August 2 - Castaway Cay

On this day, in 1998, the first boatload of guests got to enjoy the Caribbean paradise known as Castaway Cay. A small island called Gorda Cay (even though it looks like it's pronounced like the letter k you actually say it like key) has been a small part of the Abaco Island area of the Bahamas ever since, well, ever since people started naming things. A cay, by the way is basically a pile of sand sitting on top of a coral reef. There are thousands of them throughout the Caribbean, but Gorda Cay has had an inkling that it was destined for something bigger for a while now.

Image copyright Touchstone Pictures

The first people to live on the island started doing so in 1783. The semi-remoteness of Gorda Cay lent itself to smuggling operations and plenty of nefarious people would leave footprints in its sand for the first two hundred years of inhabitation. When air travel became a thing, a small airstrip was built on the island and is still there today. The first planes to land on Gorda were carrying illegal liquor during the Prohibition of the 1930s. When booze became legal in the US again, it didn't take long for the planes to start carrying illegal drugs instead. Eventually the Bahamian government cracked down on such illicit activities and Gorda Cay was used for more glamorous things.

The picturesque sands of Gorda Cay made it a beautiful, if somewhat remote, location on which to film beach scenes. The Walt Disney company had used it for just that purpose twice. In Touchstone Picture's inaugural movie, Splash, the scene where Tom Hanks' and Darryl Hannah's characters first meet is a glimpse of Gorda Cay. Twenty years later, parts of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl were also filmed on the island. Of course by the time the Pirates movies came around, Gorda Cay was virtually owned by Disney and was a ready made location for the company, but I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

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In the mid-Nineties, as the Walt Disney Company was gearing up to get into the cruise line business, company management knew they needed a private island getaway. Somewhere that guests could spend a day swimming in the waters of the Caribbean, but in a controlled way, a way that would entice them to spend some more money, more money that Disney could keep instead of going to Bahamian locals. It may sound like I'm waxing a bit cynical here, but that really isn't that far off from how corporate people think. I don't know if someone in upper management at that time had been part of the production team for Splash a dozen years earlier or not, but everyone became very interested in Gorda Cay as that destination.

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After scouting other nearby cays, the size and location of Gorda Cay cemented its future (the fact that it already had an airstrip was helpful, too). Disney entered into negotiations with the Bahamian government and came out the other end with a 99 year lease on the island, but not a lease like you or I would get on an apartment. Disney basically had full control to do whatever they wanted with the place and boy did they have some plans.

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Not only did Disney plan to basically build a resort on Gorda Cay, they knew they needed to make some changes to its very topography. While other cruise lines had private islands at the time, all of them required the cruise ship to park offshore. Guests then had to ride smaller boats, called tenders, back and forth between the liner and the island. Those tenders frequently showed up as complaints on guest surveys. Disney decided to dredge out a docking area so their cruise ships could just cozy right on up to the island and guests would just walk between their staterooms and the beach. 50,000 truckloads of sand and coral later, they got their wish (sometimes it's good to be a multi-billion dollar company before starting a project). All told, Disney spent $25 million transforming their island into the highest rated private destination in the cruise industry.

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Since it was so different from what it had been for hundreds of years, it needed a new name as well. Gorda Cay became Castaway Cay. Around 120 people now live there full time, none of which, as far as we know, are involved in the smuggling trade in any way. The cay technically opened for business on July 30, 1998, the same day that the Disney Magic left Port Canaveral on its maiden voyage but it was a few days into the Magic's itinerary that guests actually set foot on its beaches. Disney ships have been docking there several days a week since. And while it may seem like there has been a huge environmental impact on the island in that time, there has. But it could be much worse. Only 55 of Castaways Cay's 1000 available acres has been developed and Disney does a pretty good job of conserving the other 94% of the island.

I've been to Castaway Cay several times myself and also been to the "private" island that Royal Caribbean operates. While there were a few things I think RC does better than Disney, the island getaway is not one of them. If you can swing yourself a Disney cruise, the day you spend on Castaway Cay will very likely be your favorite day. And coming from someone who doesn't ever really feel a need to get off a cruise ship, that's saying something.

