Pixar's Route 66: The Wigwam Village Motels

Sally's Cozy Cone Motel was the place to stay in Radiator Springs.  The set piece from the Pixar animated feature Cars owes it inspiration to the now iconic Wigwam Village chain of motels that originated in the 1930s and 1940s.  There were originally seven Wigwam Villages scattered across the USA, but now only three remain. Two are located on the Mother Road--Route 66.  On our Californy or Bust road trip, we visited Wigwam Village #6 in Holbrook, Arizona. The other surviving villages are located in San Bernadino, California and Cave City, Kentucky.  All three remaining locations are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Wigwam Village was the brainchild of Frank A. Redford, who built the first one in Horse Cave, Kentucky in 1933, and patented the design for the complex. Other villages emerged over the next two decades, including locations in Alabama, New Orleans and Orlando, Florida.  Redford himself built Village #7 in Rialto in the late 1940s. Arizona motel entrepreneur Chester E. Lewis secured the rights from Redford to build his own version of the unique design, and opened Village #6 in Holbrook in 1950.

Vintage postcard of Wigwam Village #6 in Holbrook Arizona

The design of the Cozy Cone office and lobby building was influenced in many ways by the Blue Swallow Motel, located on Route 66 in Tucumari, New Mexico.  The Blue Swallow is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Pixar's Route 66: The U-Drop-Inn

Nearly eight decades ago, the U-Drop Inn opened as an oasis of sorts on the then busy Route 66 highway in the Texas panhandle.  Located in the tiny town of Shamrock near the Oklahoma-Texas border, the U-Drop Inn opened for business on April 1, 1936 and was the only cafe within one hundred miles of Shamrock.

Original owner and operator John Nunn created the design for the establishment, literally scratching it out in the dirt of a nearby motel parking area.  Texas architect J. C. Berry drew up the plans on real paper.  Seventy years later, Pixar artists would translate the art deco-inspired design into Ramone's Body Shop in the 2006 feature film Cars.

After decades of decline, the U-Drop Inn was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997, and a restoration was completed in 2003.  It currently serves as a museum, visitors center, gift shop and headquarters of the local chamber of commerce.

On the Open Road!

"Every day another new adventure, every mile another new zip code!"

Today, we hit the open road!

It's Californy er Bust--day one of our twelve day cross-country road trip, traveling from North Carolina to California and back again.  My son Jake and I will be navigating both backroads and interstates and blogging as we go.  So, to get things started here at 2719 Hyperion, we decided to celebrate one of Disney's most underrated gems, and a film that reflects our own current highway adventure.

A Goofy Movie celebrated its 20th anniversary this year.  It remains an unassuming little film that continues to be quickly dismissed by most Disney aficionados, and sadly rejected by animation scholars and movie critics (currently at 53% on Rotten Tomatoes).   But if you cast aside mainstream opinions and talk to individuals who were parents and kids back in 1995, you'll discover many who speak of the movie in glowing, and often reverential terms.  There was even a group of folks who just a few years ago, produced an elaborate live action recreation of the film's opening musical number.  Why?  Because, as was noted on their website, "we love Goofy and A Goofy Movie.  It is such a big factor in our childhood."

It certainly was an unusual concept at the time.  It came on the heels of the Disney animation renaissance, sandwiched in between The Lion King and Pocahontas, and preceded the first Toy Story and the subsequent Pixar revolution by six months.  It was a modest production, largely outsourced to satellite Disney animation studios in Paris and Australia.  The premise and many of the characters were lifted from the syndicated television show Goof Troop. That pedigree, and its Disney MovieToons brand, clearly relegated it to a status more closely associated with the company's much maligned direct-to-video product, commonly referred to as the "cheap-quels." This, despite the fact that it was jointly produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and Walt Disney Animation France.

It is a film of many virtues.  Essentially a down-to-earth family comedy (albeit one featuring anthropomorphic dog-like characters), it showcased a parent-child generation gap that its audience seemed to immediately recognize and relate to.  Sprinkled in were well-crafted musical numbers, including two near-showstoppers: the opening "After Today" and the visually dense and high energy extravaganza "On the Open Road."

The Possum Posse--Lester, Buford, Beulah and Mortici

It also contains one of the funniest vignettes in a Disney movie.  When Goofy and Max visit Lester's Possum Park, it results in a hilarious send-up of both decaying roadside attractions and Disney's own Country Bear Jamboree.  My two sons made the high-pitched exclamation, "Who's your favorite possum?" a mantra in our household for years after the film's release.  It was a rather bold satire from a studio not typically receptive to that degree of self parody.

A Goofy Movie will never be considered top tier Disney entertainment, but it remains a fun and endearing film, largely forgotten by most, but passionately remembered and loved by many.

Road Trip Addendum

"Howdy boys, is this the way to Nashville?"

