After the Mouse.com

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

1
From East! From West! For many a mile
They've come to visit Treasure Isle!
"Such crowds!" quacks Donald. "I must say
The gang's all here for "Snow White Day!'"
And such excitement! See folks run!
They leave the Tower of the Sun--
They flock from Courts of Moon and Flowers—
The Gayway--and the Elephant Towers.

2Cries Donald, "Step up! Right this way!
She's fair as San Francisco Bay!"
The throng the big arena packs--
"She'll be here soon now," Donald quacks.
But no! A shout rings through the air!
"Snow's kidnapped! Help! Surround the Fair!"

3
Max Hare alone, in all the throng,
Had seen the villain do his wrong!
"The Wolf!" cries Max. "He snatched Snow White
And ran that way—with all his might!"

Yells Mickey, "Let me lead the chase!
With Standard Gas I'll win this race!
Quick! Get my car! She'll start in high
And Standards makes my flivver fly!"

4
Upon the bridge that spans the Bay
Brave Mickey overhauls his prey!
"Unhand her, villain! Free Snow White!
You've met your Waterloo, all right!"
"You saved me!" cries Snow White. But he
Says, blushing, "Standard Gas-and me!"


In 1939, Walt Disney partnered with the Standard Oil Company to produce an advertising campaign featuring many of the studio's well known cartoon characters. The commercial short The Standard Parade was perhaps the most famous and lasting component of that campaign, though the campaign extended to other media as well. Little seen since their original publications were newspaper ads that featured rhyming storytelling not altogether far removed from the Good Housekeeping magazine pages that had been popular throughout the 1930s.

I have found three "Tiny Tykes" ads that appeared weekly in the Los Angeles Times during May and June of 1939. This one is particularly significant in that it very prominently showcases San Francisco's Golden Gate Exposition, the west coast counterpart to the New York World's Fair at Flushing Meadows.

A "flivver" originally referred to a Ford Model T, but by 1939 had become a slang term for any old, run down automobile.

Young boys in their coonskin caps pose in front of the Loew's Grand Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia before attending the local premiere of Davy Crockett-King of the Wild Frontier. The film was a compilation of the original three Davy Crockett episodes from the Disneyland television show and was released to theaters in May of 1955. Sharing the bill was Arizona Sheepdog, a 22 minute featurette.

Walt Disney World's pyrotechnic displays have been long recognized as state-of-the-art spectaculars. Epcot's Illuminations, in its series of incarnations, has in particular been lauded for its truly amazing combination of fire, water, music and pyrotechnic elements, with many observers especially praising its stunning originality in both concept and design.

However . . .

"This Lagoon of Nations display centers in a giant fountain which rises from an oval lake two blocks wide by four blocks long. Water, geysering in beautiful patterns from 1,400 nozzles, is painted in constantly changing rainbow hues by batteries of powerful electric lights from below. At climaxes in a performance, towering gas flames roar through the columns of scintillating water, from more than a hundred jets. Showers of fireworks burst overhead. Stirring music thunders an accompaniment to the display from the heart of the fountain."

From the article "Fountains of Flame" by Kenneth M. Swezey;
Popular Science, August, 1939


Welcome back to EPCOT 1939.

I have been for some time wanting to continue this series of articles from the very early days of 2719 Hyperion. Those posts demonstrated the very distinct theme and design parallels between EPCOT Center and the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair. The Fair's Lagoon of Nation's Fountain Spectacle and its clear connection to EPCOT's Illuminations afforded me such an opportunity.

As we noted in previous EPCOT 1939 articles, the overall design of EPCOT Center was distinctly analogous to that of 1939 exposition. Similar to World Showcase, the Fair's Government Zone, which was comprised of pavilions representing both states and nations, was located in similar fashion behind the technology and commercial zones and featured a body of water at its center. It was there that the Fair's designers decided to create " . . . a scene to thrill thousands," as noted in the Popular Science article. The article was accompanied by a detailed illustration of the behind-the-scenes mechanisms that produced the show.

Click on illustration to enlarge


The article explained that "The whole complex mechanism is 'played,' as if it were some mighty organ, by three operators at electric consoles located in a near-by tower. Regular programs, based on such themes as “The Spirit of George Washington,” “Creation,” “Isle of Dreams,” “Fire Dance,” are presented to tens of thousands of spectators each evening." Some of those themes do not sound very far removed from that of the current Illuminations presentation, Reflections of Earth.