July 9 - Joe Fowler

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On this day, in 1894, Joseph William Fowler was born in Lewiston, Maine. In 1917, Joe graduated from the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland almost at the top of his class (he was a close second). From there, he moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts to become a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology learning the fine art of naval architecture. After earning his master’s degree in 1921, Joe traveled to Shanghai, China where he spent the rest of the decade designing and building gunboats. His later work involved designing and building aircraft carriers including the two biggest carriers used in World War II, the USS Lexington and the USS Saratoga. Actually during his second World War (he was already a veteran of the first one), Joe was in charge of all Navy construction activity in all the shipyards on the West Coast.

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Following the conclusion of the war, Joe stayed with the Navy for a while more, not retiring until he achieved the rank of Rear Admiral and hit 35 years of service in 1948. Four years later, as the Korean War was raging on, President Eisenhower entice him to return to service briefly in an attempt to reduce wasteful military spending. After a few months indulging an old friend, Joe walked away again and assumed his working days were over, for the most part anyways. Then he met a man with a dream.

Late in the summer of 1954, a mutual friend introduced Joe to Walt Disney. At the time, Joe was supervising the construction of some tract homes in San Francisco. Walt was looking for someone with naval expertise to consult on the building of a paddle steamer for his new theme park. The two men hit it off and, after a brief discussion, Joe was hired as a technical consultant on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and to oversee all of Disneyland’s construction. Once the job was finished in July 1955, he stayed on with the company as the park’s General Manager for the next decade. Pretty much anything Walt wanted done, Joe made it happen. One story is told about Walt looking at a stage in Adventureland with a waterfall next to it. He turned to Joe and said wouldn’t it be grand if, when actors came onto the stage, the waterfall parted like curtains and they came through it. Without blinking an eye, Joe said “We can do that” and then somehow worked his magic to actually make it reality. He was famous for doing stuff like that.

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In the mid Sixties, Joe was given the monumental task of bringing what was then known as the Florida Project out of Walt’s dreams and into swampy reality. When Joe visited Walt in the hospital just before his death, Walt was staring at the tiles of his hospital room’s ceiling and using them as an architectural grid to explain his plans for where everything in Disney World was to go. So it wasn’t like there was any pressure on Joe to get things right or anything. As construction progressed, he actually held three different positions, at one point all of them simultaneously: senior vice president, engineering and construction, for Walt Disney Productions; chairman of the board of WED Enterprises, now known as Walt Disney Imagineering; and director of construction for Disney’s Buena Vista Construction Company.

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In the end, Joe got things right. Walt Disney World, consisting of the Magic Kingdom and a few resorts, was built and opened. One of the two riverboats that plied the Rivers of America was named after him (until it was accidentally wrecked beyond repair while in dry dock in 1980). He continued doing various small projects for Disney until retiring a second time in 1978, after more than 24 more years of work. He did a little consulting work for the company after that but mostly actually enjoyed his retirement. In 1990, Joe was declared an official Disney Legend for shepherding the creation of not one but two incredible theme parks. On December 3, 1993, Joe passed away at his home in Orlando, Florida at the age of 99. He was posthumously given another honor. In 1999, the ferryboat that takes guests between the Magic Kingdom and the Transportation and Ticket Center that was formerly known as the Magic Kingdom I was rechristened the Admiral Joe Fowler. And astute Disneyland guests are aware that the dry dock area for the Mark Twain Riverboat has always been referred to as Joe's Ditch (if Walt was in a grumpy mood) or Fowler Harbor (as it is today).

February 13 - John Lounsbery

On this day, in 1976, John Mitchell Lounsbery passed away in Los Angeles, California. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio on March 9, 1911, John's family moved to Denver, Colorado when he was a young child. After graduating from East Denver High School, he started taking art classes at the Art Institute of Denver. When he graduated from the Institute in 1932, he moved to Southern California and became a student at the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena. Once he'd pretty well established himself there, an instructor recommended that he apply for a job at the Walt Disney Studio. He did and his Disney journey began on June 2, 1935.

