LoC honors Harryhausen, Lye and a Disneyland home movie

Each year the National Film Preservation Board of The Library of Congress names 25 “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant films to the National Film Registry, a collection of movies selected to be preserved for all time. Chuck Jones’ What’s Opera Doc?, Bob Clampett’s Porky In Wackyland, Fleischer’s Snow White (1933), Pixar’s Toy Story and several Disney titles including Steamboat Willie and Three Little Pigs, have already made the grade. The 2008 selections were just announced this morning and animation was represented by Ray Harryhausen’s classic The 7th Voyage of Sindbad (1958), Len Lye’s experimental short Free Radicals (1979) and a 1956 home movie of Disneyland.

The home movie, Disneyland Dream, is one of the oddest choices the LoC has ever made. Robbins and Meg Barstow won a free trip to Disneyland as part of a “Scotch Brand Cellophane Tape” contest. The little film they made is charming, and really captures what life was like in the 1950s. And the images of 1956 Disneyland and Universal City are priceless. Check it out on Archive.org.