August 4 - Don DaGradi

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On this day, in 1991, Don DaGradi passed away in Friday Harbor, Washington. Born on March 1, 1911, on the East Coast in New York City, Don actually spent most of his childhood growing up on the West Coast in San Francisco, California. After graduating from high school, he took his artistic talents south to Los Angeles and the Chouinard Art Institute. He honed his skills for a few years before joining the Walt Disney Studio in the mid-Thirties, at the height of the Great Depression, as a background painter. He was quickly bumped up to the Story Department, where he contributed gags and minor plot points to many of the studio’s shorts produced at the time.

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As the studio grew, Don's responsibilities grew as well. By 1940, he was the production designer on Dumbo. Throughout World War II, he was put in charge of layouts for in the Shorts Department (really the only thing the studio was producing in those lean years). His work can be seen in classic films including Der Fuehrer’s Face and Victory Through Air Power. Following the war, Don added features to his plate as the layout artist for The Three Caballeros, Make Mine Music and Fun and Fancy Free.  At the end of the Forties, he started designing the color schemes and the overall feel of features. He sharpened the look of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan.

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As successful as all of Don’s endeavors were up to this point, he didn’t really start hitting his stride until he became a senior member of the story department in the mid-Fifties. He has a full story credit on Lady and the Tramp and contributed additional story elements to Sleeping Beauty (as well as being part of that production’s design team). Then, in 1959, he made the leap into live action movies and blossomed like never before.

Don’s Legendary co-workers, the Sherman Brothers, once said that he wrote scripts with a sketch pad and pencil, meaning that Don’s pictures were worth more than a thousand words. He could draw a quick picture of what a scene looked like in his head and everyone else could see it too. Pages of words could flow from each drawing, most of the time with very little effort. Don’s first effort in the live action arena was at Walt’s personal request. He designed and wrote the underground cavern scenes in Darby O’Gill and the Little People. He followed that up by developing sequences in The Absent-Minded Professor, Pollyanna, Kidnapped and The Parent Trap. For the sequel to Professor, Son of Flubber, Don teamed up with the Legendary Bill Walsh, completely writing that film’s script between the two of them. It was a professional match made in heaven that would last until Don’s retirement nearly a decade later.

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After Flubber, Don and Bill created the script for what is arguably the Walt Disney Studio’s magnum opus, as far as live action films go. Mary Poppins turned out to be as whimsically delightful as it is because of the two men wrote it. Don is credited with creating the visions of everything from people popping out of chimneys and flying through the air to how a tea party on the ceiling might look. His sense of wonder paid off. Audiences have adored the film since its debut and it was honored with five Academy Awards. Don and Bill’s script had also been nominated for an Oscar but lost out to Beckett.

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The overwhelming success of Mary Poppins basically gave Don and Bill carte blanche as screenwriters. While they would never reach those same heights again, they add several more classic Disney films to their resumes. Over the next seven years, the duo wrote Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N., Blackbeard’s Ghost, The Love Bug, Scandalous John and Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

During his career, Don was also tapped to occasionally do some moonlighting over in Imagineering. He designed costumes for Disneyland cast members including the outfits the resident marching band wore. He also designed the look of the exteriors of attractions, like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, keeping them in line with the looks he helped create for the animated features they were based on. And then, in 1970, after 34 years of making magic on and off the silver screen, the man who often described himself as a misplaced cartoonist retired from Disney.

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Don and his wife of many years, Betty, moved north to the state of Washington, enjoying their post-work life away from the hubbub of Hollywood for the next two decades. When Don passed away in August 1991, it was just a few months before his old company would honor him, and his writing partner Bill, as official Disney Legends. He might have been 80 years old at his death, but in his heart he still saw magic everywhere he looked.

