SEP 01 Disney History

2000:

Pooh's Hunny Hunt, an attraction at Tokyo Disneyland, opens. A more

elaborate version than its Walt Disney World counterpart, guests ride in

large hunny pot vehicles through the pages of a giant storybook.

2005:

Disney Editions releases Ridley Pearson's The Kingdom Keepers. The suspense thriller is about five teenagers who end up inside Disney World after dark, and must solve a riddle in order to save the park from the dark side of Walt Disney's imagination.

Pooh's Playful Spot, a playground for 2-5 year-olds, opens in the Magic Kingdom at Disney World.

1875:

Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan and one of the great

pioneers of modern science fiction, is born in Chicago, Illinois.

Burroughs was a soldier, business executive, gold miner, cowboy, storekeeper, and policeman before he turned to writing as a career. He wrote more than 20 novels depicting the adventures of Tarzan. After the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, he wrote a letter to Walt Disney about the possibility of making his creation into an animated feature. His work eventually did become the inspiration for Disney's 1999 animated feature Tarzan and later a Disney produced Broadway stage musical.

Burroughs also wrote popular science fiction and fantasy stories involving Earthly adventurers and Martians. In

the early twentieth century, Burroughs compiled a glossary of the terms used in these novels. In 1957, Walt

Disney created an animated version of it for his "Mars and Beyond" TV episode.

Today Burroughs even has a large crater on Mars named for him!

1910:

Disney Legend Cyril James is born in South Wales. He will become known as

Roy O. Disney's British counterpart because of his business genius and skill at handling all of the

financial and administrative affairs for Walt Disney Productions, Ltd., in London, England.

1925:

The Paramount Theater in Los Angeles previews Disney's Alice comedy film Alice the Jail Bird.

1934:

Disney's 6-minute Silly Symphony cartoon Peculiar Penguins is released.

Walt and Lillian Disney return home to Los Angeles from a trip to Hawaii

aboard the Matson liner SS Malolo. (When built in 1926, the Malolo was the largest,

technically advanced and most luxurious cruise liner to be built in the United States.)

1944:

Disney's The Plastics Inventor, starring Donald Duck, is released. In this short, directed by

Jack King, Donald decides to build an airplane with instructions from a radio show.

1989:

Disneyland welcomes Claudine Masson, its 300-millionth guest! It has taken 34 years to accomplish this feat.

1993:

Disney announces that AT&T has renewed its sponsorship of Spaceship Earth at EPCOT Center in the Walt Disney World Resort. (Spaceship Earth was originally sponsored by the Bell System from 1982 until 1984. When Bell was broken up into smaller companies in 1984, its parent company, AT&T became its own independent company and began sponsoring Spaceship Earth. It would continue to do so until 2004 - when Siemens picked up sponsorship.)

2002:

The Disney Poster Book by Tony Anselmo - the voice of Donald Duck who originally joined Disney as an animator - is published by Hyperion Press.

2003:

Disney Treasures, a unique treasure trove of nostalgia by Robert Tieman from Disney Editions, is released in bookstores.

Tokyo Disneyland presents "Blazing Rhythms,"

a spectacular nightly show, through September 19.

September begins on the same day of the week as December ... every year!

2006:

The Tom Joyner Family Reunion kicks off its annual gathering (for the next 4 days) at

Walt Disney World.

Second-grader Whitney Hamilton wins a trip for four to Walt Disney World as part of

the American Heart Association’s "Jump Rope for Heart" program. A student at Deer Creek

Prairie Vale Elementary School in Oklahoma, she was chosen out of all students who raised more than $150 to

help cure heart disease in a five-state area. Whitney raised close to $200 as a first-grade student last term.

1998:

Walt Disney Records releases Disney's Greatest Pop Hits: A Decade Of Radio

Singles. The 15 tracks include performances by Elton John, Vanessa Wiliiams, Michael Bolton, and

Donna Summer.

World Showcase in Epcot originally opened with 9 nations surrounding the World Showcase Lagoon. These nations were Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, the United States of America, Italy, Germany, China, and Mexico.

1956:

The publication American Home runs the article

"Rare Antiques In Disneyland" along with a dozen photos.

ALICE

2007:

Epcot re-opens the film O Canada (a Circle-Vision 360° movie in the Canada Pavilion). It is an updated version hosted by Martin Short. Walt Disney Imagineers collaborated with the Canadian Tourism Commission to revise the film, which now includes new orchestration and images, and Canadian Idol winner Eva Avila singing the music of "O Canada!"