The Disney Studios Christmas Cards: 1963

The characters from The Sword in the Stone join Mickey and the gang for some holiday fun from 1963.

A Return to Shacktown

I believe it was either Christmas of 1987 or 1988 when a very good friend introduced me to A Christmas for Shacktown. It was one of the best Christmas presents I ever received.

A Christmas for Shacktown is a comic book story that first appeared in issue 367 of the Dell Four Color Comics series, published in 1951. It features Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, and the many other denizens of Duckburg. Well into adulthood, it was my first real exposure to classic Disney comics, and more importantly, to the storytelling genius of Disney legend Carl Barks.

As I have chronicled earlier, my passion for all things Disney developed fairly early in my childhood. But interestingly enough, it never extended to Disney comics until much, much later. In my youth, I read comic books. Tons of comic books. Dennis the Menace, Archie, Harvey and Superman, just to name a few. But I have little to no memories of reading Disney in a four color format. It wasn’t a lack of desire; it was just at that time, the late 1960s through the early 1970s, they were extremely hard for me to find. Disney comics were then published by Gold Key, and at least in my neighborhood, were not to be found on the normal comic book spinners. The only place I remember seeing them was on a coloring book rack on a fairly distant Woolworth’s.

So on that day so many years ago when my friend gently and lovingly slid a copy of Donald Duck Four Color #367 out of its plastic protector, and proceeded to read to me panel by panel the story of A Christmas for Shacktown, I became immediately and forever taken in by the imagination of Carl Barks.

A Christmas for Shacktown would be a great piece of storytelling in any genre; in the realm of comics it is a pure classic. Donald’s nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, in their desire to bring holiday cheer to the underprivileged children of Shacktown, set in motion a sequence of events that is fast-paced, funny, occasionally ironic, at times both cynical and endearing, and with just the right doses of morality and sentiment. This is not the typical critical assessment warranted by a 1950s era “funny book” and it is an example of why Barks and his library of duck tales have endured for so long.

My friend’s gift of Shacktown extended far beyond the physical copy he would later present to me. In the years that followed, I immersed myself in the many adventures of Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, the Junior Woodchucks and countless other memorable characters as chronicled by Mr. Barks. I have long lost contact with that very good friend, but every year I unwrap A Christmas for Shacktown and appreciate it every bit as much as I did that first time. And my bookshelves are filled with volumes of Carl Barks collections that I consistently revisit, and that my own children have come to discover and enjoy.

Thanks, Marc. And Merry Christmas.


“More fun than we ever had in our lives!”



Gemstone Comics has reprinted A Christmas for Shacktown, and it can be ordered through their website.

The Disney Studios Christmas Cards: 1957

Huey, Dewey and Louie seem to spend more time with Mickey at Christmas than Donald. Here they are joined by Pluto, Lady and Scamp, as Mickey fills their stockings with another famous Disney canine.

Frederich Alonzo Gustaf at Artist Point

Most Walt Disney World guests know Artist Point as the signature restaurant at the Wilderness Lodge resort. But in the fictional history of Silver Creek Springs, it refers to a specific location that predates the actual building of the lodge itself.

Young and ambitious, Frederich Alonzo Gustaf accompanied Genevieve Moreland on her journey west, in hopes of making a name for himself as a painter. Standing upon high rocks above the valley that Colonel Ezekiel Moreland discovered, Gustaf knew at that moment he had found his destiny. He immediately unpacked his gear and set up his easel somewhat precariously on a rocky outcropping that provided the best possible views of the surrounding area.

The Silver Creek Star newspaper related in an article what subsequently happened:

No sooner had the brush touched the canvas than the ground began to tremble. The artist quickly grabbed his seat and managed to keep his easel from falling. After the tremors had subsided, he looked to the Colonel and Jenny and smiled assuredly. "You see Colonel, I am something of a frontiersman myself." Only the Colonel knew what lay in store.

