variety of projects, but every film she worked on had already been pretty much conceived and she didn't have any room to let her imagination run wild. She also had to work under various other veteran company artists, so her work never looked like it was actually hers. To top it all off, one of the biggest projects she worked on was a "Baby Ballet" segment for a second version of Fantasia that never ended up being produced. Pretty disgruntled, she would resign her position by June of 1941. Lee, however, stayed on with the company, a decision that turn out to be spectacular for his wife.

In 1941, Walt was to embark on a three month goodwill tour of South America at the behest of the United States Government. He decided to bring a bunch of staff along to see if he couldn't pull some projects out of the trip. Lee Blair was one of the artists Walt chose to bring, mainly because he wanted to know if Lee's wife would also come along. During the time Mary had been with the studio, even though she felt stifled the whole time, Walt had fallen in love with her work. He was excited to see what she could do in South America. So, in August 1941, just two months after resigning, Mary was rehired.

South America would turn out to be the most important development in Mary's career. She experienced a literal color explosion in her work. She also began using charcoals, tempera and gouache in addition to her usual watercolors. As she layered color upon color, she found her true artistic voice and began producing the kind of work most of her fans enjoy and love. One of those fans was her boss, Walt. He was crazy about the pictures she was producing on the tour and gave Mary what she wanted from the beginning: her own artistic license at the beginning of a project, letting her create true concept art.

Mary was highly influential on the development of the two films that came directly out of the South America trip. Both Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros benefited from her color combinations and vibrancy. Walt was so delighted, he assigned her to work on many of the films throughout the late Forties and early Fifties. Mary's designs for Song of the South, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan made each of those films richer and more beautiful than they ever would have been without her.

By 1953, Mary was ready for a change and once again left the Disney Studio. She would now spend her time raising a family, having two sons, and she became a freelance illustrator and artist. Her best know work from this period would be the Little Golden Books she illustrated, but she also designed ad campaigns for companies like Nabisco and Maxwell House and created sets for Radio City Music Hall.

In the early Sixties, Walt began ramping up several projects for the 1964 World's Fair. One of them was for Pepsi and UNICEF and he knew just who he wanted to design it. Mary was enticed to work for Disney once again, designing It's a Small World. The song that stays stuck in your head for days might be a Sherman Brothers classic, but the look of the attraction is pure Mary. It's a Small World was so successful, that Walt would have it moved to Disneyland when the fair ended. It became such a beloved part of Disneyland, that versions of it would pop up in Florida, Tokyo, Paris and Hong Kong. The sun never sets on Mary's endearing little children dancing in their fanciful settings.

Mary would continue to do occasional work for the Walt Disney Company, mostly in the form of murals. In 1967, she created two murals in Tomorrowland at Disneyland, both of which have unfortunately been covered over. In 1971, she put a 90 foot high mural in the Grand Canyon Concourse of the Contemporary Resort of Walt Disney World. This one can still be seen today. Mary also created a series of Disney note cards for Hallmark.

Mary had lived in Washington and Long Island before returning to Soquel, California in the later part of the Seventies. On July 26, 1978, she passed away from a cerebral hemorrhage. Her legacy, though, lives on. In 1991, Mary was made an official Disney Legend. In 1996, she was awarded the Winsor McCay Award. And on October 21, 2011, Google created a doodle in honor of her 100th birthday.

Also on this day, in American history: First Transatlantic Voice Transmission

October 20 - Frank Churchill

On this day, in 1901, composer Frank Churchill was born in Rumford, Maine. By the age of four, his family had moved to Southern California. He began his professional music career at 15 the same way many musicians of the time did, as a pianist in a movie theater. After graduating from high school, Frank's parents coerced him into enrolling at UCLA as a pre-med student. He didn't last a year. Bound and determined to make it as a musician, Frank would spend the next few years performing anywhere from honky-tonks in Tijuana to an orchestra in Tuscon. Upon his return to California in 1924, he was awarded a contract with KNX as the radio station's accompanist.

In 1930, Frank became part of the Disney family and began writing the scores for dozens of shorts, including Who Killed Cock Robin, Mickey's Gala Premier and the flypaper scene from Playful Pluto. His most famous composition from this period is the song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" from 1933's The Three Little Pigs. The song's perky confidence caught on with a nation deep into the Great Depression. When the sheet music went on sale, over 39,000 copies were sold in the first three days in New York City alone.

Based on his successes with the shorts, Walt gave Frank the job of scoring the studio's first feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Not only did he produce an Academy Award nominated score, but Frank also helped write "Whistle While You Work", "Heigh Ho", and "Someday My Prince Will Come." By helping propel the success of the Snow White with his catchy tunes, Frank propelled his own success within the company. He became the studio's Supervisor of Music.

Frank's next project was 1941's The Reluctant Dragon. Not only did he contribute to the score, but he can be seen in person in the Studio Tour portion of the film. Next came Dumbo. He collaborated with Oliver Wallace on the score and composed the classic Disney ballad "Baby Mine" with Ned Washington. When Oscar time rolled around, Frank shared a nomination with Ned for Best Song and a win with Oliver for Best Score. A year later, he received dual nominations again for Bambi, one for the score he co-wrote with Edward Plumb and the other for his work on the tune "Love Is a Song."