August 3 - Corey Burton

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On this day, in 1955, Corey Gregg Weinberg was born in the Granada Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Corey grew up in the San Fernando Valley and began his voice acting career at the ripe old age of seventeen as Corey Weinman (he eventually changed his professional name to Burton). He was fortunate enough to study radio acting under the late great Daws Butler (if you’ve ever done a bad Yogi Bear impression, it’s Daws you’re making roll over in his grave) for four years. When radio dramas enjoyed a resurgence in the late Seventies and early Eighties, Corey then got to perform with many of the remaining talents from the Golden Age of radio broadcasting who could still sit in front of a microphone and deliver aural magic.

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Since starting his career, Corey has been one of the most prolific voice actors in the industry. You would be hard pressed to scan the radio and television dials on any given day and not hear a character of his. What has Corey done you ask? He was the longest running signature voice of Old Navy commercials. He spent five years as the voice behind NBC’s Peacock Logo and has done similar work for all four major broadcast networks. For Warner Brothers Animation, Corey has provided the voice of Brainiac on Justice League, Static Shock and Superman, played Duke the Bully on Animaniacs, as well as Cushy and Van Spoony in the Pinky and the Brain segments and was several characters on the Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries series including Tosh, One-Eyed Jack and Count Bloodcount. For the Cartoon Network, he’s appeared in Samurai Jack, Johnny Bravo and was the titular character for Ranger Smith. Transformers fans might recognize his voice as that of Spike, Brawn, Shockwave or Sunstreaker. If G.I. Joe is more your thing, Corey was Tomax in that series. And that’s just the highlights of animated parts. Corey has provided narration and other voice work for 25 different miniseries and documentaries on television airing on channels like TLC, A&E, Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel. And while he’s never won an Academy Award, he did get to play one during a special presentation to John Lasseter at the 68^th annual ceremony.

All those credits would leave a lasting legacy for anyone in the entertainment industry. When it comes to Corey, however, we haven’t even touched on the focus of this blog, his roles with Disney. You might think you’re ready for this list but you probably never realized that these voices were all done by the same guy. Here goes:

On the big screen:

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Aladdin: Prince Achmed, Necklace and Fish Merchants

A Goofy Movie: Wendell

Atlantis: The Lost Empire: Mole

The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Frollo’s guard, the Miller

Hercules: Burnt Man, End-of-the-World Man, Titans and Tour Bus Guide

Rollercoaster Rabbit and Trail Mix-Up (Roger Rabbit shorts): Droopy

Return to Neverland: Captain Hook

On television:

House of Mouse: Ludwig Von Drake, Goofy Narrator, Ranger Woodlore, Announcers and Classic Disney Character Bit Parts

Hercules: Zeus and Amphitryon

Gummi Bears: Gruffi Gummi, Toadie, Clutch (Troll Leader), Sir Victor, Flint Shrubwood  and Troggles,

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Chip ‘n’ Dale’s Rescue Rangers: Dale, Zipper, Mole and Snout

Timon and Pumbaa: Kusko Quint (in several aliases) and Speedy the Singin' Snail

Goof Troop: "How-To" Narrator and the Circus master

Lloyd in Space: King Robustus

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: Brent Starkisser

One Saturday Morning’s How Things Werk segments ": Mr. Werks and Announcer

Bonkers: Ludwig Von Drake and the Mad Hatter

Quack Pack: Prof. Ludwig Von Drake

DTV Valentine’s Day Special: Announcer and Ludwig Von Drake

The Schnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show: Ian, Rusty Crustknuckle, Percy Lacedaisy and Ultra Guy Man Dude

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Kim Possible: Dr. Lurkin and Officer Hubble

Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Count Dooku and Cad Bane

In direct to video productions:

Disney Sing-a-Longs: Ludwig Von Drake and Professor Owl (all titles); the Magic Mirror in the Party at Disneyland title

The Where’s Spot series: Narrator and various characters

Fantasia 60^th Anniversary Edition: recreation of Narrator Deems Taylor’s voice; Walt Disney in Story Meeting transcripts

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Corey was also the narrator for the making of videos and other supplementary materials on the DVD releases of Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Peter Pan, Bambi, Jungle Book, The Three Caballeros, Fun and Fancy Free, Sleeping Beauty, Toy Story and Pocahontas.

