May 28 - it's a small world

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On this day, in 1966, it’s a small world began sending guests on a whimsical journey of international goodwill in Disneyland’s Fantasyland in Anaheim, California. Walt was already under contract for three attractions for the 1964 World’s Fair, when he was approached by Pepsi to create a fourth one. The board of directors at Pepsi knew they were going to have a pavilion at the fair (it would be commercial suicide to not have a presence) but had procrastinated over what they wanted in their pavilion. Hollywood legend Joan Crawford was a member of that board by way of her marriage to the late Pepsi CEO Alfred Steele. She got fed up with the rest of the board’s dithering, asked her friend Walt Disney to come up with something and basically browbeat everyone into accepting whatever was presented, in spite of the fact that Walt would have less than eleven months to produce. Because Walt knew how to bring out the best in people (and had the best people to work with), everything worked out just fine.

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It was decided that the proceeds from the ride would benefit the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) so the basic theme was “Children of the World” and that became its working title as well. Because of the recent international tensions over missiles in Cuba, the theme was expanded to include brotherhood and peace (which may seem like it’s implied in an endeavor based on kids, but it really isn’t). The overall design of the attraction fell to the Legendary Mary Blair, who had already lent her considerable talents to shaping the look of films like Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland. Unlike those projects where she merely influenced things, this overall look would be pure Mary. The simple clean shapes used in deceptively complex ways and the cheerful color palate combined to make a classic ride that endures and delights right up to today.

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Not that Mary didn’t have help along the way. The Legendary Marc Davis, as he did on so many Disneyland attractions, designed the scenes guests would travel through and many of the characters in them. His wife, the Legendary Alice Davis, designed the costumes the dolls wear and the Legendary Rolly Crump took care of the rest of the props and figures. The Legendary Blaine Gibson designed and sculpted the dolls with input from Walt himself, who insisted that every doll, no matter what country it represented, had an identically shaped face. It’s no coincidence that so many of the people who worked on this particular ride have gone on to achieve Disney Legend status (except for Walt himself, who has never been given the award; I know that it would be a fairly redundant gesture, it’s just something that makes me smile when I think about it), they are all that good.

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Which brings us to the music (I can hear some of you groaning already because, let’s be honest, the song has probably been playing in your head since you started reading this article). In its original form, Children of the World was going to have snippets of each country’s national anthem playing near the dolls from that country. It  was a plan that only sounded good on paper. In real life, it was a jumbled up, headache inducing wall of noise. So Walt brought his resident songwriters, the Legendary Sherman Brothers, into the project. He gave them just two guidelines: the song they wrote had to able to be done in a round (so it was infinitely repeatable without a beak) and it had to be easily translated into many different languages. They came back with It’s a Small World, a slow ballad about the universal theme of friendship. Walt said bring me something more cheerful. So they sped their song up considerably and replayed it for the boss. Walt liked the second version so much, he renamed the entire attraction after it. Love it or hate it, the Sherman Brothers’ ultimate ear worm has easily been played over 50 million times over the years making it the most played piece of music ever created, beating out the number two song by over 40 million plays. Of course, the fact that it is playing somewhere in the world at literally any moment of the day helps.

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The success of it’s a small world (and, yes, writing it without capital letters is the proper way to refer to the attraction) at the World’s Fair cannot be undersold. The ride’s high capacity (especially compared to other Fair attractions) meant that there was rarely a line, in spite of the overwhelming number of people who experienced it. Over the course of the two and a half years the Fair ran, over 10 million tickets were sold for small world resulting in over $8 million dollars being raised for UNICEF. At the Fair’s end, it was dismantled, transported back to Southern California and installed in its permanent home. When the Magic Kingdom opened five years later, it included a version of the ride, with the queue area moved indoors. Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland each have their own versions as well, so it’s fairly accurate when Disney claims that the sun never sets on cheerful children of it’s a small world.

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In 1997, Disneyland began a new holiday tradition with their version of it’s a small world. At the end of October, they add in almost a million twinkling lights as well as various Christmas decorations and costumes for the dolls. The soundtrack also gets changed to include international versions of Jingle Bells and Deck the Halls. The holiday version has proven so popular that it’s spread to every other park around the world except one. The Magic Kingdom ride stays unaltered (mainly to keep the change as something unique in the United States to its sister park).

