Anyone who has been to the Shine Gallery at L.A.’s Farmer’s Market or has seen Shine’s collection showcased on the Walt Disney Treasures DVD know that Bernie Shine is one of the world’s biggest collectors of original Disney memorabilia.

Former LA County District Attorney Gil Garcetti has recruited Shine to host a party in his home for a very worthwhile charity, Wells Bring Hope. That’s Willie Ito’s art on the poster (above). Rarely does Shine allow anyone but his closest friends into his home see his entire collection. Please click this link for full details of a unique evening of cartoon fun for a good cause - a must for Disney fans who think they’ve seen it all. It’s happening on Friday October 16th at 7:00pm. If you are in L.A. that evening, it will be well-worth attending.

I have no-idea what this really is. Is it really a Chinese Mickey Mouse knock-off? Or is it from that Beijing Amusement Park we wrote about here? Prepare for five minutes of horror:

(Thanks, Robert G. Schaad)

I dropped into the big D23 Disney Fan Expo in Anaheim today, attended Bob Iger’s talk and watched the Disney Legends ceremony. The big surprise at the show was a screening of the first half hour of The Princess and The Frog (PATF). I’m now officially enthused. If the rest of the film is as good as the first 1/3 I saw today, it will be a huge hit for the studio — and just could revive Hollywood’s dormant interest in hand drawn character animation. They’ve got the visuals, the humor and the heart down tight on this one. I had a huge smile on my face throughout the screening. What I really like about what I’ve seen of PATF so far, is that it combines familiar elements of classic Disney and throws them into a whole new stew, completely different in tone from the rest of the traditional “princess” films. I’ll leave the plot surprises for you to discover - but I must quickly comment on one musical sequence: The “I Want” song. It’s called Almost There and it’s terrific. But it’s especially interesting as it’s visualized in an art deco/poster graphics style of the 20s (can anyone inform me which artist inspired this sequence?) and its directed like an homage to the 1936 Tex Avery short, Page Miss Glory!

The other PATF news today, is that the studio is opening the film early in L.A. and New York. It’ll open November 25th exclusively at the Ziegfeld Theatre in Manhattan. In L.A., the studio is playing the film for two weeks on the studio lot. For the first time I know of, the general public will be able to buy a ticket (at $30 bucks a pop) and screen the film in a Disney screening room! In addition, Disney will “dress” the backlot like a mini-Disneyland with PATF-themed attractions! For more information and tickets click here.

Poetic justice - or inevitable? The Los Angeles Times reports that the Norwegian lamp maker is suing over non contractual uses of its lamp design in merchandising and at Disney World.

UPDATE: Fellow Brewer Amid wrote about the relationship between Luxo and Pixar in his recent book The Art of Pixar Short Films. The following excerpt from the book explains that Pixar was granted permission to use the Luxo name, so the issue appears to stem from Pixar’s merchandising of the lamps:

The success of Luxo Jr. caused one unanticipated problem: Pixar had used the name of a trademarked porduct without permission. This misstep was hastily corected by Ralph Guggenheim, a veteran of NYIT and Lucasfilm, for which he headed the development of Lucas’s EditDroid editing system. Guggenheim, who joined Pixar’s animation group around the time Luxo Jr. premiered at SIGGRAPH, immediately contacted Jac Jacobsen Industries to clear the use of the name. Computer animation was so new that the Luxo representatives could not even understand what Pixar had done. “They thought we had taken two of their lamps and animated them by hand in stop motion,” said Guggenheim. The notion of computer animation was still unfathomable for most of the public. Ultimately, Pixar and Luxo reached an agreement in which Luxo could screen the film at its own trade shows and Pixar could distribute the film without restraint.

Didn’t take long.

Jason Peltz, who has worked for Marvel Comics, Disney Consumer Products and Disney Feature Animation in Orlando, sent in this drawing he made on the occasion of the announcement of the Disney’s Marvel takeover.

If you’ve drawn a clever image or cartoon reflecting this merger, send a link into our comments section below.

Move over Uncle Scrooge!

Disney will now compete with Hollywood (and in particular, Warner Bros. the owner of DC Comics) buy purchasing Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion dollars, according to Variety.

What will this mean for our favorite comics characters - and the animation studios Disney controls? Will Donald meet Howard The Duck? Will The Incredibles cross over to fight The Fantastic Four? Will Disney Feature Animation do an Inhumans movie? Will Disney character comics be published by Marvel? How will this affect the theme parks? Disney XD?

Due to prior deals (for example, Iron Man is sown up at Paramount for years to come) nothing will happen right away, but lots to think about, and lots of exciting possibilities.

Image of Mickey above drawn by Jack Kirby for Craig Yoe’s book The Art of Mickey Mouse. See the full length image at Yoe’s new I.T.C.H. blog

Walt and El Grupo is the new feature length documentary about the two month tour of South America that Walt and his staff (which included Lee and Mary Blair, Frank Thomas and Norm Ferguson) took - by arrangement of the U.S. Government - in 1941. I had a chance to see it last week - and I enjoyed it very much.

Using previously unseen 16mm color home movies, rare newsreel footage and photographs, as well as interviews with relatives, historians (John Canemaker, J.B. Kaufman) and witnesses (several people who interacted with Walt and the group during the trip were located and interviewed!) the filmmakers (Franks son, Theodore with Kuniko Okubo) retrace the entire tour and take us along for the ride.

If you are a fan of the history of Walt Disney, the Disney studio in general, the Latin America themed shorts (and features) - or, if like me, you just like watching candid footage of Walt - you will love this film. In fact, if you fall into those categories, it’s a must-see. This is a whole chapter in the life of Disney we hadn’t seen before, told in depth, bringing us much closer the man behind the mouse.

This was a troubling time for Walt, personally. The animators strike was in full swing at the studio, Fantasia was in the red, and if that wasn’t enough, his father passed away while he was on the trip. This period marked a true turning point in Walt’s career as a filmmaker and producer. But, as this documentary shows, the experience from this tour influenced not just Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros but films and ride attractions in the decades to come.

If I had to nitpick, I’d say Walt and El Grupo doesn’t show enough clips from the cartoons which resulted from the tour. But rest assured, this is no simple DVD “bonus piece” - it’s a well made, well researched film that will add to your knowledge of Disney history. It opens on September 11th in New York and L.A. (with additional cities to follow) and its well worth your time.

Virginia Davis of Walt Disney’s Alice Comedies passed away this morning. She was 90 years old and had been in failing health this past year.

In 1923, Davis was picked by Walt Disney in Kansas City to star in his proposed series of live action and animation shorts. Davis followed the Disney Studio to Hollywood to star in over a dozen Alice Comedies. She was Disney’s first movie star.

Later in her career, Davis appeared in Three On a Match (1932), with Joan Blondell, Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart, as well as The Harvey Girls (1946). Virginia was in the scene with Judy Garland and Ray Bolger where they introduced the Academy-Award winning song “On the Achison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.”

Above, in tribute, is a particularly fun Alice from 1924, Alice and the Dog Catcher (pardon the foreign titles, and some politically incorrect humor).

(Thanks, Steve Waller)