February 9 - Bill Justice

On this day, in 1914, William Barnard Justice was born in Dayton, Ohio. Raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, Bill was a student at John Herron Art Institute, now a part of Indiana University. He graduated in 1935 and moved out to southern California. In 1937, he became a part of the Walt Disney Studio. Bill may have started his Disney career as an animator, like all of the company greats, but he would go on to do a little bit of everything (and do it all spectacularly).

Bill lent his animation skills to feature films like Fantasia, The Three Caballeros, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. He's best known in that arena for his work on Thumper in Bambi. He also worked in the Shorts Department, most notably as a lead animator for Chip and Dale.

Image copyright Disney

In the mid-Fifties, Bill started directing. One of his first projects in the director's chair was the opening march for The Mickey Mouse Club. He went on to direct The Truth About Mother Goose in 1957, Noah's Ark in 1959 and A Symposium on Popular Songs in 1962. All three of those shorts were nominated for Academy Awards. He didn't get any statues to put on his mantle, but that's still an impressive run.

Image copyright Disney

In the early Sixties, Bill was busy redesigning character costumes for Disneyland as well as coming up with the floats for the park's first Christmas parade. He also made early sketches for the Main Street Electrical Parade. The natural result of these projects was his transfer into the Imagineering department. That's when Bill became more of an engineer than an animator, although he still remained an artist. He got involved with the development of Audio-Animatronics and was soon an expert on programming them. He would be responsible for the movements of figures in Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, Carousel of Progress, Mission to Mars, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, Country Bear Jamboree and America Sings (just to give some highlights). When Walt Disney World opened, Bill had his hand in the Hall of Presidents and the Mickey Mouse Revue as well.

Image courtesy imaginerding.com

Bill retired from Disney in 1979. In 1992, he published his autobiography, detailing his career, called Justice For Disney. He was made an official Disney Legend in 1996 for his amazing contributions, spanning practically every department in the company for 42 years. In his later years, Bill loved to attend Disneyana conventions, chat with people and (to the annoyance of ever hotel he stayed in) draw Disney characters on linen napkins.He passed away in his sleep at a nursing home in Santa Monica, California on February 10, 2011. He was 97 years 1 day old.

November 4 - Baroque Hoedown

On this day, in 2016, French electronic music producer Jean-Jacques Perrey passed away in Morges, Switzerland. Jean's frequent collaborator was Gershon Kingsley and the two of them released two albums of electronic synthesizer music in the early Sixties. Their second album, Kaleidoscopic Vibrations, contained a song called "Baroque Hoedown." Somehow that song caught the attention of creative folks at Disney and in 1971 it inspired the Electrical Water Pageant on the Seven Seas Lagoon at Walt Disney World. The catchy, upbeat tune proved easy to incorporate classic Disney songs into and served as a perfect backdrop loop for the Pageant.

Card Walker, President of Disney at the time, decided that Disneyland needed a nighttime spectacular just like the Florida Project. Because the California park doesn't have a large body of water readily available for a multi-boat pageant, Card had the whole thing turned into a parade. When the Main Street Electrical Parade debuted on June 17, 1972, the epitome of a Disney parade was born. With Baroque Hoedown as its theme and over 600,000 twinkling lights, MSEP was an instant hit. And it stepped off on time in spite of the fact that costumes initially tended to spark and a float was crashed during the first rehearsal.

The Main Street Electrical Parade was innovative in another way as well. It featured the first automated parade show-control. As each float moved along the parade route, radio-activated triggers in each zone would cause float specific music to play through that area's speakers. For the first time, guests along the entire route would experience the parade the same way. Anyone who has ever watched a Disney parade since can appreciate that.

Since the early Seventies, the Main Street Electrical Parade, and its funky theme, have played all over the world. It's spent time at parks in California, Florida, Paris, and Tokyo. Currently it can only be seen at Tokyo Disneyland in a new version called DreamLights but due to its popularity with guests, don't be surprised if it reappears again in the US.

"Baroque Hoedown" itself lives on in the successor to MSEP, Paint the Night. That parade is currently running at both Hong Kong Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure.

As Jean-Jacques Perrey once said, "In the 1970s, Walt Disney Productions chose this tune to be the theme for the Electrical Parade. It was extraordinary, I didn't know about it because the publishers said nothing to me. It was by chance, in 1980, that I went there and was so surprised to hear 'Baroque Hoedown' arranged for a full orchestra." Jean-Jacques may be gone but the phenomenon of his whimsical creation carries on, delighting new generations of guests and reminding old generations that some things in this world are perfect enough to last and last and last.