March 18 - Pirates of the Caribbean

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On this day, in 1967, the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction began operating in the New Orleans Square area of Disneyland. Opening three months and three days after his passing, Pirates is the last ride that Walt Disney himself had a hand in designing (While Walt was integral to the concept of The Haunted Mansion, which opened two years later, that ride was almost completely redesigned after his death). On the original coming soon map of New Orleans square, Pirates was listed as a walk through wax museum attraction. After the huge success of It's a Small World at the 1964 World's Fair, it was decided to use the same boat system to carry guests through the Caribbean and to incorporate Audio Animatronics instead of wax figures.

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When Walt Disney World was being planned, it was decided that Pirates would not be one of the attractions that was replicated from Disneyland. Why? Because Florida already had a rich culture of real pirates, no one would want any fake pirates, right? Wrong. When the Magic Kingdom opened in October 1971, one of the biggest complaints from guests was the lack of a Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Disney had to then scramble to put one together. It wasn't until December 1973 that the Florida version opened. While it has a lot of similarities, it isn't the same ride. Version two is several minutes shorter and doesn't have the thrilling drops that version one has (it can't because of the high water tables in the Sunshine State), but it remains one of the most popular and treasured rides in the park. As the Disney empire expanded worldwide, executives did not repeat their 1971 mistake. There is a version of Pirates in Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris and Shanghai Disneyland.

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Pirates is a fairly unique attraction in the Disney family. There are plenty of rides that are based on movies in the parks, but Pirates is a ride that spawned not only a movie but a whole franchise (and while it's fine to mention Tower of Terror here, please don't embarrass yourself by bringing up the Haunted Mansion). While there are plenty of homages to the attraction in the original film, no one really knew how big the series would become. As the world of Pirates expanded and new characters and situations became beloved, it was increasingly obvious that the ride was out of synch with the new reality. So the ride that inspired a movie was in turn inspired by the movie and changed itself. In 2006, Animatronics of Jack Sparrow, a character created for the movie, were added into the California and Florida versions. Paris got Jack, as well as a Captain Barbossa figure, in 2017.

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Other modifications to the attraction have been made over the years to make it more politically correct. While those changes aren't historically accurate, they are entertaining and that's really what the ride is all about. X Atencio, one of the attractions original developers and the man who wrote its theme song, A Pirates Life for Me, once groused that his attraction was being turned into The Boy Scouts of the Caribbean, but I think that was just because no one likes to see their work changed (even if it no longer belongs to you once you've released it into the world). In spite of (or just as likely because of) all the changes Pirates of the Caribbean has gone through over the last four decades, it remains a must see in my book (and based on its wait times, millions of other books as well).

March 16 - Joyce Carlson

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On this day, in 1923, Joyce Carlson was born in Racine, Wisconsin. Joyce and her family moved to Southern California when she was 15. After graduating from Santa Monica High School, she needed a job and became a member of the Traffic Department at the Walt Disney Studio. Her job was to deliver mail, paint brushes, coffee and anything else that was needed to the various departments of the studio. It wasn't long before she wanted something more, so Joyce created a portfolio of drawings, showed them to management and was promptly moved into the Ink and Paint Department.

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Joyce's first assignments were the shorts Disney created for the United States Government during World War II. She was quickly moved into the Feature Animation division and worked on The Three Caballeros, Cinderella and Peter Pan. During production on Lady and the Tramp, Joyce was promoted to a Lead Ink Artist position which carried on into Sleeping Beauty and One Hundred and One Dalmatians. Technology had advanced by that time, however. Dalmatians ushered in the era of xerography, which allowed animators drawings to be photocopied onto cels, eliminating the need for inkers. As the Ink and Paint Department shrunk accordingly, Joyce, after 16 years of expertly floating paint on acetate, transferred to WED Enterprises and began the Imagineering phase of her career.

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In 1962, Joyce began a mentoring process under two legends: Mary Blair and Marc Davis. Her first project was as part of the team designing and dressing the sets for the Carousel of Progress for the 1964 World's Fair. She worked closely with Leota Toombs, who had also come from the Ink and Paint Department (and would later achieve immortality as the face of Madame Leota in the Haunted Mansion), specifically creating the sturdier show hinges on all of the doors of the GE appliances that were used in the attraction.