Leaving Winston-Salem, North Carolina, we pass directly through Nashville as we cross Tennessee and Arkansas.  For more details, check out our road trip diary and other road trip features on Boom-Pop!

Freeze Frame! - "It's Californ-I-A or Bust!"

Relating directly to our post today showcasing A Goofy Movie, we present this Freeze Frame! featuring two other characters who managed cameos in that film's musical number "On the Open Road."  Mickey proclaims in song our own current road trip mantra, albeit with slightly different enunciation.  

Revisiting Roadside Disney: Trailer Tales

Editor's Note: This week, in anticipation of our upcoming Californy er Bust cross-country road trip (departing Saturday, June 13), we will be reprinting articles from our Roadside Disney category. Enjoy!
It is an icon of roadside popular culture. A home on the road for tin can tourists. Over the years, Disney cartoon makers incorporated the American travel trailer into a number of short subjects, but perhaps never more famously than in the Technicolor classic Mickey's Trailer, released on May 6, 1938.

Mickey's Trailer was not born out of happenstance. A mere decade earlier, everyman Arthur Sherman, a modest bacteriologist, turned the then fledgling auto camping movement on its ear when he introduced a solid-walled trailer that was devoid of the more traditional canvas and tent based designs that had been popular up to that point. Jokingly dubbed the "Covered Wagon" by Sherman's children, it would launch both a successful new industry and a popular culture phenomenon. In their book Ready to Roll: A Celebration of the Classic American Travel Trailer, authors Arrol Gellner and Douglas Keister elaborated on Sherman's unique achievement:

"Sherman's Covered Wagon Company was a rare success story in the bleakest years of the Depression, and naturally, it attracted notice—both from competitors and from the American press, who were desperate for stories containing some glimmer of economic hope. For their part, Sherman's competitors—including those who had specialized in all manner of sophisticated, fold-out gadgetry—were eventually obliged to adopt the Covered Wagon's hard-walled construction."

This Depression-era trailer boom reached a peak in 1936, followed quickly by an unpredicted and near devastating decline shortly thereafter. Manufacturers dramatically over predicted growth and demand and the bubble quickly burst. This was coupled with a sudden public disenchantment with many aspects of trailer culture. Gellner and Keister noted:

"The media's giddy, rose-colored accounts were gradually supplanted by more hostile examinations of the trailering phenomenon. Trailer parks were pilloried as a new kind of American slum-on-wheels and were even accused of being a breeding ground for epidemics, while trailerites were increasingly portrayed as freeloaders helping themselves to public roads and facilities without paying taxes for their support."
When it was released in 1938, Mickey's Trailer encapsulated many of these both positive and negative associations. Via Walt's well known "Probable Impossible," the canned-ham style trailer featured in the short embodied with extreme exaggeration the trailer manufacturers much hyped claims of style, luxury and countless conveniences. Its interior featured a series of ingenious if not impossible transforming set pieces; a bunk room dramatically morphs into a bathroom (complete with sink and already filled bathtub) and then into its final incarnation as a dinette upon which Mickey serves up breakfast.

Yet the cartoon's creators, in a subtle yet still noticeable manner, poked fun at the various negative associations to trailer culture that began to emerge in the late 1930s. The short's opening reveal of the trio's city dump campsite is indicative of what Gellner and Keister described as local government fears of trailerite slums taking root on city outskirts. The perception of trailer campers as freeloaders is distinctly portrayed when Mickey, without conscience, absconds corn from a nearby farmer's field and similarly draws milk from a passing cow. The background music for that particular scene featured the song "The World Owes Me a Living."
A post-World War II boom returned the travel trailer to a more than receptive American public. The industry itself experienced a distinct split as larger residence-based mobile homes became as equally popular as their recreational-centric counterparts. The smaller travel trailers became linked with then very popular outdoor sportsmen dynamics that included camping, hunting and fishing. This pop culture phenomenon was not lost on Disney animators; they used it to great effect in the 1950 Donald Duck cartoon Trailer Horn. A canned ham-style trailer is the focal point of Chip and Dale's inspired antagonism and Donald's resulting frustration.

In the 1952 cartoon Two Weeks Vacation, Goofy falls victim to a well known highway convention--getting stuck behind a lumbering, slow-moving car and trailer combination. Mixed in the short with the Goof's other road trip pratfalls is a recurring encounter with an oversize and impassable trailer. Similar gags would be revisited quite famously a couple of years later in the classic Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz comedy The Long, Long Trailer.

Disney Imagineers have similarly drawn inspiration from the travel trailer and have peppered Disney theme parks with numerous trailer-inspired set pieces. Trading on mid 20th century nostalgia are trailers that appear in Animal Kingdom's Dinoland, at Disney's Pop Century Resort and in Mickey's Toontown at Disneyland. Trailers were also a featured part of a character greeting area at Disney's Hollywood Studios prior to that particular location's current Pixar Studios redesign. But likely the most prominent use of travel trailers and their connection to roadside culture are the "Elfstream" designs found at Winter Summerland Miniature Golf at Walt Disney World. The theming mixes roadside campground nostalgia with retro Christmas trappings for a truly entertaining and often hilarious experience.