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Thrown right into the deep end, John's first assignment was to assist Norm Ferguson on animating the witch for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. John was an accomplished swimmer, though (he became one of Walt's Nine Old Men after all) and by Pinocchio, he was taking the lead on J. Worthington Foulfellow and his sidekick, Gideon. He was then put in charge of Ben Ali, Hyacinth and the rest of the gators and hippos for the Dance of the Hours segment in Fantasia. By Dumbo, John was a directing animator and he never looked back, contributing to almost every classic Disney feature produced during the Golden Age of the studio.

The list of characters that John was in charge of bringing to life is almost too long to believe:

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Dumbo and Timothy Mouse in Dumbo.

Donald Duck, Jose Carioca and Panchito for The Three Caballeros

The wolf in Peter and the Wolf and Willie, the whale who sings at the met, in Make Mine Music

Br'er Rabbit, Fox and Bear for Song of the South

Jiminy Cricket, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Willie the Giant in Fun and Fancy Free

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The Once Upon a Wintertime, Blame It On the Samba and Pecos Bill segments in Melody Time

Ichabod Crane, Katrina van Tassel, Brom Bones and various other people and creatures in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

Lucifer, mice, Bruno and Major in Cinderella

Caterpillar, Cheshire Cat, Mad Hatter and assorted flowers and creatures for Alice in Wonderland

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The entire Darling family (including Nana) as well as pirates (including Captain Hook) and the lost boys for Peter Pan

Thomas Jefferson in Ben and Me

Lady, Tramp, Tony, Joe, Peg and a slew of others for Lady and the Tramp

King Hubert, King Stefan, Queen Leah, Prince Phillip and some goons in Sleeping Beauty

The Colonel, Jasper and Horace Badun and Sergeant Tibbs for One Hundred and One Dalmatians

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Wart, Merlin, Archimedes, Madame Mim and several others in The Sword and the Stone

Most of the farmyard animals who sing Jolly Holiday in Mary Poppins

Mowgli, the elephants, King Louie, Baloo, Bagheera, and Shere Khan for The Jungle Book

The humans and Roquefort in The Aristocats

King Leonidas in Bedknobs and Broomsticks

Robin Hood, Little John and the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood

Now John didn't draw all of these characters by himself of course. He was a directing animator, after all. His assistants and inbetweeners did all the grunt work after he drew key poses, but he was still responsible for how they looked and moved. It's no wonder why he was part of the Nine Old Men, even if he is one of the less well known names of the group. And he isn't as well known because he was a quiet, unassuming guy who wasn't flashy but just showed up every morning, put in an incredible days work and went home at five.

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By the mid-Seventies, John had moved up again to directing whole films, not just overseeing half the characters. His first gig in the director's chair was the third short featuring that tubby little cubby, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too. The led to becoming co-director for The Rescuers with Woolie Reitherman. Unfortunately, John's story comes to an abrupt end at this point. In the midst of production on The Rescuers, he went into the hospital for some surgery and didn't come back out. Just like that, his incredible 41 year career was over. And while his body of work will never be forgotten, John, sadly, is not known outside of animation circles like Frank Thomas or Marc Davis. If he had lived longer, my guess is that would not be the case as he was the first of the Nine Old Men to die. John was made an official Disney Legend, with the rest of his fellow Men, posthumously in 1989.

February 12 - Peter Ellenshaw

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On this day, in 2007, William Samuel Cook Ellenshaw passed away in Santa Barbara, California. Born in Essex, England on May 24, 1913, Peter (as he was known) lost his father to World War I. He left school when he was 14 to work as a mechanic to support his family. He displayed a talent for art in his spare time and after meeting W Percy Day, a British portrait painter, he spent seven years as Percy's apprentice.