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Joyce is best known for her work on another ride for the Fair, UNICEF's It's a Small World. She was responsible for designing and building the majority of the singing children figures seen throughout the attraction. She was also one of handful of cast members who traveled to New York to oversee the installation of all the Disney created pavilions. After the Fair, she was in charge of moving It's a Small World across country to Disneyland and eventually supervised the creation of the versions in Florida, Tokyo and Paris.

After the World's Fair projects were completed, Joyce and Leota continued to work together making models and final figures for all sorts of attractions. Her work can be seen in The Enchanted Tiki Room, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, Country Bear Jamboree and America Sings (which had a whole slew of its figures recycled into Splash Mountain), to name a few.

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In 1982, Joyce moved to Florida where she became the resident Small World expert and was promoted to Senior Show Production Designer for Walt Disney World. She was the first female employee of the company to reach both the 50 and 55 year anniversary marks. She retired from full time work in 2000, but like most of Disney's old timers, continued to work at least part time for six more years and was available to mentor new Imagineers beyond that. Just after her retirement in 2000, Joyce was made an official Disney Legend. She was also given her own window on Main Street, USA in the Magic Kingdom that reads "Dolls by Miss Joyce - Dollmaker for the World - Shops in New York, California, Florida, Japan and Paris - Owner and Founder, Joyce Carlson." The eagle eyed among us can also spot a figure in her likeness in the Florida version of Small World. Joyce succumbed to cancer on January 8, 2008 at her home in Orlando, Florida. She was 84.

January 12 - Marc Davis

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On this day, in 2000, Marc Fraser Davis passed away in Glendale, California. Marc began life about a hundred miles north of the place he ended it. Born on March 30, 1913 in Bakersfield, California, he was a Californian through and through. Well, mostly. While he attended art classes at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco and the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, he actually graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute in Missouri. Needless to say, he didn’t spend much more time in Middle America than his schooling took but his presence there at all probably helped start his career working under one of the area’s most famous sons.

Coming on board the Disney juggernaut in 1935, Marc quickly earned the admiration of his fellow animators. Ollie Johnston recalled that, while several people contributed to the design of Snow White, it was Marc who made her walk in grace and beauty.

Marc wasn’t just good at bringing women to life. The consummate draftsman also made animals more believable. It started with his work on Bambi, Faline and Thumper in Bambi. He then gave us Br’er Rabbit, Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear in Song of the South. Bongo in Fun and Fancy Free and Mr. Toad in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad round out his furry contributions to the Disney family.  

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But truth be told, it really was drawing women where Marc excelled the most. He was so good at grace and beauty, he would often be given the difficult task of animating either the heroine or the villainess in a picture. Over the years, not only did he join Ollie as one of Walt’s Nine Old Men, he earned himself the nickname of Disney’s Ladies Man. Name a major female character from the Fifties and it’s almost a guarantee that Marc animated her. Cinderella, Alice, Tinkerbell, Aurora and Maleficent, and, lastly, Cruella de Vil (who technically didn’t appear until the early Sixties), were all created under Marc’s steady hand. Then, when One Hundred and One Dalmatians wrapped up production, he gave up animation forever.

As the Sixties began, Disneyland was almost constantly being updated and expanded and a huge amount of effort was being put into several projects for the upcoming World's Fair. WED Enterprises (the precursor to Imagineering) was designing and building almost more attractions than they could handle. Marc had made some contributions during the late Fifties to Adventureland's Jungle Cruise and the Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland. As the excitement in the department continued into the new decade, he decided to devote the rest of his career to designing characters and writing stories for the theme park instead of the silver screen.

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Marc still applied the same techniques in his new role. He still spent hours developing characters for an attraction and would use storyboards to plan out what guests would experience. His dedication payed off. As the technology behind Audio-Animatronics developed and matured, Marc would become a master at using them to tell stories. His first big project to open after his career shift was the classic show found in The Enchanted Tiki Room. For the 1964 World's Fair, he had a hand in all four of the attractions that Disney built: Ford's Magic Skyway, Great Moment's With Mr. Lincoln, It's a Small World and The Carousel of Progress.

