Published between 1982 and 1995
Brian Sibley visited Disneyland in 1985, during its thirtieth year celebrations and discovered that the Magic Kingdom was created along the lines of a living animated film… PRE-TITLE SEQUENCE: The air is filled with a confusion of sounds. The clickerty-clack of turnstiles, the excited chatter of children (ranging from perambulated tots to very senior citizens), … Read more
Disneyland is like that too. Glancing at the upper storey windows on Main Street, I find them decorated with advertisements which incorporate the names of Disney artists and animators: ‘KEN ANDERSON Bait Co.’, ‘SHIPS MODELS – Bushman & DaGradi Mfrs.’ and in memory of his father, ‘ELIAS DISNEY Contractor Est. 1895’. Pure indulgence you might … Read more
On the rides in Fantasyland you can clearly see how the Disney ‘Imagineers’ (as Walt called them) have utilized the lessons they learned in animating film. Take, for example, ‘Peter Pan’s Flight’: boarding a model pirate-ship, I fly through the Darling children’s nursery, out of the window and into the night; dipping suddenly I find … Read more
As the hype dies down Brian Sibley steps back and takes an objective view of the latest feature cartoon to come out of the Disney Studio. By a cunning ruse of counting The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh as if it were a feature film instead of a compilation of shorts, Walt Disney Productions were able … Read more
Not too surprisingly, the evil characters are far more interesting than the good ones, and the nasties in The Black Cauldron are the most gruesome to appear in any Disney movie since Fantasia. Especially grotesque is the cauldron-born army of skeletal warriors which come to life dripping rather more slime and gore than one normally … Read more
Brian Sibly recalls the veteran Disney animator, Wolfgang Reitherman, who died earlier this year (1985). It is a great many years ago now that I played truant from school and sneaked into my local cinema to see Walt Disney’s Fantasia for the first time, yet I recall the occasion as if it were yesterday. Since, … Read more
Two years later saw the emergence of a very different style of animation in 101 Dalmations, co-directed by Reitherman with Hamilton Luske and Clyde Geronimi. Many of the elaborate techniques and artistic embellishments, which had been a feature of every animated film since Snow White, were now abandoned; but the revolutionary Xerox system of transferring … Read more
Clarence Nash, the voice of Donald Duck for over 50 years, died on 20th February 1985 at the age of eighty. We print this interview between Father Robert Murphy and Clarence Nash as a tribute to one of cartoon-lands best known voices. Interspersed throughout the following article is a three-way interview conducted by Father Robert … Read more
Hearing that the Disney Studios were looking for voices, Clarence made an appointment and the interviewer was so impressed that he rang Walt Disney’s intercom and let Walt listen in. According to Clarence, Walt’s first words to him were, “We’ve found our duck!” Clarence was on his way! “The Wise Little Hen” was a big … Read more
Ollie Johnston is one of the legendary Nine Old Men of the Disney studios. He has worked on all the Disney feature films from Snow White to Fox and the Hound. Father Robert Murphy conducted the following interview with him in January 1981 at the Disney studios. If, as Cinderella once sung, “A dream is … Read more