In his book, 1939: The Lost World of the Fair, author David Gelernter observed:

The critics raved. Fountain displays like the ones at the Lagoon of Nations and San Francisco's 1939 fair "deserve to be called examples of a new art," wrote Talbot Hamlin. "The best of them are as emotionally compelling as they are visually exciting." The show at the Lagoon gave the New York fair "its most unique and perhaps its most artistically memorable element." "Dramatic and indescribable beauty" wrote Gardner Harding.

And so the Fair closed out its daily operations every night, over a half a century prior to guests at EPCOT Center being entertained in similar fashion around the World Showcase lagoon.

Footage of Lagoon of Nations Spectacle from the Medicus Collection

Walt Disney and Disney characters have had a long association with the Tournament of Roses Parade that takes place every New Years Day in Pasadena, California. Walt was the Grand Marshall of the parade in 1966, and Mickey Mouse held that same honor some four decades later in 2005. But one of the earliest Disney-Rose Parade connections is displayed in this photo from the 1938 parade. Coming almost immediately on the heels of the film's December 1937 premiere at the Carthay Circle Theatre was this parade float that featured Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

The end of this week will mark the second anniversary of this entity that is 2719 Hyperion. It has been an amazing, fun and tremendously satisfying two years. So it is with decidedly mixed emotions that I announce that 2719 Hyperion will become a significantly less active place than it has been these past twenty-four months.

My work on 2719 has taken me in many directions, and inspired me to pursue a number of projects independent of efforts here and on the recently launched blog Boom-Pop! One project in particular has evolved to the point of demanding more of my time and resources, necessitating a reduction in the amount of content I am able to produce on a consistent basis.

But worry not--you will not see a blog devoted to grocery shopping appearing here any time soon. 2719 Hyperion is by no means closing up shop. I will continue to post here as time and opportunity permit, but just not on the near daily schedule that the readership here has grown accustomed to.

To all my friends, fellow bloggers and the countless readers I have never met, I send my thanks. Your support and encouragement has always been heartening and very much appreciated. I hope to be able to share the fruits of my current labors with you sometime in the near future, so please stay tuned.

Los Angeles mayor Norris Poulson, actor Jean Hersholt and Donald Duck team up to promote National Health Week during February of 1954. Donald proclaims "Eat a BETTER breakfast. . . have a BRIGHTER day!" Poulson served as the city's mayor from 1953 to 1961. Hersholt would pass away just two years after this photo was taken. His most famous movie role was that of Shirley Temple's grandfather in the 1937 version of Heidi, although he is likley best known as the namesake of the Motion Picture Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

Forty years ago today marked "Walt Disney Day" in the state of Missouri. The state's governor, Warren E. Hearnes, issued the proclamation a few weeks earlier as part of the planned festivities that would be held in Marceline on September 11, 1968 to celebrate the United States Postal Service's release of the commemorative Walt Disney postage stamp.

For an excellent reporting of that day's events, check out the article "Walt Disney's Stamp of Approval" by Wade Sampson at MousePlanet.

Our good friend Jim Korkis has been recently deep in research relating to the histories of the Adventurers Club, both real and created. Since the beginning of the year, we have been featuring excerpts from the club's newsletter, the Adventurers Almanac. Relating to these reprints, Jim has generously shared with us the information he has uncovered revealing the creation of this fun, faux-publication.

So many guests wrote to the actors in the Adventurer’s Club (wrote to them in their personas) that it seemed best to create a more formal newsletter to answer these questions and share news. (The Almanac was based on an actual turn of the century newsletter called Adventurer’s Club Newsletter.) The editor and chief writer was Chris Oyen (who was the Show Writer and Director brought in January 1990 and continued in that role for the club and Comedy Warehouse for roughly the next five years).

Also contributing to the writing was Reed Jones, who was the stage manager and then became Show Director when Chris left.) Sometimes Chris allowed the performers to write something on a volunteer basis. Fan letters still kept coming so Chris set up a personal secretary for the club, Bernice Smythe-Fenton, who was a pseudonym for a cast member from Guest Communications who also worked closely with Chris who sometimes had to answer letters in character.

Yes, those “Membership meetings” did take place for guests to come and bring artifacts and share stories. That stopped for several reasons including the fact that Disney Legal was “troubled” about accepting artifacts from guests as well as the fact that the club manager felt the club was losing too much money on the free appetizers and drinks.