Percy was also an early pioneer in the art of matte painting for films. Rather than travel to exotic (and expensive) locations, an artist could create a location on a pane of glass. When the camera was placed on one side of the pane and the actors were strategically placed on a small set on the other side of the pane, the illusion was created that the actors were in the jungle or on the moon when in reality they were on a soundstage. Peter learned the art from his mentor working on such films as 1940's The Thief of Bagdad.

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World War II would interrupt many careers and Peter's was no exception. After a tour with the Royal Air Force, he would return to matte painting once the war was over. The biggest post-war change was that he began working with Hollywood studios who were making pictures in Europe, like MGM's ancient Roman epic, Quo Vadis.

In 1950, Peter was hired by the Walt Disney Studio to paint backgrounds for the company's first live action film, Treasure Island, which was being filmed in England. His masterful renditions of historical England saved the studio from having to find and shoot in cramped, hard to reach locations. It also started a relationship that would span several decades.

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In 1953, Peter moved from his native land to Hollywoodland. He next painted backgrounds for the Disney classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in 1954. Ten years later, he once again returned to historical London when he painted 102 different mattes for Mary Poppins. His genius with a brush allowed the picture to be shot entirely on soundstages in Burbank. His efforts on Poppins also earned him an Oscar for Best Visual Effects, which he shared with Eustace Lycett and Hamilton Luske.

Peter would earn three more Academy Award nominations, all for Best Visual Effects, for his work on Disney features: Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), The Island on Top of the World (1974) and The Black Hole (1979). All told, he painted for 34 Disney films including Old Yeller, Pollyanna, The Absent-Minded Professor and The Love Bug. He also contributed to a slew of television productions, mostly for whatever Disney anthology show was currently running.

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Following his contributions to The Black Hole, Peter retired from the motion picture industry and devoted the remainder of his life to his passion of creating fine art. Some of his works were Disney themed and some were the landscapes he loved to paint of the California coastline. All of them are highly collectible. He would return as a matte painter a handful of times, most notably for the 1990 Disney film Dick Tracy and working with his son Harrison, another Oscar winner for effects, on Superman IV. In 1993, Peter was declared an official Disney Legend for his invaluable contributions to so many classic films. He was 93 when he died.

December 8 - Richard Fleischer

On this day, in 1916, Richard Fleischer was born in New York, New York. Students of early animation should immediately recognize Richard's last name. His father, Max, was a pioneer in animation, inventing things like rotoscoping, follow-the-bouncing-ball sing alongs and characters like Koko the Clown, Betty Boop and Popeye. That made the Fleischer family direct (and often times bitter) rivals to the Disney family. And yet Richard is also an official Disney Legend. How is this possible? He made one contribution to the Disney legacy. One colossal contribution. But his story doesn't start (or end) there.

Image copyright RKO

Richard graduated from Brown University and decided to roll on into the Yale School of Drama. It turned out to be a good decision: one of his fellow students, Mary Dickson, became his wife. In 1937, he was so bold as to start his own theatrical group at Yale. Five years later, he was in Hollywood starting a career in the movies at RKO. Unlike his father, Richard stayed away from animation. His first films were documentaries and compilations of silent pictures he dubbed "Flicker Flashbacks." In 1947, he won his first (and surprisingly, only) Academy Award as the producer of a documentary, Design for Death. It was about Japanese imperialism and what led to World War II. It was also co-written by Theodore Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss).

The year before Design, Richard had directed his first feature film. A vehicle for a former child star, Sharyn Moffett, Child of Divorce was a success. He was given the helm of Sharyn's next film, Banjo, but that one flopped. He continued making B movies at RKO, mostly film noir thrillers. As he constantly got great reviews for his work, Richard was just as constantly trying to graduate to making A films. RKO's owner, Howard Hughes, was impressed enough with Richard's abilities that he was allowed to shoot some of the footage for 1952's His Kind of Woman, a film noir starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell. On the basis of that movie, Richard was lent out to another studio, the Kramer Company, to direct a comedy, The Happy Time, starring Charles Boyer and a young teen named Bobby Driscoll. Bobby had been in several Disney movies, so Walt naturally saw Time and liked the look of the picture well enough that he contacted Richard about doing a project together.