When the World's Fair was safely behind them, Imagineers returned to creating new experiences for Disneyland. Marc's designs can be seen throughout both Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion, both of which opened in New Orleans Square. He then lent his style to the Country Bear Jamboree and America Sings, which was the replacement attraction for his earlier work Carousel of Progress.

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The last several years of Marc's career were spent developing an attraction that was never quite built. It was to occupy a massive area in Frontierland at the Magic Kingdom in Florida. Known as the Western River Expedition, it was supposed to be Florida's answer to Pirates of the Caribbean since, Disney executives reasoned, Floridians wouldn't be interested in pirates because the state was practically built by them. Instead, Marc designed a Western themed ride that would involve buffalo, a stagecoach robbery, a Native American adobe village, and a show with saloon girls, a bank robbery and plenty of cowboys. A mine train roller coaster would be housed in the same show building (yes, it would be the largest one Disney had ever built). From the outside, the building would look like and be called Thunder Mesa Mountain. From all accounts, it would have been a spectacular thing to see. So what happened?

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Guests to the Florida Project had one complaint they could all agree on, that's what happened. The question "Where are the pirates?" became the one most asked after the Magic Kingdom opened. So Disney hastily built a version of Pirates of the Caribbean, using a large chunk of the money allocated for Marc's Expedition. Then an economic downturn hit the country. Then Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (part of the plans for the attraction from the beginning) was built using most of the land that was to go to Expedition. And that was basically it. All the sketches and models that Marc slaved over were relegated to the research vault. Not to despair too much, though. Plenty of Imagineers have snuck elements of Marc's designs into other attractions including Splash Mountain and Expedition Everest, and I'm sure will continue to do so as often as they can.

In 1978, Marc retired after an incredible 43 year career with the Walt Disney Company.  He was named an official Disney Legend in 1989 for all of his iconic contributions to both the world of animation and beloved attractions that endure to this day. Shortly after he passed away, he was honored once more when CalArts established the Marc Fraser Davis Scholarship Fund, ensuring that creative genius will be able to flourish far into the future.

December 19 - Robert B Sherman

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On this day, in 1925, Robert Bernard Sherman was born in New York, New York. As the son of famous Tin Pan Alley songwriter Al Sherman, Robert, and his brother Richard (who would come along a couple of years later), eventually dove into the family business and elevated it to world renown status. The family moved frequently during Robert’s childhood before finally settling in Beverly Hills, California. During his high school years, Robert wrote and produced several programs for the radio and stage. One of those, Armistice and Dedication Day, raised thousands of dollars for bonds to finance World War II and caught the attention of the War Department. Robert was a mere 16 year old at the time.

In 1943, Robert talked his parents into letting him join the army when he was only 17. In April of 1945, he was wounded in the knee and would walk with a cane for the rest of his life. His list of medals for his service is fairly impressive: the Purple Heart, the Combat Infantryman Badge, two Battle Stars, an American Campaign Medal, a Good Conduct Medal and several marksmanship badges. As he convalesced from his wound in England, Robert became interested in British culture and soaked up as much history and made as many English friends as he could. He was always grateful for this period in his life since so much of his later career would center on British stories and characters.

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After his return home from the war, Robert attended Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. He majored in English literature and painting, served as editor-in-chief of the campus newspaper and wrote two novels. His brother, Richard, also attended Bard as a music major. A few years later, the brothers were living together in an apartment in Los Angeles, struggling to create their separate masterpieces. One day, their father, Al, goaded them with a dare: I bet you two guys couldn’t pool your talents and come up with a song that some kid would give up his lunch money to buy. He was a wise one, that Al. The boys banded together for the first time and wrote the song Gold Can Buy Anything (but Love) and sold it to Gene Autry. The Sherman Brothers, as a songwriting duo, was born.