Tragically, his Oscar nominations for Bambi would come posthumously. While working on the film, Frank became severely depressed when two of his close friends and orchestra members died within a month of each other. He began to drink heavily and, on May 14, 1942, committed suicide while sitting at the piano in his Castaic, California home.

Frank's legacy would outlive him by quite a bit. He had already written music for two more films in production at the time, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad and Peter Pan, and although the lyrics were never used in Peter Pan, Frank's song "Never Smile at a Crocodile" was. In 1977, he was posthumously nominated for a Grammy Award for the Snow White soundtrack and in 2001 he became an official Disney Legend.

Also on this day, in American history: Eugene V. Debs

October 19 - Body Wars

On this day, in 1989, Body Wars began sending Epcot guests on a rescue mission inside the human body. Body Wars was located in the Wonders of Life pavilion in Future World, which opened the same day. It had been the intention all along to have a pavilion which centered around health, but it took several years to find someone to sponsor (i.e. foot the bill for) its construction. Finally MetLife stepped up and the 100 million dollar pavilion took shape. Body Wars was part of a collection of now defunct classic attractions in the Wonders of Life which also included Cranium Command and The Making of Me.

The film part of the attraction was directed by Leonard Nimoy, of Star Trek fame, and starred Tim Matheson, Elisabeth Shue, Dakin Matthews and an uncredited Jane Curtin.

Body Wars was the first thrill ride for Epcot. Although it used the same ride system as Star Tours over in Hollywood Studios, because of its content, Body Wars tended to cause more motion sickness in its riders. Guests had to be warned that if blood and other bodily fluids made them squeamish, this wasn't the ride for them.

The journey guests took through the human body went through most of the major biological systems, including the heart and brain. The basic plot was that Elisabeth Shue had gotten stranded inside a test subjects body while conducting research and Tim Matheson was leading an expedition to find her and get her back out. All of this of course included shrink rays and other incredible technologies that allowed your vehicle to fight off white blood cells without causing further damage to the unsuspecting person you were inside of. Luckily, when your vehicle started running low on power, it turns out the human body is also an electrical generator that's easy to tap into, at least from the inside, and all turned out well in the end.

Sadly, when MetLife ended its sponsorship of the Wonders of Life pavilion in 2001, it spelled doom for Body Wars and the other attractions. Over the next several years, the area would be operated on a seasonal basis, meaning whenever Epcot got full and guests needed something additional to do. The last guests to save day did so on January 1, 2007. The building is still used occasionally for conventions and a presentation space during the Food and Wine Festival, but the simulators have been dismantled, the signage removed and the Body Wars have ended, fading into mere

stories we can tell our children.

Also on this day, in American history: Anna Lee Aldred

October 18 - The Jungle Book

On this date, in 1967, Walt Disney Pictures 19th animated feature, The Jungle Book, was released in theaters. Based on Rudyard Kipling's book of the same name, The Jungle Book is also the last animated film from Disney that Walt had a hand in producing as he died several months before it opened. It was also the first animated film in a while that Walt actually paid attention to.

For 101 Dalmatians and The Sword in the Stone, Bill Peet, a long time animator and story man for Disney, had been allowed to develop the script pretty much on his own. Dalmatians had been a success for Bill and the company, Stone decidedly less so. When his initial script for Jungle Book was closely aligned with the dark tone of the book, Walt told Bill to lighten it up. Bill for some reason refused and subsequently left the company. Walt then took an active interest in developing the story and characters and the improvement of this film over Stone shows it.

In a break with his casting practices of late, Walt decided to hire more well known stars to voice some of the characters in his version of Jungle Book. Comedian and jazz singer Phil Harris was brought in for the role of Baloo, his first of three major Disney characters. Phil would confound the script team by ad libbing most of his lines because, as he put it, the written ones "didn't feel natural." Fellow jazz artist Louis Prima became King Louie. Sebastian Cabot, who also narrated the Winnie the Pooh shorts, was tapped for Bagheera. Also included in the cast were Disney stalwarts like Sterling Holloway, J. Pat O'Malley and Verna Felton, in her last film role. Walt had wanted to cast the four members of The Beatles as the vultures and have them sing the song "We're Your Friend", but when John Lennon refused, the vultures simply became Beatle-esque.

The Jungle Book cost the studio four million dollars to make but was released to critical acclaim and financial success, reaping box office receipts of over 378 million worldwide to date. Several current animators, including Brad Bird and Glen Keane, will tell you that Jungle Book was their inspiration to get into animation in the first place. The movie has spawned an animated sequel, two different live action versions, the Disney Afternoon series Talespin and the animated series Jungle Cubs.