The tremor was only a warning. The explosion of the geyser was sudden and swift. The sound of so much water being propelled to such a height was earth shattering. As expected — and unexpected, the easel, the artist and all his supplies tumbled over the ledge. Gustaf survived the fall, and despite its obvious dangers, the ledge became his favorite place from which to paint.

The ledge soon became a favorite of other artists as well, such men as Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran. who soon flocked to the area in search of the perfect landscape. Years later, when the Lodge was finished, a formal dining room was built on the exact location and was aptly named Artist Point.

The Disney Studios Christmas Cards: 1953

Mickey entertains Donald's nephews with a very special little wooden boy. This card was sent out from the Disney Studio in 1953.

The Disney Studios Christmas Cards: 1948

Mickey is off to dream of sugar plums in this Disney Studios Christmas card from 1948.

The Disney Studios Christmas Cards: 1952

The second star on the right just happens to be atop Mickey's Christmas tree in this holiday greeting from 1952.

Snapshot! - A Little Corner of Africa

Just off the beaten path in the village of Haramabe. The next time you visit Africa in Disney's Animal Kingdom, see if you can find this particular spot.

The Future From the Fifties: Building Space Station S-1

This great piece of 1950s futurism was featured on the back cover of the 1959 comic book Walt Disney's Man in Space. It adapted elements from the various Tomorrowland episodes of the Disneyland television show.

The Disney Studios Christmas Cards: 1959

Fireworks at Disneyland was the centerpiece of the Studio's 1959 Christmas card.

Goofy Claus and His Hodgepdge Team

Back again to the 1950s.

Not only did the giant Christmas issues of Disney Comics from that decade have entertaining stories, they were filled will numerous activity pages as well. Here's a matching quiz from the 1957 comic Christmas in Disneyland. You will need to turn your monitor upside down to check the answers. Hope you all have flatscreens.

The Disney Studios Christmas Cards: 1981

Each stocking represents an animated feature in this card from 1981. Mickey is placing the dog bone in the one meant to symbolize that year's release, The Fox and the Hound.

Celebrating the True Walt Disney

Today marks the 105th anniversary of the birth of Walt Disney. Walt once said, "I'm not Walt Disney anymore. Walt Disney is a thing. It's grown to become a whole different meaning than just one man."

Years later, those words still ring true. Sadly, even when Walt the person is discussed, it is too often to justify opinions or validate points-of-view. As in "Walt wouldn't have done that," or "That's not the type of product Walt would have made." We need to celebrate Walt Disney (the person, not the "thing") a whole lot more, and channel him a whole lot less. Today, December 5th, is a great day to start.

A Different Kind of Disney Adventure

Today marks the release of the first DVDs in the Walt Disney Legacy series, that encompasses the entire library of True-Life Adventure films. To celebrate, I dug down into my own library and retrieved some great examples of late 1950s Disney licensed merchandise. Books were natural tie-ins (whoa, great pun) for these landmark, Oscar-winning documentaries, and the Weekly Reader Book Club made sure they were available in practically every school in the country.

Here is Walt's own foreward to Walt Disney's True-Life Adventures:

It is now ten years since we first turned our cameras away from the world of make-believe and pointed them instead at the world of nature. It was then that we produced our first True-Life Adventure SEAL ISLAND. For this film, as for the many True-Life Adventures which have followed it, we hired no actors. We wrote no story. Wild animals were our only actors. And nature itself provided the drama.

There were adventures aplenty for the cameramen as well as for the animals they followed about on their daily, and even yearly, rounds. This series took its cameramen far from the movie studios and from the comforts of home living. Some of them sweltered under blazing Dakota sun, in the path of a charging buffalo herd. Others waited through weeks of cold and fog for a few hours of pale sunlight on the arctic Pribilof Islands. They have risked the dangers of prairie fires and flash floods. They have tracked the cougar through shadowy forests, the elk over rugged Wyoming snows. They have faced the anger of Arctic bears, pushed their way in small boats through reedy swamps and up jungle rivers. They have climbed mountains, tamed wolf cubs, anchored cameras for safety to the roofs of armored cars.