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In 1958, Robert founded his own music publishing company, Music World Corporation. The following year, the brothers had their first Top Ten hit, Tall Paul sung by Annette Funicello. A former Mouseketeer having a hit song of course attracted the attention of Walt Disney. Walt began having the Brothers write a song here and there, like the ones used in The Parent Trap. Then Walt finally got the rights to his magnum opus, Mary Poppins, and he hired Robert and Richard on as full time staff songwriters. They won two Academy Awards for Poppins, wrote the music for a whole slew of attractions (Adventure Thru Inner Space, Carousel of Progress and Journey Into Imagination to name just a few) and movies (like The Jungle Book, The Aristocats and Bedknobs and Broomsticks). The most ear wormy thing they ever wrote however, and their song that’s been played the most often, is the them to It’s A Small World. I would go so far as to bet that it will be stuck in your head for the next hour just because I mentioned it. I’m not sorry. It is a pretty good song.

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After Walt’s death, Robert and Richard stopped working full time for the Disney company (although they never really left it completely). Their first outside project was to team up with Poppins star Dick Van Dyke on the 1968 fantasy Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Over the years they began writing screenplays for projects as well as the music. Their version of Tom Sawyer won first prize at the Moscow Film Festival in 1973. An adaptation of Cinderella titled The Slipper and the Rose was chosen for a Royal Command Performance in 1976. On stage, the Brothers wrote a musical called Over There! that was nominated for Tony Awards and was the highest grossing musical of 1974. Since then, highly successful stage versions of both Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang have graced stages around the world.

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The tragedy of all the marvelous music, laughter and joy Robert and Richard brought to the world over their decades long career, is that it turns out the Sherman boys were pretty good actors as well. Modern conveniences may have kept their collaboration going, but the Brothers were, in actuality, bitter rivals who could go years without speaking to each other. Whether or not they ever actually repaired the rift between them, Robert and Richard were both inducted into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame in 2005, given the National Medal of the Arts by President George W. Bush in 2008 and had been made official Disney Legends in 1990. In 2010, the Brothers received their own window on Mainstreet USA in Disneyland which reads “Two Brothers Tunemakers, Richard M Sherman and Robert B Sherman, proprietors, We’ll write your tunes for a song!” They also recently had a soundstage at the Burbank studios renamed in their honor

Robert B. Sherman, decorated war hero, father of four, and co-writer of more film scores for musicals than anyone else (except his brother of course) passed away on March 6, 2012 in London, England. He was 86.

December 6 - Delmer J. Yoakum

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On this day, in 1915, Delmar James Yoakum was born in St. Joseph, Missouri. Del's mother was an artist and her friends were artists, so, growing up he was constantly surrounded by them. In the late Thirties, he was fortunate enough to get a scholarship to spend four summers in a row studying at the Kansas City Art Institute under famed muralist Thomas Hart Benton. When World War II broke out, Del joined the United States Navy as an ensign. When fighting concluded, he relocated himself to Los Angeles, California. There he studied under cubist artist Henry Lee McFee, Italian artist Rico Lebrun and spent time taking classes at Chouinard Art Institute, Jepson Art Institute and the Roski School of Fine Arts at USC.

Starting in 1952, Del began a two decade career as a motion picture scenic artist. He created backdrops and dioramas for use in films like The King and I, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, and the Mount Rushmore scene in North by Northwest. His work can be seen in several Marilyn Monroe films (like 1959's Some Like It Hot which was nominated for a Best Set Decoration Oscar). His creation of the city of Jerusalem for 1953's The Robe helped clinch a Best Set Decoration Oscar win for that movie.

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For the Walt Disney Studio, Del's artistry was used in a new medium. Walt hired him to paint the backdrops for several of the attractions built at Disneyland over the years. The most famous of these works can be seen from the Disneyland Railroad. The Grand Canyon and Primeval World dioramas are the result of Del and his team using over 300 gallons of paint to depict a typical day in that part of the world at that particular time. He also created portions of the scenery for Pirates of the Caribbean, It's a Small World and the Haunted Mansion.

Throughout his life, even more so after his retirement from Hollywood in 1972, Del also created fine art in both watercolors and oil. He won numerous awards for his paintings and some of them can be found in places as diverse as the San Diego Art Museum and Coventry Cathedral in Coventry, England. In spite of his obvious talent, Del once quipped "Painting became my life. If I had to do it all over again, I'd do the same thing, but I'd be better at it." Del quietly passed away on October 25, 1996. He was 90 years old.

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