Youtube Disney Gold: Walt Disney Product Placement...even in 1936?

I am really happy to be doing a Youtube Disney Gold post again.  It's been such a long time, but people keep feeding Youtube videos.  I wanted to talk about a clip I came across the other day.  I was randomly flipping around the TV and came across Buddy Ebson dancing in an old movie and he was wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt.  This was a movie from 1936 called Broadway Melody.  If the name sounds familiar, you might remember it as the movie that Gene Kelly sang Dancing in the Rain in, but you would be wrong.  If you go into IMDB there are a number of listings for Broadway Melody.  Each title supplemented by the date.  There is a movie named Broadway Melody for the years 1929, 1936, 1940 and 1952(This was the Gene Kelly version).  The one I am talking about is the 1936 version of Broadway Melody with the very young song and dance man, Buddy Ebson.  I was lucky enough to find the exact clip I needed on Youtube.  Thanks to GABRIEL ANTINOUS for this Youtube Gold.

The dance scene above is really well done and each of the actors are very good dancers and singers.  This being a Disney Blog however, we need that Disney hook and if you watched the above I'm sure you saw it.  Buddy Ebson is wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt or sweater and for some reason that really caught my eye the first time I watched this.  In three seconds as many thoughts went through my head.  My first thought was how could they have gotten what looks like a modern t-shirt back into a movie like that.  The Mickey pose and artwork is a dead ringer for shirts today.

My second thought was well, Buddy worked with Walt on the Dancing Man animatronic, was that before this movie and Buddy had a souvenir from working with Walt. My final thought in that couple second burst was that maybe Mickey was just that famous in 1936 that they were selling shirts or sweaters even then.  As far as the movie went it was normal in 1936 to see a young man wearing a Mickey shirt.  Hmmm. 

After some light research I think thought number three might be right.  By 1936, Mickey had appeared in over 90 shorts, not too shabby.  You should see the Vintage Disney section of Ebay there are a lot of items that are there and of them about 90 are from the 1930's.  A lot of different items that shows how popular Mickey was.  The items vary from figurines to brushes, from silverware with a mickey them to cereal boxes.  Take a look at this cereal box from 1936.  It's the back of a Post Toasties box with Mickey and the gang in full glory.  Note the figure at the bottom of the box.  It's a cut out figure that you can collect.  They advertise that there were different characters to cut out.  Is this perhaps where the mad dash to the Cereal Aisle at the supermarket started? 
So it really looks like the only reason the Buddy is wearing that shirt is that Mickey was so popular at the time and it was what the common thing for the lounging young guy to be wearing.  This was a nice little trip through some great Vintage Mickey stuff.  I still think there might be more to this, so I'll keep my eyes open and update this down the road if necessary.

YouTube Disney Gold: Epcot Center 1983

I want to first want to thank George from Imaginerding.com and his tweet this morning about this. I also want to thank the Progress City, USA site and their post, “Cancel your plans for Tonight and Watch This”. And I really will. This is another shot of YouTube Disney Gold but from the park side. Recently, Lord Phoenix on the allmightypuff channel has posted at least 11 videos of 1983 Epcot Center on Youtube. The quality for the day is great and this is a very detailed kind of guy. I’ve only seen the first couple of videos, but as the Progress City, USA post says, I’ll be watching all of them tonight. We were down in 1985 and we were not a video savy family so these videos are awesome to see. Please check them out and enjoy. I'll post more nfo once I see them all.

YouTube Disney Gold: Voices behind the Characters

I've come across some more of that YouTube Disney Gold. This from the Disney Family Album that must have been taped off the Disney Channel years ago. This one is the "Voices behind the Characters" and is really good. The guy that posted it is Darthkoon and he put it up in 4 parts. Part 1 starts out with Hal Smith giving his Goofy as Jacob Marley in a Christmas Carol voice. Then we get to see the transition of the voice of Mickey from Walt down to Jimmy McDonald. It was also very cool to see Alan Young as the voice of Donald's uncle, Scrooge McDuck.
Part 2 has Kathryn Beaumont talking about her work in both Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. Part 3 Has a great insight into the casting of Phil Harris as one of my favorite Disney Character, Baloo. He shaped that roll into his own choosing which worked to the benefit of all. In Part 4, John Byner and John Hurt talk about the Black Cauldron. john Byner was a great comic and voice actor from the 70's and 80's and John Hurt of Alien busting out of his chest at lunch fame did some great work on an overlooked Disney cartoon.

YouTube Gold: Disney Animation Special:The Illusion of Life

I was very well rewarded on this trip onto Youtube. Have you ever heard of the book Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life, written by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas? According to the Disney Books Web-site, "The Bible. Does not request any further comment. This is THE best book about Disney animation. Period. Found on every animator's desk (even non-Disney ones) and in every serious library about Disney." I was well aware of the book although not fortunate enough to have ever read it. I was more than surprised to find a 1981 TV special title: Disney Animation Special: The Illusion of Life. This was posted in 5 parts by Yensidtun over on Youtube. This special is hosted by Hayley Mills. The first part is an intro by her and then a storyboard and recording session withPearl Bailey as Big Momma from the Fox and the Hound. Part 2 has Ward Kimball discussing the early animation at the studio including all of those rubber hoses.
Frank and Ollie than step in and discuss showing a characters emotion and how important the right voice could be as we see with Snow White.
Part 3 has Ken Anderson talking about Walt's intro to the idea of SnowWhite to the animators. Frank and Ollie discuss various characters from features they had worked on.John Musker and Hayley Mills look at animated facial emotion. Eric Larson talks about personality in characters such as Figaro and how the Live Action session with Peggy Lee helpedhim with Peg from The Lady and the Tramp. Marc Davis then shows a little of how live action helps the animator with help of Cruella. '...somehow out of your own experience there is a way this character should behave. This is the way they should do something.' Live action provided that experience. Part 4 has Marc Davis talking about the child like manor of Fred Moore which came across all to well with Mickey Mouse. And the worldliness of Bill Tytla that comes out on his work of Night on Bald Mountain and his work in Pinocchio.Mill Kahl continues about Bill Tytlas methods. Milt goes on about his own challenging work. Ward returns and talks about personality characters and abstract animation. "I would fight Boredom with Innovation." Part 5 has Glenn Keane getting inspiration from the Morgue from Woolie Reitherman's Bear attack scene and Woolie talks about it.Hayley takes us through the Ink and Paint, Camera, and Dubbing depts. We see some of the camera design and background art and even some character design from the Black Cauldron. Hayley ends with a quote she remembers from Walt, "The only limit to imagination is animation. How else could you see an elephant fly." Please enjoy these looks back. I did. Don't forget Disney Fans Youtube is your Friend. See you next time.