In Disney theme park attractions (a fair number of which are now sadly defunct):

Magic Kingdom: the pre-show announcer for Time Keeper, the folksy narrator in Mickey’s Toon Town Fair and Red Barns in Goofy’s Barnstormer

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Epcot: General Knowledge and the chicken in Cranium Command, the radio newscaster and traffic reporter in the Universe of Energy, Figment in Journey into Your Imagination (the short-lived bad one) and the Farmer and Mag-Lev Man in The Water Engine and Boid in the Bird and Robot Show, both parts of the post-ride area of the World of Motion pavilion

Disney-MGM Studios: Captain Hook and Peter Pan for the animation tour

Animal Kingdom: the announcer and various minor bugs in It’s Tough to Be a Bug (this one is still running)

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Disneyland: (almost all of these can still be heard) Captain Hook and Mr. Smee on Peter Pan’s Flight, the judge, cop and farmer on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, the newsreel announcer on Indiana Jones Adventure, several pirates on Pirates of the Caribbean, the White Rabbit, both Tweedles and cards on Alice in Wonderland, Captain Hook, Mr. Smee and various pirates in Fantasmic!, the announcer for Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln and the parking lot trams and, saving the best for last, the Ghost Host for the holiday edition of The Haunted Mansion.

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Tokyo Disneyland: the Monorail announcer, the Railroad announcer and Dale and Chernobog in Fantillusion!

Tokyo Disney Sea: the English language welcome announcements and most of the English language ride safety spiels

Disney On Ice Shows:

Peter Pan: Mr. Darling, Captain Hook, Mr. Smee

Aladdin: Peddler/Storyteller

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Hercules: Burnt Man and Announcer

Toy Story: Announcer and Sarge

Princess Classics: Jaq and Gus Gus

In addition to all that, Corey has provided the voice of his regular characters (Ludwig  Von Drake, Captain Hook, Mr. Smee, Professor Owl, etc) for dozens of video games, radio broadcasts, Disney Cruise Line shows and talking toys. Whew.

At 64, Corey shows no signs of slowing down and, considering all the joy he brings people on a daily basis, we don’t want him to. So go ahead. Turn on your television and flip around the channels until you find something Corey’s been in (it really won’t take you long) or pop in your favorite Disney Sing-a-Long tape and wish one of the best voice actors around a very happy birthday.

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.

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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.

August 1 - Chuck Keehne

On this day, in 1914, Charles Keehne was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Chuck was the middle child of five children born to a telegraph operator for a railroad. He spent most of his formative years in southwest Missouri, graduating from high school in 1932. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Southern California to try his luck at the movie business. He found steady work as a carpenter building movie sets for various studios. At some point he was hired by the Western Costume Company as a costumer. He made it his business to become an expert in historically accurate costumes and by 1940 had left Western to strike out on his own. He found freelancing success on pictures like Knute Rockne, All American, with Ronald Reagan, and Yankee Doodle Dandy, with James Cagney.

World War II brought an interruption to Chuck's costuming career. He joined the Army Air Corps and became a combat cameraman in the Pacific. When the war was over, he remained stationed in Japan until receiving an honorable discharge in 1946. He returned to Hollywood, resumed working as a costumer and married his childhood sweetheart. Over the next several years, Chuck created the clothing for classic films like Fort Apache with John Wayne and A Bullet for Joey with Edward G. Robinson. Then, in early 1955, he stopped being a freelancer and created one of the most iconic wardrobe pieces in television history.

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The Walt Disney Studio found itself with a problem in the mid Fifties. They had done several live action films by that point and were poised to get heavily into television, but they lacked something that all the other studios already had: a wardrobe department. Animated characters didn't require a costumer but real people needed something to wear. Bill Anderson, the studio's production manager, needed to hire someone on full time to fix this dilemma. When Bill interviewed Chuck in April 1955, one of Chuck's first questions was Where is the Wardrobe Department? Bill's answer was Wherever you build it. Luckily for Disney, Chuck not only didn't shy away from the challenge of creating Costuming for a major studio, he was able to bring along two highly capable people to help him. He put Ted Tooey in charge of Men's Wardrobe, Gertie Casey in charge of Women's and took over part of the building that housed the Shorts Department (which would be closing down soon anyways, although most people weren't aware of that).