The almanac was put together in the days before computers so all those pictures and text were hand done and pasted onto a master mock-up. It stopped because it was labor intensive, it was getting to be too expensive because they had to increase the print run and because Chris left to work on the Diamond Horseshoe and Galaxy Search. In addition, it didn’t seem to generate new attendance but basically seemed to bring in the regulars (like for the Membership Meeting and free drink and appetizer).

On Saturday afternoon, October 4, 2008, Jim will do a presentation entitled “Kungaloosh! The Mythology and Reality of the Adventurer’s Club” at the National Fantasy Fan Club Convention in Orlando, held at the Regal Sun Resort on Hotel Plaza Boulevard near Downtown Disney. Jim has spent months researching the creation of the Adventurer’s Club and will be revealing not only the story of the mythology of Merriweather Pleasure (and the revised Pleasure story from 1992 designed to tie-in with New Year’s Eve), stories of the characters and how they evolved and why some disappeared, secrets of the physical club itself (including the hidden Joe Rohde references) and much more. That same evening will be a special three hour dinner for the NFFC attendees at the Adventurer’s Club with Jim sharing even more information he couldn’t fit into his presentation. For more information, go to www.nffc.org or call 863-427-2858.

These postcards from 2001 are among my favorite attraction-themed souvenirs. I misplaced them a few years ago, and was excited when they resurfaced during our recent housecleaning and remodeling projects. Star Wars has always been rooted in retro and so marrying the Star Tours attraction with the style of vintage travel posters made for some very dynamic and fun designs.

From Volume No. 55, Issue No. 9 of the Adventurer's Almanac, we learn of the adventures of the famous Lillie-Levitt Safari and Travel Company:

The Lillie-Levitt Safari and Travel Company returned from a Club affiliated tour of the Sepik River region of Papua, New Guinea. Tour leader Art "Paddlefoot" Levitt graciously donated a lime garnish holder used in native beetlenut chewing rituals to the Club's Permanent Collection. Immediately after mounting this new artifact on the western wall of the Zebra Mezzanine, "Paddlefoot" regaled those members present with one of his legendary lectures, complete with photographic documentation. The four surviving safari members of the original expedition force of twenty eight remarked that the experience was "unbelievable" Those interested in participating in future Lillie-Levitt Travel Company exploits, or for pricing information, may contact them c/o the Club. Scott "Thumbs" Lillie, who has become quite an amusing fixture at the Main Salon Bar, hinted that next spring they might be repeating the piranha teasing excursion to the lower Amazon which has made him somewhat of a Club celebrity.

On the same page of the newsletter there was also this interesting Bulletin Board announcement:

Congratulations to Alvin Chowderflute After months of living with, eating with, and copying the mating habits of the lemming, Alvin wired us that he had finally ascertained why these creatures mysteriously throw themselves off of cliffs and into the sea. Unfortunately, the stress of this undertaking apparently took its toll. When last sighted, Alvin was seen running at a fast pace at the head of an enormous lemming herd, screaming "I am your King! Follow me!" in the vicinity of Niagara Falls.

It appears that Disney cartoon director Jack Kinney was moonlighting as a saloon owner as evidenced by this scene from the 1952 Goofy short Two Gun Goofy. Kinney spent close to three decades at the Disney Studio and was the primary director of the Goofy cartoons. He was good friends with story-man and big "Mooseketeer" Roy Williams as the two had both attended the same Los Angeles high school. His brother Dick Kinney also worked at the studio in the story department and the two collaborated on numerous cartoons.

Apologies for the shortage of content this week at both 2719 Hyperion and Boom-Pop! We got caught up in some extensive home remodeling that was long overdue but is now happily completed. We will return to our regular schedule of posting next week. Thanks as always for your continued interest and encouragement!

Walt Disney World has long been famous for its topiaries and this vignette from the Magic Kingdom shows off these two wonderful examples. The backdrop of Cinderella Castle sets the scene for Mickey's and Minnie's horticultural counterparts.

The Capitol Theater in downtown Salem, Oregon hosts an "All Color Walt Disney Show" during the summer of 1952. It was literally the best of all possible Disney entertainments. The live action feature The Story of Robin Hood, accompanied by the True-Life Adventure Water Birds and the cartoon short The Little House. Posters for The Story of Robin Hood and Water Birds can be seen in display cases on each side of the theater entrance.

Posting simultaneously on our sister blog Boom-Pop! is a feature on Victory Gardens, a home front initiative that encouraged citizens to cultivate vegetable gardens to help alleviate food shortages and reduce the need for rationing during World War II. The Victory Garden emerged as one of the more prominent aspects of mid-1940s popular culture, and so it was inevitable that the Walt Disney Studios would in some ways intersect with this pastime of patriotic seed sowing.