Sources: Wikipedia, Disney Books,

YouTube Gold:Looking Back through WDW TV Commercials

Here is another example of how Youtube is a Disney Geeks best friend. I was playing around the other day and came across some past Walt Disney World Commercials. There are a lot of them out there ranging from the early 1970's to David Cook, from American Idol, and his promise of going to WDW. As I watched these again I could remember most of them. Each from some different time as I grew up. It is also an incredible snapshot of a particular time. The way people are dressed shows a lot in how America looked at the time. Seeing the promise of new attractions that are now retired or old but true favorites is certainly a great nostalgic thrill also. How about Capt. Eo as a main attraction and the tease of a brand new Park Named Disney's MGM Studios? The other side is noting how these 30-60 second ADVERTISING spots are just that, advertising. You must keep that in mind while viewing. The full range of emotions are conveyed through various methods. Very effective. In fact, I want to go right now. See ya! ...I wish. Below are some links to the better of the commercials that I saw out there on the Youtube. If you want to see more, do a search on Walt Disney World Commercial, there are a ton.
This first embedded Video is a perfect example of how someone 'Gets it'. By 'Gets It' I mean the time when a person instead of saying, "Why are you going to Disney World again this year?" fianlly Gets It and is the person that now says, "We're going back to WDW again this year, wanna go?" I give the Disney advertising team a Big Gold star on picking up on this theme and making such a good commercial around it.

This is one of the first TV commercials for WDW. It's a little scary and odd, but I remembered it as soon as I saw the dwarfs. WDW 1971
This commercial from Delta has a lot of great flash-backs.
Here are a couple that can only be termed as before and after. We did both the before and the after...no complaints. Before=No Kids After=It's all about the Kids and again, After
As for emotional, if you have a little girl, this one will make you cry...just a little. Princess

Don't forget Disney Fans Yotube is your Friend. See you next time.

Youtube Gold: Disney TV Shows

I came across another piece of Youtube Disney Gold the other night. The first video I started with was the Disney-MGM Grand Opening TV show. This was a very nostalgic look at the original concept of the Disney-MGM Studios. This had been posted by DreamBoyUSA. What was the real gold of this Youtube poster is that he had a lot of old Disney TV Specials. In addition to to the MGM show, I have looked at the Disney Oscar Winners show which was about all of the Oscars won by Walt and the studios. There is a lot of old animation clips from the early Oscar wins. I also watched a little of the Welcome to the World show starring, okay sit down and hold onto your hat, starring Lindsay Wagner as the Rich Tycoon vacationing at the Contemporary, Lucy Arnez, the single traveler staying at that wacky Polynesian and a very young Tommy Tune staying at the thrifty Fort Wilderness. This is a variety show type travelogue of the park. It is very good in a retro kind of way. The kicker to this one is it is really a celebration of the opening of Space Mountain. Here is a list of other titles that caught my eye and I will be watching. It's all from video, so quality is eh, but I am still psyched to check out the posts. There are a ton more, but here's what really caught my eye :

• Disneyland 25th Anniversary
• Disneyland 30th Anniversary
• Epcot Center Opening
• WDW Opening
• WDW 15th Anniversary
• Various parades and Holiday shows
• America on Parade(Bicentennial Celebration)

YouTube Gold:The Disney Family Album

Youtube has been a great thing for Disney Fans. You can view videos with all manner of Disney themes. I have seen great ride videos from the parks. Do you remember that Tigger beating incident? Some very cool coming attractions for upcoming Disney movies and a whole lot more. One of the most valuable finds I have made on Youtube is a collection of videos from a show in the Disney Channel past's Vault Disney that interviewed and biographied Walt's Nine Old Men. The shows title was the Disney Family Album. These are broken up into three parts per artist. I had found this a couple of months ago, but Dan and Eric's Mouseguest Podcast show last week was about Walt's Nine old men, hence the post.

This is Woolie Reitherman's part 1. The others are listed below.

I have read some of the Disney biographies and I have read a number of interviews of the artists that helped Walt begin his empire. These videos have given me a chance to see these gentleman and hear from them what the entire experience was like in the earlier days of Disney Studios. As they discuss how they started with Disney and their ever expanding responsibilities thruoght the good and bad, these gentlemen always have a certain smile on their faces when ever their memories come across a story about that talks about Walt specifically.

A big thanks goes out to Loosetoon and Cookedart, who posted all of these videos to Youtube.

Frank Thomas Ollie Johntson Ken Anderson Eric Larson

Ward Kimball Marc Davis Milt Kahl