Also on this day, in American history: Candy Cummings

October 17 - Jack Wagner

On this day, in 1925, Jack Francis Wagner was born in Los Angeles, California. You probably don't recognize Jack's face unless you're a die-hard fan of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and remember the owner of the show's malt shop. But you definitely recognize his voice if you have ever been to Disneyland or Walt Disney World. If you can complete the sentence "Please stand clear of the doors...", that voice you hear in your head? That's Jack.

As the son of French born musicians, Jack would actually be the less famous one in the family. His brother was director of the Roger Wagner Chorale. Jack began his career at the age of four doing voice over work on American films being readied for release in France. He earned a contract with MGM in his teens and appeared in episodes of everything from Dragnet to Sea Hunt on television throughout the Fifties. When the Sixties rolled around, Jack became one of the most popular radio personalities in Los Angeles with an interview show on KNX that would be syndicated to over 1,200 other stations around the country.

Jack's association with the Walt Disney Company began with Disneyland as part of the opening day ceremonies in 1955. Over the next fifteen years, he recorded various announcements for parades and special events. In 1970, he officially joined the company as a production consultant and was quickly given the position of park announcer as well. While Jack recorded the safety spiels for dozens of different attractions for the parks on both coasts, two of his lines have stuck with guests and become some of the most recognizable pieces of Disney audio ever. The first comes from the safety talk at the Matterhorn Bobsled ride in Disneyland: "Remain seated please; permanecer sentados por favor." The second is the above mentioned line from the Monorail in Walt Disney World and is my favorite part of the toy monorail that runs around my Christmas tree every year: "Please stand clear of the doors; Por favor mantengase alejado de las puertas." Both phrases have, of course, made their way onto t-shirts.

Not only did Jack lend his voice all over the parks, he also was a prodigious producer of music for them. Many of the tracks heard during parades or as background music in each of the themed lands was put together by him. Vocal cord surgery forced Jack's retirement in 1991 although he continued to record short announcements until his death in June of 1995. He would posthumously be made a Disney Legend in 2005 and his voice can still be heard in parts of Walt Disney World as well as the trams running between the main terminal and the flight gates at Orlando International Airport.

An interesting side note: Jack's son Mike has also done recordings of announcements for Disney, mostly in Disneyland Paris. And you can't say nepotism was involved in that decision, because Mike was initially rejected for the role of park announcer in Paris because he sounded too American.

Also on this day, in American history: Evel Knievel

October 16 - Ham Luske

On this day, in 1903, Hamilton Luton Luske was born in Chicago, Illinois. He attended the University of California, Berkeley and earned a degree. In business. Ham was also, however, an incredibly gifted artist. The places he went with his talent are even more remarkable when you know that he never had any formal art education.

Ham's first real job was as a cartoonist for the Oakland Post-Inquirer. Today we think of cartoonists as the folks who's work is relegated to the funnies section (or if they're a bit more serious the opinion page). Back in the Twenties though, before photos could be reproduced in newsprint, cartoonists were also responsible for creating advertisements. Every paper needed at least one good artist on staff.

In 1931, Ham joined the Walt Disney Studio as an animator. His first contribution was some of the animals in the Mickey Mouse short The Barnyard Broadcast. His rendering of Max Hare in the 1935 Silly Symphony The Tortoise and the Hare helped that short win an Oscar. Ham was in charge of the character of Jenny Wren in Who Killed Cock Robin? that same year. Jenny was modeled after Mae West, who was so delighted with the caricature, she wrote a letter to Walt complimenting the artistry. His successes with those two shorts led him into a pivotal role in the future of the studio.

As Walt was developing his first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, he knew that if audiences didn't connect with the title character, the whole venture was doomed. Walt also knew that he had only one animator he could trust with Snow White: Ham Luske. In order to deliver the goods, Ham created a groundbreaking technique: live-action reference films. His idea wasn't to trace a live model's movements, but to have very specific movements captured on film to inspire the animators in their drawings. He would plan out what the model would do, always keeping in mind how those moves would be used in the animated finale. Not only did this technique convince millions of audience members to actually cry during Snow White, it proved simple and effective enough to teach a whole new crop of animators how to improve their craft, ensuring the studio's success for years to come.

After Snow White, Ham plunged headlong into directing. He was co-supervising director for Pinocchio with Ben Sharpsteen. Ham was then a sequence director on Fantasia, The Reluctant Dragon and Saludos Amigos. When World War II came to the United States, he would direct training films for the troops with names like Weather at War. At the war's conclusion, Ham returned to Disney, directing sequences in almost every animated feature from 1946's Make Mine Music through 1961's 101 Dalmatians. If you remember watching the classic Donald Duck featurette Donald in Mathmagic Land in school, that was Ham's work, too. He would strike Oscar gold again in 1964 as the director of the animated parts of Mary Poppins, this time winning for Best Visual Effects.

The last few years of Ham's career had him moving into the world of television. He became associate producer and director of episodes of Disneyland and its later evolutions. Ham passed away in Los Angeles, California on February 19, 1968 at the age of 64. He was made an official Disney Legend in 1999 for his 37 years of magic making.

Also on this day, in American history: Noah Webster