1989:
The Walt Disney Pictures' 28th animated feature film, The Little Mermaid(featuring the voice of Jodi Benson as Ariel) is released in Los Angeles, California, and New York City. It is the first Disney animated feature in three decades based on a classic fairy tale since Sleeping Beauty. (It will win 2 Academy Awards.)
1987:
Muppet creator Jim Henson is inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame.
"Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too" airs onThe Wonderful World of Disney.
“I would like to be part of building a model community, a City of Tomorrow,
you might say, because I don't believe in going out to this extreme blue-sky stuff
that some architects do. I believe that people still want to live like human beings."
-Walt Disney at the 1965 press conference to announce the Florida Project
on This Day in Disney History
2005:
Buena Vista International, the foreign distribution arm of the Walt Disney Co., reaches $1 billion in overseas boxoffice revenue on this day.
1925:
The Alice Comedy Alice Rattled by Rats is released.
1929:
Disney's Mickey Mouse short Jungle
Rhythm - the 12th and final Mickey
short of 1929 - is released. It features
the voice of Walt Disney (as Mickey)
and the music of Carl W. Stalling -
the first Mickey short to have music
in the opening credits!
1932:
The Disney Art Class meets for the first time with Don Graham of
the Chouinard School of Art lecturing at Disney's old sound studio on Hyperion Avenue in Los Angeles, California. In preparation for a feature-length cartoon, Walt Disney has set up this art school to train animators. (Because it is the Depression and jobs are scarce, the studio attracts many talented individuals who, in better economic times, might well have chosen other careers.)
1934:
Alice Pleasance Liddell (the inspiration for Lewis Carroll's
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) passes away.
1955:
The Mickey Mouse Club airs on ABC-TV. Today is Guest Star Day with Clarence Nash
(the voice of Donald Duck), Cliff Edwards (the voice of Jiminy Cricket), and José Oliveira (the voice of José Carioca).
1965:
At 2:00 p.m., Walt and Roy Disney, accompanied by Governor Haydon Burns,
speak to the press in the Egyptian Room of the Cherry Plaza Hotel in Orlando
and officially launch the Disney World project in Florida. (Site preparation will
begin in the fall of 1967 and the park will open in October 1971, unfortunately five years after Walt's death.)
Only days after this announcement, the price of land surrounding the property that the Disney organization
purchased for supposedly $180 an acre - will shoot up to an amazing $80,000 per acre! As of this day,
Disney planners have acquired about 27,443 acres (or 43 square miles) at a cost of just about $5 million.
1975:
Floyd Gottfredson's last Mickey Mouse comic strip is published. (A 45-year veteran, Floyd had retired on October 1, 1975.)
1999:
Monday
The creator of THIS DAY IN DISNEY HISTORY is
married at the Wedding Pavilion at Walt Disney
World at 2 p.m. (Happy Anniversary Cathy!)
2002:
The Wilderness Lodge Villas (part of the Disney Vacation Club) opens adjacent to the Wilderness Lodge at Walt Disney World.
2003:
The television series Wonderful World of Disney features the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen film "The Challenge."
RedCat, the alternative theater behind the Walt Disney Concert Hall in California, has its official opening. RedCat is an acronym for benefactors Roy and Edna Disney, CalArts (a California college) and the word theater.
2004:
It is reported that the Walt Disney Company has bought the assets of CrossGen Entertainment, a comic book publisher.
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1993:
The Garden Grill Restaurant opens in Epcot's The Land.
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2006:
Disney Editions publishes the book Pirates of the Caribbean: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies by Imagineer Jason Surrell.
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Walt Disney World's Wedding Pavilion is located on a private island on The Seven Seas Lagoon between The Grand Floridian and Polynesian Resorts.
1916:
Cartoonist/animator Bill Melendez is born José Cuauhtemoc Melendez in
Hermosillo, Mexico. Best known for his work on many Peanuts television
specials, he started his career at the Disney studio in 1937, drawing for
Fantasia, Pinocchio, Bambi, and Dumbo.
"I started at Walt Disney Productions in January of 1937, where I learned the trade of animating. I spent a happy four years at Disney." -Bill Melendez
1986:
A "re-premiere" for Song of the South is held in Atlanta, Georgia, to celebrate the film's 40th anniversary. By gubernatorial proclamation, the day of the premiere is declared "Song of the South Day" in Georgia.
Somewhere under the sea and beyond your imagination is an adventure in fantasy.
1995:
Disney's live musical Beauty and the Beast (currently a hit on Broadway) kicks off its very first national tour. The show features Kim Huber as Belle and Fred Inkley as the Beast.
1988:
Actress Zena Grey is born in New York City. Disney fans know her as Megan in the 2001 Max Keeble's Big Move and as Carly in the 2006 The Shaggy Dog.
2008:
The final "ABC-SOAPnet Super Soap Weekend" to ever be held at Disney World kicks off at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida. (ABC's Daytime division will later embark on the 2009 "Soap Nation Tour," a collection of nationwide events designed to interact with fans on a year-round basis, offering greater access to stars in more cities, more often.) The final Walt Disney World weekend is dedicated to the fans with special retrospectives and exclusive productions.
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NOVEMBER 15
THIS DAY MADE
IN THE
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NOVEMBER 15
N
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Actor Ed Asner, the voice of Carl Fredricksen in the Disney/Pixar animated Up,
is born in Kansas City, Missouri. His Disney TV credits include an episode of Hercules and
the series Recess. An Emmy Award-winning film and television actor, Asner is best known for his TV role of
Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off series, Lou Grant.
Disney World project officially launched
1924:
The Alice Comedy Alice Hunting in Africa is released. (The third Alice short made, it is not released until mid-November 1924 because of distributor Winkler's dissatisfaction with it.)
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Ed Asner born
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2009:
Dreams Come True: Art of the Classic Fairy Tales from the Walt Disney Studio,
a major exhibition featuring more than 600 original artworks, is presented (for
the next 17 weeks) at the New Orleans Museum of Art. A beautifully illustrated catalogue of the exhibition by Lella Smith is available at the museum's shop.
Mary Poppins - the celebrated stage version by Disney and Cameron
Mackintosh - opens in Los Angeles at the Ahmanson Theatre.
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1980:
Although running since September, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad has an official opening in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. A mine train roller coaster located in
Frontierland, it is the second one of its kind (as a Big Thunder Mountain first opened in Disneyland in 1979).