From months, sometimes years, of adventures like these in the wilds, these cameramen have brought back hundreds of thousands of feet of motion picture film. They have brought back to us at home real records of life as it is being lived today by the wild creatures of many lands. These stories have made a series of motion pictures millions of people have enjoyed. But viewing a film is a fleeting experience. We felt that a book which could capture for more lasting enjoyment some of the beauty and excitement of those films would be well worth the doing.

So we asked our photographers to take on a double job. Along with their motion picture cameras we asked them to carry still cameras. We asked them to bring us a set of photographs suitable for book use which would tell the whole vividly real story of the motion pictures. Our cameramen have done their part splendidly. Our editors have cooperated in shaping those hundreds of thousands of feet of film into dramatic form. They have also provided the background information which gives deeper meaning to the adventures you see. Our publishers have taken this material and have skillfully fitted it to the needs of a new medium.

Here is the finished book. We hope that in its pages you will re-live many moments of rich beauty and high excitement from our True-Life Adventures.

While the children of the 1950s could only bring these amazing adventures home in book form, we are now fortunate enough to enjoy the complete films in these great new DVD sets.

Disney is beyond famous when it comes to animation and theme parks, but few today associate the name with nature documentaries and photography. Yet Walt, along with director James Algar, writer/narrator Winston Hibler and talented photographers such as N. Paul Kenworthy, John Nash Ott, and the husband and wife team of Alfred and Elma Milotte, became true pioneers in a genre that has expanded dramatically over the past sixty years. The roots of cable television's Animal Planet and its many counterparts can be traced back to places like Seal Island, Beaver Valley and the Living Desert, just to name a few. And while the Magic Kingdom represents Disney’s many fantasy worlds brought to life, Disney’s Animal Kingdom is truly the manifestation of these amazing True-Life Adventures. Hopefully these new DVDs will provide some long overdue recognition that these films and their creators so richly deserve.

License to Collect: Walt Disney World 20th Anniversary

This retro-inspired license plate used a design that was featured in publicity materials for Walt Disney World prior to its opening in 1971. It was a cast member exclusive sold at the Company D store in 1991.

The Disney Studios Christmas Cards: 1938

One of the very best designs from the Disney Studio Christmas cards comes from 1938. Pinocchio was still over a year away from release when this snowy scene foreshadowed its coming.

The Return of the Goof . . . and More!

Followers of this blog since it began in late September are likely aware of my passion for the original Disney cartoon shorts. Needless to say I'm beside myself with excitement over the just announced new slate of studio produced shorts coming soon to theaters. The New York Times has a great feature on Disney's return to its animation roots.

From the article:

“The impetus comes from John Lasseter, who takes the idea from Walt Disney and 100 years of film history,” said Don Hahn, producer of “The Lion King” and “The Little Match Girl,” in a recent interview at his studio office. “Shorts have always been a wellspring of techniques, ideas and young talent. It’s exactly what Walt did, because it’s a new studio now, with new talent coming up — as it should. I think the shorts program can really grow this studio as it grew Pixar, as it grew Walt’s studio.”

Although audiences today are more familiar with his feature films, Walt Disney’s reputation was originally built on shorts. In the 1930s “A Mickey Mouse Cartoon” appeared on theater marquees with the titles of the features, and Disney won 10 Oscars for cartoon shorts between 1932 and 1942. He used the “Silly Symphonies” to train his artists as they geared up to create “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” But after World War II Disney phased out short cartoons because of rising production costs and the minimal amount theater owners would pay for them.

Mr. Hahn said the new shorts would be screened in theaters along with Disney films. “You pay your 10 bucks to see a movie,” he said, “and you get a surprise you hadn’t counted on.” The new shorts will be done in traditional 2-D animation, computer graphics or a combination of the two media, depending on the story and the visual style.

