Disney's Campus Kook

He was the "scrambled egghead" who was known far and wide as the "campus kook". Tommy Kirk played Merlin Jones while Annette Funicello played his long suffering girlfriend who always played second fiddle to Merlin's various experiments and schemes.

The popular films made college a sanitized and Disneyfied place, where bumbling administrators stumbled from one escapade to another.

Since both lead actors left The Walt Disney Studios, the film series was abandoned, though it was revived in the late 1960's with Kurt Russell playing Dexter Riley, a cooler version of Merlin Jones who mostly stumbled into his misadventures.

Disney Quote Weekends

"Teddy and Piggiwig!"

Disney Quote Weekends

"Woody, you're a great cartoonist, and you're a great comic book writer - but you're a lousy bird."

The Story of DISNEYLAND: The Outside World

When Walt Disney chose Anaheim to build his Magic Kingdom in, he purchased as much land as he could afford and that his brother would allow. He knew that his theme park would be successful and lamented the lack of control he would have on the surrounding land after DISNEYLAND proved to be successful. Since Mr. Disney couldn't buy more land, he tried to get some of his wealthy Hollywood friends to invest in Anaheim, promising to buy the land at a later date. Unfortunately, none of them chose to take the risk. Mr. Disney then pled with the City of Anaheim to try to control the area around the park, to carefully choose which sort of businesses would be permitted.

The City of Anaheim, however, wouldn't take Walt Disney's advice. When DISNEYLAND proved to be a success, the land around the park was quickly snapped up, often by small time operators who bought oddly shaped parcels on which to build garish motels.

As long as the buildings didn't fall down, the City of Anaheim approved them. Electrical lines were strung up willy nilly with no regard to aesthetics. As perfect as DISNEYLAND was inside the gates, the area around it often looked tacky.

While many of the buildings did have a mid-century charm, there was so little oversight given as to design, that they often clashed with buildings right next door. As Mr. Disney himself pointed out, it was beginning to look like a third class Las Vegas outside DISNEYLAND.

Even worse, the City of Anaheim permitted incompatible land uses close to the park. Housing tracts were allowed close to the DISNEYLAND Resort area, filled with people who would eventually complain about DISNEYLAND's fireworks and traffic. Anaheim's choices were a perfect example of what not to do.

Walt Disney Productions has tried to buy as much land as they could acquire over the years, but stubborn landowners clinging to their 1960's era motor lodges won't sell at any price. It was the haphazard and poor planning of Anaheim's planning department that led to Walt Disney looking east to Orlando. Though things wouldn't work out there either.

Disney Legends

The honor of being declared a "Disney Legend" is huge, but it does come with a few other perks...

Like this really cool statue, perfect for any desk:

There's also a nice plaque, honoring the recipient that gets placed in Disney Legends Plaza, an off limits area of The Walt Disney Studio:

However, the greatest perk is undoubtedly the Disney Parks Golden Pass- good for free admission to any Disney Theme Park worldwide for life.

Too Disney For Disney

In the late 1970's, Jack and Bonita Wrather lamented the state of the movies. So, reaching into their IP vault, they pulled out Lassie and decided to produce an old-fashioned musical featuring songs by Richard and Robert Sherman and a score produced by Irwin Kostal.

Of course, both the Sherman Brothers and Irwin Kostal had worked on many projects for Walt Disney in the past. The Wrathers still owned and operated the DISNEYLAND Hotel at the time. Many people still believe the film was released by Walt Disney Pictures, but the studio had nothing to do with the film. It was having an identity crisis of its own at the time and wasn't sure where it was headed. The Wrathers found another distributor and released their clean "family film" into theaters.

Despite starring Jimmy Stewart, the film was a disappointment at the box office. Viewers found it too old fashioned and creaky. Many people were fairly certain that Walt Disney wouldn't have been producing the same type of films his studio was releasing in the 1970's, but they were absolutely certain that he wouldn't have made The Magic of Lassie. Not in a year that also saw the release of Star Wars.

Little Bird, Big Star

Not every Disney character is meant to be hugely popular. Every story requires supporting or one shot characters and the world of Disney has many of them. Every once in awhile one of those characters stands out in unintended ways.

One of those times was in The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Rabbit happens upon a poor baby bird who has become separated from her flock. Originally, he wants little to do with her because she represents chaos and disorder in his life. Over time, however, he begins to grow fond of his little charge.

As spring returns, however, the little bird- by now named Kessie- sees her flock. After a teary-eyed goodbye with promises of future visits, Kessie returns to her flock, leaving a saddened but happy Rabbit.

Kessie wasn't meant to be shown again, but the audience loved her memorable appearance so much that she has returned to the 100 Acre Wood several times to see her beloved "Rabbie".

A Mickey Mouse Revue

When Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom park was being designed, Roy Disney threw out a few of his brother's thoughts about design. For example, Walt Disney wanted DISNEYLAND to feel welcoming and non-threatening to children. That's why Main Street and Sleeping Beauty Castle were built at what Walt felt was the perfect scale. Roy, on the other hand, wanted to show the world how wealthy the company had become since 1955. Therefore, he poured money into a bigger castle and Main Street. This being Roy, however, the extra money spent on Main Street and the castle meant that budgets elsewhere had to be cut. The biggest victim was Fantasyland.

Rather than building the Fantasyland of his brother's dreams, Roy chose to build the cheaper "medieval faire" Fantasyland that Walt had settled for when budgets ran out in 1955. 

Another misbegotten budget cut was felt at the all new Mickey Mouse Revue.

This lively audio-animatronics show featured Mickey and friends giving a fun, musical performance.

This show was the first attempt to answer a common complaint heard from DISNEYLAND guests- that their children had missed seeing Mickey Mouse in the park. By putting Mickey in a show, guests could guarantee their children would see him by attending the show.

However, as budgets got cut across the project, this show was one of the victims. The pre-show area, where guests looking to watch the show would be asked to wait for the next one to begin, was downsized so that it could only hold 300 guests. Not a big deal right? Except for the fact that the theater was designed to hold 500 guests. This meant that the theater could never be full, even when it was "at capacity". This flaw doomed the show since clueless management assumed the show wasn't popular. It was shut down in 1980 and moved to Tokyo Disneyland, where it had a successful run of over twenty years.

Disney Quote Weekends

"Hmm, no radio, no heater... tires too thin, needs paint, older model... Uh uh- forget it."

Disney Quote Weekends

"We call it audio animatronics!"