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Chuck's first task was outfitting the cast of Disney's new television show, The Mickey Mouse Club. Creating the look of the costumes the Mousketeers would be wearing was a piece of cake compared to actually keeping the cast in properly fitting clothes. Over the course of the shows three seasons, it would seem like every single cast member had several growth spurts. And then there was their headgear. Everyone agreed that some kind of mouse ears was definitely the way to go, but turning that great idea into a practical reality was a daunting task that fell to the newly hired costumer, Chuck. Working closely with Roy Williams, who had the original idea, several prototypes were designed and discarded. Some just looked too big, others were too heavy and ones that did actually look good wouldn't stay on the kids heads when they danced (or even just moved around).

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Chuck and Roy finally devised small hand crafted ears, tailor fitted to each individual Mousketeer, complete with rubber band chin straps to keep them from falling off all the time. The problem with the ears was the price: it cost $25 a piece to make them (about $240 each in today's money). Multiply that times dozens of cast members, add in the fact that the kids kept losing or crushing sets of them, and you begin to see Chuck's headache. Because mouse ears were actually just a small part of the wardrobe required for The Mickey Mouse Club. Distinct costumes were created for each of the individual days of the week (you couldn't possible wear the same thing for Talent Round-Up Day that you did for Anything Can Happen Day, right?) plus everything needed for the various shows-within-the-show like Spin and Marty and Annette. It really was like doing several separate shows all at once. Good thing Chuck and his crew were not only up to the task but created television history at the same time.

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After getting The Mickey Mouse Club up and running, the next two and a half decades must have seemed like something of an extended vacation, even as Chuck would oversee wardrobe for every single live action production the Walt Disney Studio did whether it was on the big screen or the small. He costumed Zorro and all the Wonderful World of Disney shows. He created Mrs. Banks' suffragette look in Mary Poppins, Haley Mills' California chicness in The Parent Trap and clothed Jodie Foster's teenage angst in Freaky Friday. Chuck was also Walt's personal dresser for all of his television introductions and public appearances. When he retired in 1979, he was personally responsible for the look of over 70 feature films and hundreds of television episodes. He then lived quietly with his wife, enjoying his two daughters and his grandchildren until his death on February 24, 2001 in Los Angeles, California. He was 86.

July 31 - Casey Jr Circus Train

On this day, in 1955, the Casey Jr. Circus Train ride finally opened for business in Fantasyland of Disneyland. With Walt Disney's love of trains, it's almost amazing that there was only two train attractions when Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955. The major one was the Santa Fe and Disneyland Railroad, with narrow-gauge steam driven locomotives that circumnavigated the park and made stops in three (now four) different lands. The smaller ride was not only designed with smaller riders in mind (who might be afraid of the bigger train) but would capitalize on existing Disney characters as well.

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Even though it's an inanimate object, the Casey Jr. Circus Train is really just as much of a character in Dumbo as anyone else involved with the circus. He has his own theme song and everything. So he naturally translates into an attraction with character of its own. The Circus Train runs on a two foot wide track as opposed to the three foot wide track of the Disneyland Railroad. While being a third smaller might not seem like a lot, anyone of the adult persuasion will have no trouble feeling the loss of space. Which is okay, since Casey isn't really designed with adults in mind. Small pints love it and the ride is short enough that their parents don't mind. Too much. Especially if you get to ride in the cage car. That is pretty fun.

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There are two trains that can run at a time, one loading while the other is zipping around the track. Each train consists of an engine, a calliope car, two open cars with seats, two wild animal cage cars and a caboose. The engine however is not what powers the train. The calliope car is what runs the whole shebang. It houses a diesel engine that runs the calliope, creates the steam pressure for the whistle and brakes and moves the train around the track. At one point, Casey chugs his way up a hill and can be heard chanting "I think I can, I think I can" just like in the movie. For anyone who is a fan of Dumbo, or mini trains in general, it's a sweet ride.