I'm personally the most excited about Goofy's return with How to Install Your Home Theater. The original "How-to" shorts are among animation history's most underrated; it's a pleasure to see that particular theme revived.

The other shorts in production according to the article are The Ballad of Nessie, a stylized account of the origin of the Loch Ness monster; Golgo’s Guest, about a meeting between a Russian frontier guard and an extraterrestrial; and Prep and Landing, in which two inept elves ready a house for Santa’s visit. Each will be released theatrically with a Walt Disney feature film.

Great, great news!

The Disney Studios Christmas Cards: 1949

Anticipating the impending release of Cinderella, Gus and Jaq join Mickey for some traditional holiday caroling.

Silver Creek Springs: A History

The history of Silver Creek Springs, a valley of exquisite beauty and amazing natural wonders, located in America‘s great Northwest, can be traced back to one rugged individual who embodied the frontier spirit of that long ago time. Colonel Ezekiel Moreland first discovered this majestic landscape in the early part of the 19th century, and then later, along with his daughter Genevieve, and soon to be renowned artist Frederich Alonzo Gustaf, returned to settle the area and make it their new home.

Their story is all the more remarkable in that it never really happened. Silver Creek Springs exists neither in the history nor geography of this country’s great western frontier. The area that Ezekiel Moreland described as “a tranquil valley along the shores of a splendid lake,” is in reality located in the heart of Walt Disney World, just minutes from the Magic Kingdom theme park. It is Disney’s Wilderness Lodge Resort.

The story behind the Lodge has been related to guests via The Silver Creek Star, a faux newspaper given to guests at check-in. Mixed with guest services information are a number of articles that relate the stories behind the Lodge’s creation and its many points of interest.

Ezekiel Moreland was a veteran of the War of 1812. Recently widowed and inspired by the accounts of Lewis and Clark, the retired colonel mounted a westbound expedition in 1823. His party of fifty or so intrepid adventurers however, quickly met with disaster. A buffalo stampede, some ten thousand animals strong, destroyed nearly all their provisions a mere eighty miles up the Missouri River from their starting point. They limped back to St. Louis, and all but Moreland gave up on the expedition. In a letter to daughter Genevieve he wrote:

“I take to the wilderness alone. The good earth will provide me with everything I need to survive. I have my gun. I have my courage and I have my determination. What need I of anything else, especially of cowardly scoundrels who turn ashen in the face of the smallest adversity.”

Two years later, Moreland would emerge back out of the wilderness and send for his daughter, engaging her with news of the paradise he had uncovered. Moreland had also become a wealthy man, having brought back from his travels a substantial collection of beaver pelts and other furs. Intrigued by her father’s good fortune and unbridled passion, Genevieve, a young art curator, took a leave of absence and set out for St. Louis where her father was waiting. Joining her as a traveling companion was the young Austrian artist Alonzo Gustaf who desired to capture in painting the new frontier he had been hearing so much about.

Upon arriving in the valley of Silver Creek Springs, Genevieve and Gustaf found their destinies newly defined. According to the Silver Creek Star:

“Using the small fortune her father had raised from the fur trade, they brought out a crew of men from St. Louis and had a small lodge built near the fresh water spring. Jenny would remain in Silver Creek Springs for the remainder of her life. She established a preservation area in her father's honor, where others could enjoy the natural beauty of the wilderness. The Wilderness Lodge welcomed artists, scientists and nature lovers of all kinds over the years. As the number of visitors grew, the Lodge expanded to accommodate them. Eventually, they added rooms that grew around the spring, making it part of the Wilderness Lodge.”

Coming Soon: The stories behind Artist Point, Silver Creek, Fire Rock Geyser and the Grand Canyon Fireplace.

The Disney Studios Christmas Cards: 1974

Mickey and Pluto fill in for Santa and Rudolph in this sleigh ride from 1974.