Media Images © Walt Disney Company

Revisiting Roadside Disney: Cartoon Crazy and Studios Programmatic

"At the beginning of the automobile age, in that most car crazy of places, Southern California, roadways were dotted with eye-catching beacons for travelers. Diners shaped like chili bowls, pigs, and coffee pots; hotels and theaters in Aztec and Mayan motifs; and all matter of oddly shaped buildings were part of the western architectural landscape--a trend that spread across the country."

From the book California Crazy and Beyond by Jim Heimann

Programmatic architecture, more commonly referred to as "California Crazy," was a visual mainstay along the roads and highways of southern California for much of the early half of the 20th century. It was not surprising then when Disney cartoon makers drew inspiration from programmatic design when creating the 1949 Donald Duck short All in a Nutshell.

In the cartoon, Donald Duck is the proprietor of a roadside stand called Don's Nut Butter. Shaped like a giant walnut, the stand is not just simply a background element--it is the gag that propels the story. Coveting this huge "nut," Chip and Dale set about attempting to crack its shell. When they breech an opening near the top, they discover its non-organic nature, but then decide to instead dedicate their efforts to pirating off as much of the duck's nut butter as they can possibly manage.

Don's giant walnut was inspired by numerous roadside establishments that were typically produce stands or counter service cafes. Very similar in appearance and style to the Nut Butter stand was the Jumbo Lemon, one of a chain of drink stands with locations throughout California. Other notable examples included the Chili Bowl, the Mushroom Cafe and the Tamale, all small diners that sprang up in southern California during the 1920s and 1930s.

Two years prior to All in a Nutshell, Disney animators made reference to one of the most famous examples of programmatic architecture, in the 1947 feature film Fun and Fancy Free. At the end of film, Willie the Giant is seen walking through the Hollywood landscape, searching for a "teensy-weensy little mouse." He spies the famous bowler hat architecture of the Hollywood Brown Derby Restaurant, picks it up and places it on his head. This very funny and then quite topical gag poked fun at the original Hollywood Brown Derby on Wilshire Avenue and its over the top California Crazy design.

When Disneyland opened in 1955, it could be said that it was in many ways an extension of California Crazy, taken to a much more sophisticated level of design and execution.  But the Walt Disney Company would in fact revisit programmatic architecture in the style's more historic context when, in 1989, the company recreated an idealistic golden age of Hollywood as part of the theming for Disney-MGM Studios. Included in the park's initial design were two very distinct homages to 1930s era California Crazy motifs. Both were located into the Echo Lake area of park; both were counter service food establishments (as were the vast majority of vintage-era programmatic buildings), and they both bore thematic connections to early Hollywood productions.

Dinosaur Gertie's Ice Cream of Extinction paid homage to the star of Windsor McKay's landmark animated cartoon from 1914. Dinosaurs have long been a popular subject for novelty architects and Gertie is similar in design and scale to other roadside dinosaur structures. Other creature-inspired establishments ran the gamut from dogs and chickens to pigs and fish.

Min and Bill's Dockside Diner was inspired by the 1930 film Min and Bill starring Wallace Berry and Marie Dressler. Imagineers drew on the movie's waterfront setting to create the counter service venue that takes the form of a vintage tramp steamer. Nautical design was an especially popular theme of California Crazy, distinguished typically by land-bound ships, boats and even inspired interpretations of Noah's Ark.

In an interesting, and somewhat ironic twist, Imagineers did not reproduce the original bowler hat design when they recreated the Hollywood Brown Derby Restaurant at the Studios park. Instead they based the signature eatery's design on the Hollywood Brown Derby location that was built near the intersection of Hollywood and Vine. But Imagineers did recreate the storefront facade of the Darkroom, a well known Hollywood retail store, for the park's own camera shop on Hollywood Boulevard. And it certainly could be argued that the oft-debated (and recently removed) giant Sorcerer's Hat that became an icon of the Studios is but another shining example of programmatic architecture.

One final interesting Disney-California Crazy connection to make note of: comics writer-illustrator Dave Stevens incorporated one of the more famous programmatic structures, the Bulldog Cafe, into his graphic novel The Rocketeer. Disney recreated the cafe when it adapted the work into a film in 1991, and that particular set piece resided for a number of years on the back lot at Disney-MGM Studios. The original Bulldog Cafe dated back to the 1920s and was located on West Washington Boulevard in Los Angeles. A very similar building, called the Pup Cafe, was a popular hot dog stand and served the citizens of Venice, California during the early 1930s.