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And Casey is one of those rides that's been around since Disneyland's opening day. Sort of. It was available to ride on July 17, but it was experiencing a lot of operational troubles (much like the park in general). Not many people actually got to ride it that first day. When the park opened for paying guests the next day, Casey was not one of the things they could do. The circus train was the first ride to be closed for future enjoyment. Safety checks were run that second day in the hopes that Casey could open but it would be almost two weeks before all the kinks were worked out and the first paying guests got to tour Storybookland from a train instead of a boat.

July 30 - Flowers and Trees

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On this day, in 1932, the Walt Disney Studio released its 29^th short in the Silly Symphonies series, Flowers and Trees, and the first film to be released in glorious three-color Technicolor. When moving pictures began flitting across screens in 1895, they lacked two things that we take for granted today: color and sound. A lot of hoopla surrounded the first time synchronized sound complimented  the images of The Jazz Singer in 1927, but most people would be hard pressed to tell you that the first movie in color debuted a decade earlier (or that the company that developed it was French).

In 1917, the Thomson Multimedia company developed a camera that could film in color. A prism was used to split the image onto two strips of simultaneously recording film, one image that passed through a red filter and the other through a green filter. During playback, both film strips would be projected onto the screen at the same time, from two different openings in the projector, using more filters and prisms to combine the image. The main problem with this method is that the guy running the projector had to be constantly adjusting the focus of not one but two films to keep the whole thing from looking like a blurry mess. Needless to say, there was only ever one movie produced with this color technique, The Gulf Between, and it was basically used to see if theaters would be interested in the new technology called Technicolor. Since it required highly skilled projectionists, the answer was no.

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Five years later, Thomson unveiled an improved technique. Again a prism split the image onto two strips of film through red and green filters but now the film was treated during the printing process, putting the color actually into the print itself. The filters and prism could be removed from the projector and no one needed a PhD to run the thing. Major problems still existed though. The red and green prints, instead of running on separate reels like before, were glued together and ran on one reel. The heat from the light in the projector caused the film to warp and new prints had to be constantly made to compensate. Only a handful of movies in the early to mid-Twenties were produced using technique number two.

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In 1928, Thompson finally got most of Technicolor’s problems fixed by introducing a third technique. Filming stuff stayed the same with the prisms and filters and two strips of film. But now the prints went through a dying process that put all the colors onto one strip of film, eliminating the need to glue two strips together. Starting with 1928’s The Viking (which was released over year after The Jazz Singer, making it seem like sound came first) Hollywood began to get into the color groove, releasing two dozen color movies over the next two years. The trend would probably have completely taken over at that point except for the one thing that could stop it dead in its tracks: the Great Depression. As money began to get tight everywhere in America, including Tinsel Town, color, which cost a lot more than plain old black and white, became a luxury studios could no longer afford.

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None of which stopped Thompson from tinkering with Technicolor. Just a few years after perfecting their two strip process, they developed a three strip process. in addition to the red and green filters, they added another strip of film that was recorded through a blue filter. The eye-popping color that the new technique produced was more saturated, more vibrant and just more of everything compared to what had come before. Unfortunately, because of everyone's money woes, Thompson couldn't get anyone to give it a whirl. Until, that is, one of their salesmen caught Walt Disney on a good day.

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Walt decided to give Technicolor 4.0 a try for two reasons. First, he was always interested in new technology and eager to see how it could be used to make better quality product. From sound to television, he didn't have to suffer too much convincing before giving in. The biggest reason this time around, though, was that he needed something to boost the Silly Symphonies. They simply weren't as popular as Mickey Mouse cartoons even though they were a fertile place to incubate new kinds of animation and storytelling. Maybe, just maybe, color would be the thing to push them over the edge. And Flowers and Trees seemed to be a perfect vehicle to test that theory.

