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I am not nearly old enough to have attended Disneyland in the 1950s. The first time I went to the park, I was five years old. This was the 1970s. But I have long been interested in the park as it existed in those early years: how art directors and set designers used their cinematic skills to recreate...

If you ask Pam Burns-Clair to describe her mother, she’ll tell you that Disney Legend Harriet Burns was not your typical 1950s housewife. “When I was a girl, the shows on TV were Ozzie & Harriet , Leave It to Beaver and I Love Lucy . These women were very much stay-at-home moms with the chocolate...

Last year, after Disney Legend Harriet Burns passed away, Pam Burns-Clair decided to put together a book about her mother. Mind you, what Ms. Burns-Clair had in mind wasn't a traditional biography. But -- rather -- a gathering of memories. Which is why -- in partnership with noted Disney historian Don...

Last Tuesday night, I traveled down to one of the cities I most dislike in all of Southern California: I went to Hollywood . Good ol’ Tinsel Town, with its sidewalk hucksters wearing eBay costumes of Bugs Bunny and SpongeBob , with its endless food courts and faux-trendy boutiques. Hollywood, that theme...

This past Friday, the Disney community lost one of its celebrities. Harriet Burns passed on at the age of 79. She was the first woman hired by WED as an artist. She was born in San Antonio and remained in Texas for most of her young life, venturing only to Dallas to pursue a college degree in art in...

Picking up where we left off yesterday ... The real problems for Disney began to emerge in the fall of 1987. Though the Disney-MGM Studio Backlot had originally been budgeted at $150 million to $300 million, in September Disney received new estimates from architecture and construction firms that placed...

Picking up where we left off yesterday ... Despite the two MCA lawsuits, Disney continued to develop plans for the Disney-MGM Studio Backlot in Burbank . At the helm of the Disney project were two Imagineers: a young Joe Rohde (then 32-years-old) and Rick Rothschild . Their mission was to seamlessly...

Most longtime Disney fans know that Disney’s California Adventure was not Michael Eisner ’s first attempt at establishing a second Disney theme park in California. There was, of course, WESTCOT in Anaheim and Port Disney in Long Beach . But hardly anyone talks about Eisner’s first attempt to bring a...