Screenshots © Walt Disney Company

Revisiting Roadside Disney: Looking for a Good Night's Sleep

Editor's Note: This week, in anticipation of our upcoming Californy er Bust cross-country road trip (departing Saturday, June 13), we will be reprinting articles from our Roadside Disney category. Enjoy!

One of the themes I revisit often here at 2719 Hyperion is the traces of popular culture that can be found in Disney entertainment, especially in productions from the Studio's first three decades. The emerging dominance of automobile transportation during those decades gave birth to a roadside culture that permeated the American landscape until diminishing with the advent of Interstate highway system in the 1950s and 1960s. Disney artists and animators would often inject their work with roadside inspirations, and its easy to understand why. Based out of southern California, they existed at a focal point of roadside Americana. The mother road, the legendary Route 66, cut a path directly through Hollywood.

Overnight lodgings became necessities for weary automobile travelers. As author John Margolies notes in his book Home Away From Home: Motels in America, "The roadside hostelries that evolved were not only creative and efficient institutions, but they became part of the ethos of American mobility and popular culture. The setting of a motel room or a tourist cabin has provided moments in movies and literature."

The 1947 Donald Duck short Wide Open Spaces is the first time that a Disney character seeks out a motel for a good night's sleep. The Hold-Up Motel is no more than an old house distinguished by its clever gun motif sign, but it evokes an archetype setting made especially famous by Hollywood in countless crime noir films of that time period. Background artist Howard Dunn did a terrific job of capturing that darker, moodier style, even though the tone of the short was generally light and comical. Seedier roadside venues were clearly the inspiration for the Hold-Up Motel and those places were often distinguished as criminal hideaways or as author Margolies remarks," . . . venues of choice for those with less than honorable intentions." Even FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover attacked the tourist camp industry when he wrote an expose called "Camps of Crime" for The American Magazine  in 1940. Fortunately, the only supposed crime Donald encounters at the Hold-Up Hotel is the proprietor charging $16 for "the cot on the porch."

When Goofy took Two Weeks Vacation in 1952, his adventures were the cartoon equivalent of a Route 66 road trip in everything but highway name. At the beginning of the short, a desk bound Goof dreams of golfing, boating, hunting and fishing, but his reality instead becomes roadside escapades involving crooked mechanics, reckless trailer jockeys and the quest for a neon sign proclaiming VACANCY. These vignettes and gags were very much rooted in American roadside culture. Motor courts and tourist cabins were still in their heyday at the time of Two Weeks Vacation, and that is reflected in the backgrounds created by Art Riley.

In his search for lodging, Goofy encounters one of the common marketing mantras of the open road: LAST CHANCE. When countless miles often separated small towns and their roadside establishments, the term LAST CHANCE was frequently used when advertising or identifying restaurants, service stations and motels. To his horror, the Goof discovers he has passed the LAST CHANCE MOTEL and that the NEXT CHANCE MOTEL is still some 500 miles distant. He ultimately arrives at an unnamed motel claiming vacancy. Riley clearly drew inspiration from existing establishments. The motel's adobe architecture can be found in motor courts that dotted the American southwest. The cartoon design is an almost direct copy of vintage motels such as the El Vado Court in Albuquerque and the Adobe Motel in Santa Fe.

Goofy is trumped out of the last room at that particular establishment, but manages to subsequently secure a room at a motel-type that was once a mainstay of automobile travelers: the tourist cabin. In what is perhaps the cartoon's funniest gag, he walks through a quaint and picturesque cottage facade that could have been lifted from a mid-20th century linen postcard. But things are not what they seem, for a ramshackle shack is what lies behind the cottage door.

This is not just a simple cartoon gag; it represents a dynamic that Margolies describes in Home Away From Home:

By 1935, in another article in National Petroleum News, cabin camps were described as being of two types — the $1 cabin and the 50-cent cabin. The dollar cabins weren't all that bad: a bed with good springs, lavatory, toilet, tub or shower, chairs, lamp, and many had interior walls. There was usually a restaurant or a kitchen in a separate building, and some operations even had a swimming pool. The 50-cent cabin was much more spartan, offering little more than a bed with bathroom facilities and electricity, and a lunch-counter-type eating facility. Even so, James Agee, in his 1934 article in Fortune, could wax poetic about "the oddly excellent feel of a weak-springed mattress in a clapboard transient shack."

In the same article, Agee described in detail an even nicer two-dollar cabin: "In this one you find a small, clean room, perhaps ten by twelve. Typically its furniture is a double bed—a sign may have told you it is Simmons, with Beautyrest mattress — a table, two kitchen chairs, a small mirror, a row of hooks. In one corner a washbasin with cold running water; in another the half-opened door to a toilet. There is a bit of chintz curtaining over the screened windows, through which a breeze is blowing. ...Inside you have just what you need for a night's rest, neither more nor less. And you have it with a privacy your hotel could not furnish — for this night this house is your own."

