Didier Ghez, editor of the fine WALT’S PEOPLE interview series, has started a blog called the Disney History Blog. He describes the site as “interesting discoveries about Disney history, vintage Disneyana, Disney artwork, the Walt’s People book series, and new books about Disney.” If the posts that Didier has made on the blog’s first day is any indication of what’s to come, he’s definitely got me hooked as a regular reader.

WOW - this totally made my morning! Sheridan student Alan Cook has been posting on YouTube the Disney “Family Album” TV shows. Each of these half-hour documentaries profiles a different Disney legend, including a lot of the Nine Old Men, but also artists like Ken Anderson and Harrison and Peter Ellenshaw. They originally aired in the early-1980s on the Disney Channel. So far Alan has posted the documentaries about Frank Thomas, Marc Davis and Ward Kimball. Check them out HERE. Even though the Kimball one is incomplete, it’s my favorite of the bunch. Ward is a natural in front of the camera, and his antics are laugh-out-loud funny. The two parts of the Kimball doc are below:

A bit of a follow-up to all the recent posts about Disney insignia from WWII (here and here). There is currently an exhibition at the National Museum of the United States Air Force (Dayton, Ohio) called “Disney Pins on Wings.” The show, which runs through June 11, is apparently the “largest collection of original Walt Disney insignia artwork ever placed on public display.” If you’re not planning on visiting Dayton anytime soon - and as somebody who’s been there, I’d question why anybody would want to - fear not. Here’s a comprehensive set of photos from the exhibition for your online viewing pleasure.

The Donald Duck insignia above was drawn by animator John Sibley. This is actually a piece of art intended for Pete Docter’s amazing piece about Sibley in the upcoming ANIMATON BLAST #9. I couldn’t fit it into the issue, but this seems like an appropriate occasion to share the artwork.(Thanks, Jennifer Cardon Klein, for letting me know about the exhibition and photos)

Cartoon Brew reader Chris Olson, who sent in the fantastic ‘making of’ PINOCCHIO article a few weeks back, recently sent over a couple other rare articles from his personal collection. Both pieces were published in the WWII-era magazine FLYING AND POPULAR AVIATION. The article “Insignia Industry” was published in the April 1942 issue, and the article titled “Walt Disney’s Animated War” was published in the March 1945 issue. On a related note, if anybody is curious to see more of the Disney character insignia, there was a good book published in the early-90s (now out-of-print) called DISNEY DONS DOGTAGS which reprinted hundreds of the insignia in color.

The posting of the January 1940 Popular Mechanics article on Disney’s PINOCCHIO last week has inspired me to dig out this September 1944 issue of Popular Science. The magazine’s 6 page article is focused around the innovations of The Three Caballeros, Disney’s first large scale attempt, in color, to combine live action and animation. Unlike the earlier piece however, Disney animator Ward Kimball, storyman Ernie Terrazas (pictured above), and background painter Art Riley are credited in captions.

(Click on images for larger version)

This Russian website documents, with frame grabs, some of the many times Disney animators recycled animation from one film into another. I’d love to see an expanded version of this listing (in English). Missing from this Russian post are the numerous appearances of the whirlpool from the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” sequence in Fantasia and the windblown weed from The Old Mill.(Thanks, Bob Miller)

This magnificent painting appears in the current Illustration House “Illustration Art Auction” catalog. The title of the piece is “Gremlins and Fifinellas on an airplane.” It’s by Gustaf Tenggren, and it’s a watercolor illustration for “What Every Pilot Knows,” by Quentin Reynolds for Collier’s magazine (October 31, 1942). The caption for this image reads “It’s no joke to be sitting up at 20,000 feet� and hear them chattering among themselves out on the wings.” Quite a different interpretation of these characters than the Walt Disney/Walt Kelly/Bob Clampett versions we know and love. (Read the Disney version here.)In case you are interested in bidding for it, the auction takes place in New York on Saturday, May 20th. The pre-auction estimate is $9,000 - $12,000.
(Thanks, Don Brockway)POSTSCRIPT: Disney historian Jim Korkis adds: “While I have great respect and appreciation for Gustaff Tenggren, somebody made an error labelling the artwork Gremlins and Fifinellas on an airplane. According to the mythology that Roald Dahl developed with the Disney artists, gremlins are male, fifinellas are female, widgets are baby gremlins/fifinellas, and spandules are high altitude gremlins. There are no female gremlins on this airplane.”

From yesterday’s entry on the blog of animation writer Earl Kress:

But getting back to “Song of the South,” there are two things I do know. It was definitely on the schedule to be released as one of the “Treasures” series, and Bob Iger, new head of The Walt Disney Company, recently sat down and watched it. It’s definitely not on the schedule any more.

UPDATE: Mark Evanier has more details about Iger’s specific reasons for not releasing the film. Iger said at the Disney shareholder’s meeting last month, “Owing to the sensitivity that exists in our culture, balancing it with the desire to maybe increase our earnings a bit but never putting that in front of what we thought were our ethics and our integrity, we’ve made the decision not to re-release it.”