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Work had already begun on Flowers and Trees in black and white. All of that was scrapped and the process began again in Technicolor. Because it was inherently more expensive to have color than not, and because of all the previous work that ended up on the trash heap, the short ran wildly over budget, threatening to ruin to studio (a refrain that was heard quite often when Walt was involved in something). But in the end, it was all worth it (as it usually was when Walt was involved in something). Flowers and Trees was both a commercial and critical success. The beautiful colors combined with the whimsical yet dramatic plot continued to wow audiences until the studio had made its money back plus a generous amount more. When Oscar time rolled around, Flowers and Trees would be honored with the very first Academy Award for Best Animated Short (and the first competitive Oscar for the studio). 

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The Technicolor experiment worked so well that every Silly Symphony from that point on was produced in color (Mickey cartoons were popular enough they didn't warrant color until 1935's The Band Concert). One aspect of the experiment that showed Walt was becoming a better businessman (entirely due to the fact that Roy handled the business end of everything, of course) is that when Disney agreed to use three-strip Technicolor, they sign an exclusive contract for its use for three years. When Flowers and Trees made every other color animation look dull by comparison, the other studios really didn't have any way to fix that until the end of 1935. They all had to make do with two-strip Technicolor or other, even more inferior processes. And having that competitive edge for three years is what gave the Walt Disney Studio the financial stability to try other experiments later on, like feature length animation.

July 29 - Laugh-O-Gram Studio

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On this day, in 1922, the Laugh-O-gram Studio of Kansas City, Missouri released its first cartoon that was more than a single gag, Little Red Riding Hood. In June 1921, a young artist by the name of Walter Elias Disney was contracted by a Kansas City theater manager, Milton Feld, to produce one minute cartoons that would be inserted into the newsreels shown before each feature at the Newman chain of theaters. Walt, only 19 at the time, drew the short films entirely on his own in the evenings after working all day at the Kansas City Ad Agency. The topics of the jokes in the shorts were all pulled from local Kansas City happenings, making the Newman Laugh-O-grams (as they were called; notice the lower case g on grams that Walt insisted on) a kind of editorial cartoon that moved. One week the punch line might be about pot holes, the next lampooning ladies fashion and the next showcasing a police scandal. Walt also drew pieces for the Newman Theater’s birthday celebration and one reminding audience members to refrain from reading the title cards out loud (a precursor to the silence your cell phone announcements of today). Most of the Newman Laugh-O-grams have been lost to history as film in those days was highly flammable and wasn’t kept around once it had been shown. The few pieces that do survive were part of a sample sales reel that Walt presumably brought with him when he later moved to California.

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The Newman Laugh-O-grams made Walt something of a local celebrity. People were starting to praise his humor and inventiveness. His success prompted Walt to place an ad in the paper promising to teach cartoonists the new art of animation. Several young artists responded, including Rudy Ising and Hugh Harman, both of whom would go on to great success at Warner Brothers. With all this helpful talent beginning to coalesce around him, Walt decided it was time to start his own animation studio. He couldn’t run it out of his family’s garage anymore (and not just because they’d moved to Oregon at this point) so he rented out space in the McConahy Building at 1127 East 31^st Street, occupying five rooms on the west end of the second floor. On May 18, 1922, the Laugh-O-gram animation studio (Walt continued the name since it was already recognizable) was officially incorporated, albeit illegally incorporated. Walt was listed as the studio’s president even though he wasn’t quite old enough to legally hold the position.

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Walt knew that his strengths lay in telling stories over drawing pictures, so he left most of the actual animation work to his young staff, although he did just about everything else at the studio. What they clearly lacked in experience and skill, they more than made for in enthusiasm and many of them would eventually become masters of the art form. In addition to Rudy and Hugh, Laugh-O-gram’s staff included Carman Maxwell and Friz Freleng (both of whom also found success at Warner Brothers), Lorey Tague,  Otto Walliman and Red Lyon. Walt’s old friend from the Kansas City Ad Agency, Ub Iwerks, also helped out a great deal, but since he was his mother’s sole means of support he couldn’t leave the steady paycheck behind to join Walt full time. The Ink and Paint Department consisted of one young woman, Aletha Reynolds. And, just to prove what a small world it really is, Carl Stalling, who would be part of bringing sound to Disney cartoons and later become a musical god at Warner Brothers, played the organ at the movie theater just around the corner from the studio. He and Walt started their friendship at this same time.