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Filming began in 1954, on location in Jamaica and the Bahamas, for one of Disney's greatest films: The studio's fifth live action movie, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Originally budgeted at $5 million, the lavishness of the production (and the fact that the climatic squid fight scene had to be completely reshot) eventually pushed that to $9 million. 20K was the most expensive movie made in Hollywood up to that point. The initial reviews were somewhat mixed but audiences loved it. It's box office of over $28 million firmly established Disney as a major motion studio. And that is why Richard was made a Disney Legend in 2003. The film is widely considered to be a gem of the science fiction genre, a precursor to steampunk and has effects that still mostly hold up today. The film's sets were made into an walk-through attraction in Disneyland and it also inspired an E-ticket ride in Walt Disney World. 20K put Richard smack dab in the middle of the A list.

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Following his success with 20K, Richard signed a contract with Fox and would spend the next fifteen years making pictures for them. His first Fox film was The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing with Joan Collins and Ray Milland. He went on to work with Orson Welles in Compulsion, Raquel Welch in Fantastic Voyage, and Tony Curtis in The Boston Strangler. Richard directed Doctor Dolittle which was popular but failed to recoup its budget. His last two films with Fox, Che! with Omar Sharif and Tora! Tora! Tora!, were both expensive flops and ended his association with the studio (they also ended his association with exclamation points as he never used them in movie titles again).

Image copyright MGM

Throughout the Seventies, Richard free lanced, making movies with the likes of Richard Attenborough, George C. Scott, Mia Farrow, Anthony Quinn and Michael Caine. His most famous movie from this period was the Charlton Heston science fiction vehicle, Soylent Green. As the world entered the Eighties, Richard's output slowed down. He made only five films during that decade, including two starring the future governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Conan the Destroyer and Red Sonja. His final directing gig was Million Dollar Mystery, basically an hour and a half commercial for Glad-Lock trash bags and a contest that eventually awarded someone a million dollars. Needless to say it was not a big hit, critically or financially.

For the remainder of his life, Richard mainly put together two biographies. The first was his own story, Just Tell Me When to Cry, released in 1993, and chronicled trials with all the actors, writers and producers he'd worked with over the years. In 2005, he released his love letter to his father, Out of the Inkwell: Max Fleischer and the Animation Revolution, all about the elder filmmaker's career. Less than a year later, Richard died peacefully in his sleep at his home in Woodland Hills, California. He was 89 years old.

October 30 - Paul J. Smith

On this day, in 1906, composer Paul J. Smith was born in Calumet, Michigan. By the time Paul graduated from high school, the family had moved to Caldwell, Idaho where his dad, Joseph, was a professor at the College of Idaho. Not surprisingly, Paul spent three years studying music at that very same college. The boys in the family all turned out to be pretty musical. Joseph composed several songs for the college, Paul's brother Arthur became a studio musician and played on the soundtracks of all kinds of movies and television shows and Paul himself became a legend.

In 1925, Paul moved on from the College of Idaho to attend the Bush Conservatory of Music in Chicago, Illinois. While there, his talent earned him a scholarship to Julliard but for some reason he never used it. After graduating from Bush, Paul would spend two years teaching at Elmhurst College. In 1932, he moved to Los Angeles, California to go back to school at UCLA. This time he majored in English and wrote four musical comedies during his time there.

When Paul landed a job at the Disney Studio in 1934, he hit the ground running. He loved to push the boundaries of scoring animation just as much as Walt loved to push the boundaries of the animation itself. After composing for some shorts, Paul co-wrote the music for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Frank Churchill and Leigh Harline. He would continue this pattern of scoring some shorts then creating music for a feature film over and over for the next few decades. All told, Paul wrote the score for over 70 of Disney's shorts. His feature credits include Pinocchio (which earned him an Academy Award), Fantasia, Bambi, Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, the animated portions of Song of the South, Fun and Fancy Free, Melody Time, So Dear to My Heart, and Cinderella.