It would appear that Goofy paid for a two-dollar cabin with attractive chintz curtaining, but ended up with the 50-cent transient shack. A closer examination reveals that the bed in the room is in fact an old door propped up with wood posts and bricks. While Art Riley is likely better remembered for his work on such feature films as Snow White and the Seven 
Dwarfs and Pinocchio, his efforts at bringing forth these then mundane scenes of 1950s America have in effect become artistic time capsules of a now bygone era.

While there are many who would likely consider animated incarnations of motel courts and tourist cabins to be no more than cartoon minutia, they are in fact a testament to artists such as Dunn and Riley whose efforts, especially those associated with short subjects, often go uncelebrated. For through their work, they preserved small pieces of history and popular culture that sadly, continue to fade from both memory and view.

Screenshots © Walt Disney Company

Pixar's Route 66

We are just one week away from the start of our epic, cross-country road trip.  For a good portion of our journey, we will be traveling along stretches of old Route 66 from Oklahoma City all the way to California.  On our companion blog Boom-Pop!, we will be Following the Joads, tracing the Route 66 journey of the Joad family, as chronicled by author John Steinbeck in his classic American novel The Grapes of Wrath.  Here at 2719 Hyperion, we will be doing some similar roadside investigating, but will instead focus on the landmarks and places that inspired many of the art designs seen in the Pixar animated feature Cars.

In the film, Lightning McQueen gets lost in the American southwest, finally surfacing in the remote little town of Radiator Springs.  He soon discovers the charms of this once thriving Route 66 community.  Pixar artists mined the Mother Road for ideas, and we will be exploring the numerous locations from which they drew their inspirations.

Our travels begin on Saturday, June 13.  We hope you'll join us as we blog our way across America and get our kicks on Pixar's Route 66!

Californy er Bust!

The immortal words of Goofy will resonate with us very soon.  2719 Hyperion writer and son will embark on an epic cross country road trip this June through the retro heart of America that will include everything from the Mother Road to Walt Disney's Missouri and more.

Twelve days.  Seventeen states.  Sixteen major cities.  Four national parks.  Route 66. Disneyland.  Hollywood.  Monument Valley.  Las Vegas.  Kansas City.  And of course. Marceline, Walt Disney's home town.

Stay tuned to 2719 Hyperion and our companion site Boom-Pop!.  We'll be on the road soon!

Snapshot '73: Early River Life

The Walt Disney World Frontierland of 1973 does in many ways resemble a wild and largely uninhabited wilderness.  This particular snapshot showcases a view looking across the Rivers of America. Barricades can be seen in the distance, though predating any Big Thunder Mountain construction by a number of years.  Tom Sawyer Island, at the photo's right edge, was then a newly opened attraction.

Snapshot '73: Topiary Lane

Wow, it's certainly been a while.

Life took some twists and turns over the past few years and 2719 Hyperion, out of necessity, had to move to the periphery.  Not that this is a return to full-time daily-post blogging; I'm not feeling quite that ambitious as yet.  But I have stumbled across some items of interest and I thought I would share.

First up: a good friend recently discovered some vintage Walt Disney World photographs that her father snapped in 1973.  She found it funny that the photos were by and large scenery set pieces and expository shots, devoid of posturing family members.  After catching my breath, I politely begged her to share with me whatever she could.  She graciously complied.  Hence, my return to Disney blogging and the birth of the new Snapshot '73 series of posts.

Topiary Lane still exists as a small byway just east of the Ticket and Transportation Center, but the majority of the hedge creatures that were present there in 1973 have long since migrated to other pastures.  The topiaries were early eye candy that entertained guests on their tram rides from the parking lot to the TTC.

 This Monorail-view shot provides a better location perspective.

Windows to the Past: The Mickey Mouse Weather House

Forget about the Weather Channel and all those high-tech weather apps on your smart phones and tablets.  In 1948, people predicted the weather the good old fashioned, common sense way--they relied on cartoon characters.  "Watch for balmy days when Mickey is out--beware of rain when Donald's about."

It was as simple as this:

"There is no difficult mechanism to get out of order--nothing complicated to study.  You'll love the beloved Disney clan--Figaro the Cat, the rooster weather vane and Pluto the Pup. The Mickey Mouse Weather House is sturdy, works indoors or out, is made of brightly colored plastic all hand painted."

The Weatherman company out of Chicago sold these types of devices via mail order and advertised primarily in general interest magazines and comic books.  It appears to employ a very basic hygrometer.  For $1.49, it was likely more gimmick than science.  They must have been rather disposable.  I have never ever seen one and a quick eBay search produced no results. 

Lady and the Tramp Arrives on Blu-Ray

Lady and the Tramp is truly a top tier Disney classic.  Characters and story combine with very best of Disney animated technique; it is both an engaging tale and a stunning visual masterpiece.  And it has now been so deservedly migrated to a high definition home entertainment format; its Blu-ray Diamond edition arrived in stores this week.