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It took months for Walt and his crew to painstakingly finish their first six minute cartoon, Little Red Riding Hood. Red would be the only Laugh-O-gram cartoon that was drawn on sheets of paper rather than on sheets of celluloid before being photographed. To streamline the process, generic characters were created of a girl, a boy, a dog, etc. that could be used in later films as different characters. Model sheets were created of each character showing front and side views in close ups, medium and long shots that could be traced to help with consistency.  Now that the studio had a product, it needed a distribution deal.

In September 1922, Laugh-O-gram Studio signed a multi-picture deal with Pictorial Clubs of Tennessee for $11,000. It sounded like the onset of a dream come true, but was in reality the beginning a nightmare for several reasons. Walt only got $100 up front, with the balance being due on delivery of the sixth film. That meant he didn’t have any operating capital to actually produce anything. To make matters worse, PCT went bankrupt just months after signing the deal without ever paying Walt any more of the remaining balance. What really sealed Laugh-O-gram’s fate though is what happened next. A New York company, also called Pictorial Clubs, acquired the Tennessee group’s assets. That included Red, The Four Musicians of Bremen, Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack and the Giant Killer (all of which were already completed) and three more cartoons that had yet to be produced. The horrible part of the acquisition deal, however, was that the new Pictorial Clubs wasn’t responsible for any of the old Clubs’ debt. Which meant that Laugh-O-grams was required to make more cartoons but wasn’t required to get paid for them.

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One by one, all of Walt’s staff would leave the studio and return to regular paying jobs. Walt would shrink his studio to just two rooms while at the same time living there himself. Laugh-O-gram managed to squeeze out the other three films, based on Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Puss in Boots and Cinderella. Walt then tried different schemes to try to save his company. He made several short films he called Lafflets, basically reviving the format of the Newman Laugh-O-grams but for a wider audience. He filmed a live action pilot for a series of sing along shorts under the brand Sing-O-Reel. He convinced a local dentist to pay him $500 to make a cartoon about dental hygiene, Tommy Tucker’s Tooth, that was distributed not to theaters but to schools.

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With the money from Tooth burning a hole in his pocket, Walt decided to do something creative with it rather than pay off creditors. He managed to hire a little girl named Virginia Davis to star as a live action girl in a cartoon world. He sweet talked his old crew into doing the animated parts of the new film and ended up with a 12 minute 29 second new lease on life. Because let’s be honest. The seven shorts that ended up going to Pictorial Clubs were nothing special. Sure the boys at Laugh-O-gram got better and better with each new project, but collectively their work wasn’t much different from a lot of run of the mill animation at the time. All their talents, though, came together and bloomed on their final collaboration. Called Alice’s Wonderland, it would become the film that launched an empire. Not an empire called Laugh-O-gram, though. That company was dead as a doornail.

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Before Walt could leave Kansas City to visit his brother Roy out in California, he had one more scheme to raise the price of a train ticket. He charged new parents a fee to film their babies and then stage a showing of that film for friends and families in their own living rooms. It might have reduced Walt from the head of his own studio to being nothing more than a high priced children’s photographer, but it provided the link to the future that he needed. With the proceeds he made from several of those sessions, coupled with what he got for selling his camera, Walt was able to take his print of Alice’s Wonderland, make his way to California and start some serious cinematic history.

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Incidentally, if you read the name of the man who gave Walt that first contract at the beginning of this post and thought to yourself, I think I’ve heard the name Feld in some other connection with Disney, you’re right. Milton Feld went on to be a circus promoter which led to booking and promoting other forms of travelling entertainment. Years after both Walt and Milton died, the Feld Family would purchase the Ice Follies and approach the Walt Disney Company about creating a Disney themed show. The first Disney on Ice show debuted in 1981 presented by Feld Entertainment and has been going (and growing) strong ever since.