1992:
The Disney-MGM parade Aladdin's Royal Caravan debuts.
2004:
Disney releases Where The Red Fern Grows to DVD & VHS. The all-new family
film is based on the novel by Wilson Rawls. Also released to DVD & VHS is
The Young Black Stallion (a prequel to “The Black Stallion”).
At the Florida Film Critics Circle Awards, The Incredibles win for Best Animation.
1910:
Art director, Imagineer and Disney Legend Marvin Davis is born in Clovis, New
Mexico. His Disney credits will include Victory Through Air Power and The Three Caballeros as an art
director. Davis will develop the first diagrammatic plan for Disneyland. In 1962, he will receive an Emmy
Award for art direction and scenic design for Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color.
1913:
Imagineer and Disney Legend Fred Joerger is born in Pekin, Illinois. He will help realize Walt Disney's visions by crafting three-dimensional miniature models of Disney theme park attractions, as well as motion picture sets and props - before they are brought to full-scale life. Joerger will also design and construct most all rockwork at Disney World for its 1971 opening, including the atrium waterfall featured in the Polynesian Resort. The Haunted Mansion tombstone that reads: HERE LIES GOOD OLD FRED A GREAT BIG ROCK FELL ON HIS HEAD R.I.P. is a tribute to Joerger!
1936:
A baby girl named Sharon Mae is born. Less than two weeks later she will be adopted by Walt Disney and his wife Lillian.
1937:
Tuesday
Disney's first feature-length animated film, Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs premieres at the Carthay Circle
Theater in Los Angeles, California. The film features
the voices of Adriana Caselotti (as Snow White) and Harry Stockwell (as the Prince). Workers at the
studio present Walt with a backyard playhouse for his two daughters, a child size copy of the
dwarfs' cottage from the film. In attendance at the opening of the first American feature-length
animated film are such stars as Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Judy Garland, Carole
Lombard, John Barrymore, and Marlene Dietrich. Also attending the premiere is a teenager named
Marjorie Belcher (later known as Marge Champion) - the animator's live-action model for Snow
White! (The Carthay will later be razed and replaced by an office building.)
1944:
Disney's 7th animated feature The Three Caballeros world premieres in Mexico City. It will be released in the U.S. the following February.
1948:
Disney's very first True-Life nature documentary featurette Seal Island previews at
the Crown Theatre in Pasadena, California. It will play for 2 weeks in front of MGM's
The Three Musketeers. Seal Island studies the saga of life on Seal Island, one of the tiny
specks of land in the Bering Sea. The film is shot by travelogue filmmakers Al and Elma Milotte. (It
will officially be relased the following May and later win an Academy Award.)
Actor Samuel L. Jackson, the voice of Lucius Best/Frozone in the 2004
Disney-Pixar animated feature The Incredibles, is born in Washington, D.C.
1953:
Lux Radio Theater in cooperation with Walt Disney Pictures presents an adaptation of Peter Pan with Bobby Driscoll.
Disney's animated Peter Pan is released in Sweden.
1955:
Today is Anything Can Happen Day on ABC-TV's The Mickey Mouse Club.
1960:
Disney's live-action Swiss Family Robinson (based on the book by Johann Wyss) is released along with The Horse with the Flying Tail. Filmed on the Caribbean island of Tobago (the smaller of the two main islands that make up the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago), Swiss Family's lavish pre-production planning and on-location shooting resulted in a budget that exceeded $4 million! The plot centers on Mother and Father Robinson (Dorothy McGuire and John Mills) and their three sons Fritz (James MacArthur), Ernst (Tommy Kirk) and Francis (Kevin Corcoran) who find themselves stranded on a deserted island with no rescue in sight.
1962:
Disney's live-action feature film In Search of the Castaways (based on the 1868
Jules Verne adventure novel Captain Grant's Children) is generally released in U.S.
theaters. Starring Hayley Mills and Maurice Chevalier, the film tells the tale of a worldwide search for a
shipwrecked sea captain.
1966:
Walt Disney's Last Will and Testament is filed.
1969:
The Wonderful World of Disney airs part 1 of "Babes in Toyland."
1999:
Disney's Fantasia 2000 has its London premiere.
2002:
Disney World's Caribbean Beach Resort, which was been closed since September 8, 2002 for the rehab of the food area, reopens.
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1914:
Eustace Lycett, designer of special effects for Disney movies, is born in
Straffordshire, England. His 43-year career with Disney will begin in 1937 as a protégé of Ub Iwerks (a pioneer of animation and special effects). Lycett will work on more than 30 films, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Babes in Toyland, and Mary Poppins.
1979:
The Walt Disney Productions live-action science fiction
feature, The Black Hole is generally released in theaters
in the U.S. It is directed by Gary Nelson and stars Maximilian Schell,
Robert Forster, Joseph Bottoms, Yvette Mimieux, Anthony Perkins, and
Ernest Borgnine. The voices of the main robot characters in the film are
provided by Roddy McDowall and Slim Pickens. A bold experiment for Disney, the film's budget climbed to $20 million and is the first PG-rated release in Disney history! It will be nominated for Academy Awards for Cinematogry and Visual Effects - Peter Ellenshaw, the acclaimed matte artist and Disney effects veteran was lured out of retirement to oversee the production. James Macdonald (the second voice of Mickey Mouse) has helped create the amazing sound effects.
When principal photography wrapped on Disney's Swiss Family Robinson, it was discovered that there was a problem with the sound ... almost every word of recorded dialogue was unusable! The entire cast had to be brought back to England for 28 days where they re-recorded every word in
the film.
1980:
Disney's weekly television series debuts part 1 of The Ghosts of Buxley Hall.
2007:
On Snow White's 70th anniversary, Epcot's iconic Spaceship Earth (closed for nearly six months) reopens to the public with a new story line and digital enhancements. (The attraction will formally reopen in February 2008.)
Ratatouille wins Best Animated Film at the Florida Film Critics Circle Awards.
The Goofy short How To Hook Up Your Home Theater is released with the
Walt Disney Pictures feature National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets.
"Who says there is no Santy Claus? It seems to me that Walt Disney tonight in giving this feature to the children of the world is indeed the modern Santa Claus." -film pioneer Jesse Lasky
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"One thing I do know is that this picture is the best Christmas present the children of Hollywood could possibly have."
-Hollywood columnist Louella Parsons
1958:
Emmy Award-winning and Golden Globe-nominated actor and stand-up comedian Ray Romano is born in Queens, New York. Best known for his hit TV series Everybody Loves Raymond, Romano appears on the Hannah Montana episode, "We're All on This Date Together."
SEAL
ISLAND
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1922:
Paul Winchell, a versatile ventriloquist, TV host, and voice actor is
born Pinkus Wilchinski in New York City. Famously known as
Disney's Tigger, Winchell's credits also include The Aristocats and The Fox and the
Hound. (TV fans also know him as the voice of cartoon Dick Dastardly and for his
ventriloquist puppets Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff.)
DECEMBER 21
advertisement
Today is Forefather's Day
THIS DAY MADE
IN THE
USA
DECEMBER 21
Animator/director/producer Wolfgang "Woolie" Reitherman
about the night of December 21, 1937:
"The audience was so taken by the magic of what they had seen that they applauded after individual sequences, just as though they were watching a stage play. I've never seen anything quite like it since."
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1945:
Disney's Donald Duck cartoon Old Sequoia, directed by Jack King, is released.
Park Ranger Donald is in charge of making sure a tree "Old Sequoia" doesn't get gnawed down by pesky beavers.
DEC