Seeing Lady and the Tramp a number of years back in its original widescreen aspect ratio (via its first DVD release) was a revelation.  Combine that now with high definition picture and sound and it quickly becomes a Disney enthusiast's dream.  It remains to this day one of Walt Disney's most beautiful animated achievements.  

As with the other releases in the Diamond line, Disney is generous with bonus features although most have been transferred from the previous Platinum Edition.  These include the making-of featurette Lady's Pedigree, Finding Lady; The Art of the Storyboard, the 1943 storyboard version, and various excerpts from the Disneyland television program.  New to the Diamond edition is a sentimental remembrance by Diane Miller Disney entitled Remembering Dad, that focuses primarily on Walt's firehouse apartment at Disneyland.  Also new are three additional deleted scenes from very early in the development process and a deleted song entitled "I'm Free as the Breeze."

The most notable edition to the package is the Disney Second Screen feature that has been included on the previous Diamond editions of Bambi and The Lion King.  To recap once again, Second Screen is an additional interactive platform that provides supplemental content that is synchronized to the actual presentation of the film.  Two such platforms are currently available, either an Apple iPad or a laptop computer.  Second Screen comes to the iPad by way of a free application downloaded via the App Store.  For the Mac or PC, it is a Flash-based interface streamed through Disney's web site.  Second Screen provides a veritable treasure trove of archive materials including production art, photographs and studio history. 

Explore the 2719 Hyperion Archives:
What a Character! - Scamp
Windows to the Past: Lady at the Lowes Grand
Walt Disney's Surprise Package: Lady

Exhibition Hall: Walt Disney's Christmas Carol

Every Christmas season, I still get emails about Walt Disney's Christmas Carol.

In those very early days of 2719 Hyperion, back in the latter months of 2006, I featured what I thought was an interesting, if rather obscure piece of Disney ephemera from the 1950s.  A friend, upon cleaning out the nooks and crannies of his elderly parents' home, presented me with eight torn, water-stained and near crumbling pages that had been removed from a copy of the December 1957 issue of McCalls magazine.  Contained on those pages was an illustrated holiday vignette entitled Walt Disney's Christmas Carol.  It was a perfect match for my fledgling Disney blog and on December 16, 2006, I posted the article Cedric's Christmas Carol that described what I considered a likely long forgotten piece of holiday nostalgia.

Shortly thereafter, the emails started arriving.  I heard from many fellow baby boomers who distinctly remembered this liberal retelling of the Dickens classic from their childhoods.  For many, it was a holiday tradition to read the story on Christmas Eve.  And every correspondence I received included a request for a copy of the story.

With the launch of the 2719 Hyperion Exhibition Hall, I realized I finally had an ideal forum in which to make available the complete text and illustrations of Walt Disney's Christmas Carol.  You can read the complete story in Exhibit Room 3S.  Enjoy!

The Rocketeer: High Flying in High Defintion

First the good news: The Rocketeer has been released in a remastered high defintion Blu-Ray.  It appears that Disney took note of the numerous pundits and bloggers who, earlier in the year, called for such an edition to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the film's original release.  The not-so-good news: the Blu-Ray release is an embarrassing bare bones affair, devoid of all but the film itself.  It is yet another reminder of the sad state of Walt Disney Home Entertainment and its utter lack of interest in marketing to Disney enthusiasts and historians.  With The Rocketeer, they threw us a bone, and as noted, it is a very bare bone indeed.

Since there is so little to say about the new Blu-Ray release, I will reprint the content of the Retro Review I posted earlier this year as part of our own celebration of the film's 20th Anniversary:

Two decades ago, one of Disney's better live-action films met with a severe case of audience apathy. It has since languished in unfortunate obscurity despite being an exceptionally well crafted period adventure and a loving homage to vintage movie serials and 1930s era pulp heroes.

The Rocketeer deserves to fly much, much higher.

I personally found the film to be very much in the tradition of early Disney live-action movies, though in setting, eras removed from the studio's 19th century adventure stories and swashbucklers.  I am always loathe to in any way channel the ghost of Walt Disney, but I think he would have approved of  The Rocketeer, if not necessarily the slightly edgier Dave Stevens' comic books upon which the movie was based.  Much in the way that Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson provided the boyhood nostalgia for Walt that he then successfully translated into motion pictures, the filmmakers behind The Rocketeer similarly tapped into the nostalgia of classic Hollywood B-movies and serials, and combined that inspiration with the new-found romance with aviation that was prevalent during the 1930s .  The result was an exciting and entertaining romp that was largely ignored by film-goers who, during that summer of 1991, were more enticed by the groundbreaking special effects of Terminator 2: Judgment Day and the comedy antics of Billy Crystal in City Slickers.