Although the Disney Studio never produced a Victory Garden themed cartoon, Walt did lend out two of his biggest stars to participate in Victory Garden promotional efforts. Mickey Mouse was featured on materials for a Green Thumb Contest sponsored by the National Victory Garden Institute in 1944. State war councils sponsored the contest locally. Illinois Mobilizes, the newsletter of the Illinois War Council, noted in their July 1, 1944 issue, "Each entrant receives a contest record book, with a cover especially designed by Walt Disney to be used for keeping a record of planting and harvesting."

Donald Duck was licensed for use on a Victory Garden sign, produced by W. L. Stensgaard. According to World War II historian and Disneyana expert David Lesjak, the sign came in two different types. A fiberboard version retailed for $1.00 while a sturdier one made of masonite board cost $1.69. Lesjak reported that a promotional flier sent to retailers advertised that, "Everybody will want to identify their victory garden with this colorful, durable, outdoor marker. Creates a new spirit for gardens. Thousands will buy for own use, also gifts and prizes."

Donald Duck planted his own Victory Garden in the comic book Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #31, published in April 1943. In "Donald Duck's Victory Garden," Donald and nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie square off against a trio of hungry crows, out to pilfer freshly planted Victory seeds. The comic was written and drawn by Disney Legend Carl Barks and was his first Donald Duck story published for the Walt Disney Comics and Stories title.

In the mid-1990s, Disney Imagineers planted a Victory Garden just off of Sunset Boulevard in the then Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World. That particular area of the park evokes a strong World War II-era atmosphere and a Victory Garden is a natural extension of that theming. Set adjacent to Rosie's All-American Cafe (playing tribute to another war-era pop culture icon, Rosie the Riveter) is Rosie's Victory Garden.


Be sure to visit Boom-Pop! for the companion piece to this post, Gardening for Victory.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition was the proposed E-Ticket centerpiece of the Native America area of the ultimately canceled Disney's America theme park. The blue sky designs for the attraction would subsequently serve in the development of Kali River Rapids at Disney's Animal Kingdom and also, and more directly, Grizzly River Run at Disney's California Adventure. Press materials provided the following description of the Native America area:

NATIVE AMERICA 1600-1810
Native America explores the life of America's first inhabitants, their accord with the environment and the timeless works of art they created long before European colonization. Guests may visit an Indian village representing such Eastern tribes as the Powhatans, or join in a harrowing Lewis and Clark raft expedition through pounding rapids and churning whirlpools.

Disney's Hollywood Studios is literally peppered with references to the golden age of Hollywood. One notable tribute goes largely unseen--a window advertising Geiger's Rare Books and 1st Editions. The window is located on the second story of a building facade near the Mama Melrose Ristorante Italiano.

The window sign pays homage to the classic 1945 movie The Big Sleep, based on the Raymond Chandler novel and starring Humphrey Bogart as private eye Philip Marlowe. In the film, Marlow is hired to investigate a suspected blackmailer named Arthur Gywnn Geiger. Early in the movie, Marlow visits Geiger's place of business, A. G. Geiger's RARE BOOKS and DE LUXE EDITIONS. Geiger's storefront is featured prominently in a scene where Humphrey Bogart dons a pair of dark glasses prior to entering the shop.

I just noticed an interesting special feature listed on the specifications for The Nightmare Before Christmas Collector's Edition DVD arriving in stores today. Jack's Haunted Mansion Holiday Tour provides viewers with a virtual tour of Disneyland's annual holiday makeover of the classic attraction. An optional "Off Track" feature reveals a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the popular overlay.

Additional features new to this edition include commentary tracks by Tim Burton, director Henry Selick and composer Danny Elfman, and a Christopher Lee rendition of Burton's original poem upon which the film was based. I usually steer clear of DVD "double-dips" but I have to admit being especially intrigued by the Haunted Mansion Holiday feature. If anyone happens to pick up the set, let us know your impressions via the comments section.

Image © WDSHE. All Rights Reserved.

Mickey Mouse shared the marquee at the Wilshire Theatre in Los Angeles with what was one of the most popular films of 1931, Trader Horn. The adventure movie starred Harry Carey and was notable for being the first major Hollywood production to be filmed on location in Africa. The Mickey Mouse cartoon was likely The Moose Hunt, as both it and Trader Horn were released in May of 1931. Disney would parody Trader Horn the following year with the cartoon Trader Mickey.