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  • Blog Post: Who's who on Walt Disney Animation Studios' reboot of Winnie the Pooh

    It is the film that - when Andrew Mooney of Disney Consumer Products revealed that this project was in the works back in June of 2009 at the Licensing International Expo in Las Vegas - made a lot of people go "Huh?" By that I mean: A hand-drawn, feature-length Winnie the Pooh . Which was something...
  • Blog Post: “Waking Sleeping Beauty” celebrates the Second Golden Age of Disney Feature Animation

    Given this documentary’s title, it’s kind of ironic that “ Waking Sleeping Beauty ” got its start the way most of us do when we’re just trying to wake up. Which is with a good, strong cup of coffee. As director Don Hahn recalls, it was November of 2006. Peter Schneider’s latest project – a stage musical...
  • Blog Post: When you work in animation, there’s just no avoiding those Pink Slip Blues

    It was late summer 1958 and things had been going well. The mad rush to wrap the animated feature film, “ Sleeping Beauty ” was finally succeeding, and the film was well on its way to completion. Taking a break from the drawing board, I headed up to the second floor of the Animation Building...
  • Blog Post: Toon Tuesday : My Luncheon with Roy

    I don’t know who came up with the bright idea, but it was a darn good one. What about spending our noon hour with the Vice Chairman of Walt Disney Feature Animation ? Would Roy Edward Disney accept our invitation, we wondered? The only way to find out was to simply ask. The early 1980s proved to...
  • Blog Post: Monday Mouse Watch : “Rapunzel” revealed; a “G-Force” sequel?

    How many of you remember what happened back in March? When the premiere issue of Disney twenty-three hit newsstands and then all the Internet movie news sites went crazy because that magazine featured an article on Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" ? Scans of the pictures that accompanied that piece...
  • Blog Post: Lots of entertaining tails ... er ... tales were told at "The Little Mermaid" 20th anniversary event

    I'll tell you a tale of the bottomless blue And it's hey to the starboard, heave-ho Look out, lad, a mermaid be waiting for you In mysterious fathoms belo w ... Twenty or so years ago, I gathered with a small group in a Walt Disney Animation Studios screening room in Glendale, CA. Directors John Musker...
  • Blog Post: "Dream Worlds" offers look at abandoned Disney animated features

    Who is Hans Bacher ? Trust me, folks. If you're a Disneyana fan, you know this man's work. If you were creeped out by the look of the Beast's lair in " Beauty & the Beast " ... Copyright 2007 Disney Enterprises. All Rights Reserved ... or ever marveled at the clean, crisp design of the logo for the...
  • Blog Post: Animation fans prematurely shoot off their mouths about "Bolt"

    How many of you know the story of the blind men and the elephant ? I bring up this ancient Indian fable because ... Well ... I have to admit that I was highly amused by what happened last Wednesday. When the on-line animation community went completely bananas over those "Bolt" pre-release images . Copyright...
  • Blog Post: "To Infinity and Beyond!" is an entertaining look back at Pixar's first two decades

    There's this genuinely eerie passage in Karen Paik 's " To Infinity and Beyond! The Story of Pixar Animation Studios " ( Chronicle Books , November 2007), which talks about how a single book basically changed the course of John Lasseter 's life. In ninth grade, Lasseter was searching the art section...