The Rocketeer was Joe Johnston's sophomore directing effort.  Johnston, a special effects veteran who had cut his teeth with George Lucas on the original Star Wars films, was fresh with success from directing Disney's own Honey I Shrunk the Kids when he was enlisted to helm The Rocketeer.  His special effects background served him well on the assignment and the film's pre-digital-era craftsmanship remains impressive to this day.  Johnston recently directed the excellent The Wolfman remake and is currently wrapping up work on the World Wat II-based Captain America: The First Avenger, set to arrive in theaters this summer.

Beyond its well-executed and fast paced storyline and capable cast, The Rocketeer is a visual cornucopia of 1930s popular culture and Hollywood archetypes.  Aviation pioneer and eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes plays a central role, while Errol Flynn is not so subtly channeled into the villainy of movie star Neville Sinclair, an undercover Nazi agent in pursuit of the jetpack that is the centerpiece of the film.  Also included in the mix is California Crazy architecture in the form of the  Bulldog Cafe; the over-the-top but rather accurate-for-the-era set design of the South Seas Club; the giant German dirigible Luxembourg; the film's climatic showdown at the Griffith Observatory; the true fate of the original and iconic Hollywoodland sign; and a brilliantly realized piece of animated Nazi propaganda showing squadrons of rocket-propelled German soldiers symbolically conquering Europe and North America.

One of the film's most notable components is the perfectly matched score by composer James Horner.  It was an Oscar-worthy effort that went almost entirely unrecognized at the time.  

Disney had intended The Rocketeer to be a trilogy of films, but the lackluster (but not entirely disastrous) box office returns quickly quashed further productions.  The film's troubled production history (screenwriters Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo were fired and rehired several times during the movie's five years of development) and aforementioned box office did not endear it to studio execs, and it has subsequently faded from view. 

Cars 2: Racing Beyond the Cynicism

One could almost imagine the metaphorical arm-twisting that occurred between Disney CEO Robert Iger and Pixar chief John Lasseter, that ultimately resulted in the making of Cars 2.  Beyond the Toy Story films, Pixar has always been generally against sequel-driven inspirations (unlike say, Dreamworks), but Iger, a stalwart believer in franchising, apparently convinced John and company otherwise. Thus Cars 2 arrived in theaters this past summer.  It certainly succeeded commercially but, unusual for Pixar, it was savaged by mainstream critics and not entirely beloved by audiences.  I must with some shame admit that I was not wholly immune to the cynicism that surrounded Cars 2; I skipped it at the multiplex, preferring to wait for its home entertainment release, which occurs this week.

It is certainly difficult to praise the film on any level without appearing to be an Iger/Lasseter apologist.  The film was, after all, created to support a still incredibly lucrative billion dollar toy business, a pedigree that is difficult at best to overlook.  But one cannot also overlook high standards of Pixar craftsmanship and creative energies, and Cars 2 is distinctly infused with both.  Strip away all of the movie's aforementioned external baggage and what is left?  A fun couple of hours, beautifully rendered and well realized, and certainly entertaining. 

Pixar often takes its cues from retro-based themes and in Cars 2 it milks 1960s spy films for inspiration.  Mater takes center stage but his presence is thankfully and necessarily diffused by new characters Finn McMissle and Holley Shiftwell, automobile incarnations of super spies in the James Bond mold.  Lightning McQueen is relegated to a third string supporting player while the rest of the Radiator Springs gang fades even further into the background.  The action is fast and furious; the humor, while never subtle is rarely overdone.  The visuals are spectacular and often eye-popping.  Pixar eye candy remains unmatched in contemporary CG animation.  While it does not break any new ground, neither does it disappoint to the degree many have suggested.  It appears that many critics and viewers are not willing to extend Pixar the same benefit of the doubt they typically show to non-Pixar franchises such as Shrek, Ice Age and Kung Fu Panda.

In keeping with recent Disney DVD packaging/marketing misfires, the non-3D Blu-ray set is a bare bones affair, devoid of extras beyond the Toy Story short Hawaiian Vacation, a Mater's Tall Tale entry, and a director's commentary.  The Mater short, Air Mater, is a not-so subtle introduction to the upcoming direct-to-DVD spinoff Planes, produced by Disney Toon Studios.

Winnie the Pooh - Traditonal, Fresh and Wonderful

Winnie the Pooh, Disney's most recent return to hand-drawn feature animation, proves both traditional and fresh, charming in its simplicity and possessing a gentle humor that inspires smiles and quieter laughter.  It is a wonderful film, especially for the most youngest audience members, but manages to retain a level of sophistication that will certainly satisfy older viewers.  It arrives this week in a myriad of home entertainment formats.