About the time of Cinderella's release, the studio began producing its Tru-Life Adventure series of animal documentaries. Paul would score most of them, using the same techniques that he used to compose music for animation. Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston would later acknowledge that those films became immeasurably better because of Paul's innovative scores. Throughout the Fifties and early Sixties, Paul would move into scoring many of the studio's live action classics. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Shaggy Dog, Pollyanna, Swiss Family Robinson, and The Parent Trap are just a few of the movies that benefited from Paul's touch.

In 1962, after 28 years with the Disney studio, Paul officially retired from the company but not from making music. He scored 26 episodes of Leave It to Beaver and 35 episodes of the Wonderful World of Color. He's even credited with some of the background music in a special celebrating Donald Duck's 50th birthday in 1984. On January 25, 1985, Paul passed away at the age of 78 due to complications brought on by Alzheimer's Disease. In 1994, for all his marvelous musical contributions, he was made an official Disney Legend.

Also on this day, in American history: John J. Loud

October 14 - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Submarine Voyage

On this day, in 1971, the classic attraction 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Submarine Voyage opened in the Magic Kingdom of Walt Disney World. Submarine Voyage had proved to be quite popular with guests when it opened in Disneyland in 1959, so a bigger and better version was planned for the Florida Project. And what better movie to theme the new attraction after than the Disney classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?

The ride vehicles (which are actually boats not real submarines) were started by Morgan Yachts in Clearwater, Florida and then transferred to Tampa Ship for finishing. Their look was based on Harper Goff's Nautilus design for the 1954 film. Twelve vehicles were built, identical in every way except for one of them. 11 subs had diesel engines; the twelfth sub was powered by natural gas. Guess which one was never to be hit from behind. The subs usually ran in three groups of three, with the remaining three resting on a spur dock, ready to be put into use if needed (and, as the years went by, they were frequently needed).

Even though this version of Submarine Voyage was themed to a movie, it was pretty much the same as the original with small tweaks here and there. The narration throughout was done by Captain Nemo, voiced by Peter Renaday doing a pretty good impersonation of James Mason. Some of the show scenes also included touches from the film, like the divers in the kelp beds had suits and helmets that were also based on Harper Goff designs.

One of the lost pieces of Walt Disney World history could be found in 20K's (as it was known internally) show building. You would never know it looking at the pile of "rocks" complete with waterfalls, but if you went inside it as cast members sometimes did to do maintenance, you might notice something curious about the ceiling: there were massive concrete arches supporting it. As the building existed for the almost 23 years the ride operated, those arches were completely unnecessary. It becomes clear why the building was constructed that way, though, when you learn that a version of the Matterhorn Bobsleds was slated to be built on top of it. That, of course, never happened and we are all left to sigh over what might have been.

I have three additional favorite tidbits about this attraction. The first is that when it opened, an "E" ticket was required to ride it. Anyone who rode it near the end might raise an eyebrow at that, but you have to remember that "E" tickets didn't mean thrill rides, they meant the best rides. And in its day, 20K was pretty spectacular. The second is that women never worked the attraction. In fact 20K and Jungle Cruise were the last two attractions that required a Y chromosome of its cast members. Shortly before 20K closed, Jungle began training women to lead its safaris, but none ever piloted the Nautilus. It might sound Draconianly sexist but the explanation is simple: the only women in the movie were whores. Try theming that in a family park. The third is how everything you read claims that the ride closed suddenly and unexpectedly on September 5, 1994. It might have seemed that way to guests, but the cast members knew that its run was over. I should know as I did my College Program on this attraction that final summer. All kinds of costume pieces disappeared as August came to a close (not, mind you, that I'm aware who took them or where they ended up).

The 20K lagoon went on to become two character meet and greet areas, one for Ariel and, in the old queue, one for characters like Robin Hood and the mice from Cinderella. Then part of the area became a Winnie the Pooh themed play area. Eventually the lagoon was drained, filled in and now sits under the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, gone but not forgotten.

Also on this day, in American history: Lawrence Herkimer