Poor Pooh Bear has been stretched pretty thin over the past couple of decades.  He remains the centerpiece of one of Disney's most lucrative franchises, and hence has been reinterpreted and reinvented almost non-stop since Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree debuted in 1966.  Over this time, the denizens of the Hundred Acre Wood have been brought to life on both film and television via animation (Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and theatrical and direct-to-video features), costumed actors (Welcome to Pooh Corner), bunraku-style puppetry (The Book of Pooh) and rather uninspired and misguided CG animation (My Friends Tigger and Pooh).  In this context, Winnie the Pooh directors Stephen Anderson and Don Hall have done something entirely new and different--they returned to Pooh's roots, as represented by the original A. A. Milne stories and Disney's original short features from the late 1960s.  It's a very welcome creative turn.

The film is a near seamless mixture of beautiful scenery, appropriate music, comfortable storytelling and traditional Pooh silliness, deftly executed to entertain the younger crowd and bring forth nostalgic memories and good feelings to the adults in the crowd.  And with good reason--the credits include names such as Andreas Deja, Mark Henn, Eric Goldberg and Dale Bear.  Most notably, Studio veteran and Disney Legend Burny Mattinson, who worked on the original Pooh films, served as the movie's Story Supervisor.

The new songs by Robert Lopez (Avenue Q and Finding Nemo-The Musical) and his wife Kristen Anderson-Lopez complement recycled Pooh standards by the Sherman Brothers, and the musical sequence "The Backson," is an eye-popping delight with its chalkboard inspired artistry.

DVD bonus features are adequate for the family demographic but slight for the animation enthusiast.  Winnie the Pooh and His Story Too is an all too brief profile of the famous bear and his history.  Also included are five deleted scenes presented by directors Stephen Anderson and Don Hall, and two animated shorts, The Ballad of Nessie and Pooh's Balloon (actually just recycled material from Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree).

Freeze Frame! - Gary Time in Hawaiian Vacation

The newest Pixar cartoon Hawaiian Vacation, featuring the Toy Story gang, arrives next week as part of the Cars 2 DVD.  Quick pause-button reflexes found this homage to film's director Gary Rydstrom.  When Ken and Barbie "sunbathe" as part of their simulated island holiday, they use a kitchen timer branded "Gary Time" to alert them as to when to flip over.

Snapshot Missouri! - Walt Disney Elementary School

How cool would it be to go to school here!

The entrance foyer of the Walt Disney Elementary School in Marceline, Missouri has changed little since its inception more than fifty years ago.  Disney Legend Bob Moore created the cutout mural that adorns the wall.  Additional murals can be found in the school's gymnasium.  The school also features an original flagpole from the 1960 Winter Olympics, of which Walt served as Chairman of Pageantry.

Curse Resistant Pirates Sail into Home Ports

It is still somewhat beyond belief that a series of pirate movies based on a theme park attraction could become a 21st century multi-billion dollar entertainment franchise.  Yet, as Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides proves, Disney's hottest entertainment property still remains commercially viable and surprisingly, critically  bulletproof.  It sails into home entertainment venues this week.

I passed on seeing this latest POTC adventure in a multiplex setting, preferring to wait for a high definition living room experience (a $25 Blu-ray remains a substantially better value than a family of four night at the movies with bloated concession stand prices and 3D surcharges).  My verdict?  It was an exceptionally well-crafted and often visually stunning endeavor with an engaging cast that manages to entertain despite some rather muddled storytelling.  I am an enthusiastic fan of the original POTC trilogy (At World's End included), so I was likely more forgiving of the film's flaws than most.  And although Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow remains the driving force of the franchise, it is Geoffrey Rush's Captain Barbossa, quite prominently featured in On Stranger Tides, that I personally find the greater draw.  With all due respect to Depp, it is the Barbossa character that seems the most rooted in the style and themes of the original theme park presentations.  Penelope Cruz is an adequate if not wholly inspired addition to the ensemble, while Ian McShane's performance as Blackbeard proves somewhat low key and understated.  The script, certainly less complex than previous POTC entries, still frequently suffers when necessary expository dialogue is performed in rather quick and heavily accented pirate-speak orations.

Disney Home Entertainment continues to frustrate with its increasingly maddening strategies of content distribution among its release packages.  Be aware that there are very distinct differences between the normal Blu-ray package and the Blu-ray 3D set that runs an extra $10.  If you are without the need for a 3D copy (which the vast majority of consumer still are), you will be slighted a digital copy of the film and an additional Blu-ray disc of bonus features.  In that regard, I am unable to speak to the quality or significance of these features: Legends of On Stranger Tides, In Search of the Fountain, Last Sail/First Voyage, Under the Scene: Bringing Mermaids to Life, and Deleted and Extended Scenes with Rob Marshall.  The normal Blu-ray does contain a scant handful of bonus features, most significantly the Disney Second Screen.  Also included are Bloopers of the Caribbean and Lego Animated Shorts: Captain Jack's Brick Tales.  It is a shame that Disney continues to penalize consumers who have no need for a 3D Blu-ray version of the movie.