Animation insiders share their favorite Disneyland memories

Paul Perrello

9 years ago

"To all who come to this happy place: Welcome. Disneyland
is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past — and here youth may
savor the challenge and promise of the future.

Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams
and the hard facts that have created America — with
the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the
world."

Walt Disney
Disneyland Opening Day
July 17, 1955

In honor of Disneyland's
60th anniversary celebration, I recently spoke with a number of animators &
voice actors and then asked them to reflect on the first time they visited the Magic
Kingdom.

For Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera (i.e., the talented
director & producer behind Pixar's most recent box office smash, "Inside
Out"), their fondest memories of visiting Disneyland involved birds,
pirates and a dropped cell phone.

"Welcome to a tropical hideaway, you lucky people, you
If we weren't in the show starting right away
We'd be in the audience too."

— Jose, Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room

"Two highlights for me," offers up Docter. The Tiki Room comes to mind first for the
creative genius behind "Inside Out," "Monsters, Inc," and
"Up." "I still remember
as a kid going to the Tiki Room and seeing these birds come to life all
around," Docter chirps. He says
while some guests might think the
attraction is "quaint and maybe a little rinky-dink, to me that was
absolute magic and I wanted to somehow do that myself."

"Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
We pillage, we plunder, we rifle and loot,
Drink up, me 'earties, you ho."

"The same with Pirates," Docter continues. "I think Pirates of the Caribbean
was one of the other things that was so formative. You walk into what you know is a building and
suddenly you are in the middle of the bayou and then you are in the midst of a
ship skirmish, with the fort," the director reflects. "It was such a cool thing."

For Rivera, who has worked closely with Docter on many of
Disney Pixar's blockbusters, he confesses that he has spent so much time at Disneyland
that he would need a day to talk about all of his experiences but he singled
out a pair during our interview.
"My two memories are first going through as a kid, which I remember
vividly, it was 1974. I can picture it," he fondly recalls as if it was
yesterday.

His second memory involved taking his daughter, Elsa, (named
before the enormous popularity of the character with the 2013 release of
"Frozen") to Disneyland for the first time. "It was the day that Monsters, Inc. opened in
California Adventure," and just like his colleague, he and his family took a
ride on Pirates of the Caribbean. As he held his daughter and climbed into the
boat, "my cell phone slipped out of my pocket and went 'ploop' right into
the water and is still down there in Davy Jones' locker."

Just like director Docter, producer Rivera credits the Disneyland
experience for influencing him and allowing him to pursue his creative
ambitions.

Another creative-type remembers his first visit to Disneyland
but perhaps for the wrong reason. I have
to admire former Disney animator/director and Stitch voice actor Chris Sanders
for admitting that his most vivid recollection upon seeing Disneyland
is that he got sick to his stomach. Sanders says as a young boy growing up in Colorado
he always wanted to visit the Happiest Place
on Earth. "I so idolized the
place," Sanders says. At the age of
seven as he and his family visited Disneyland, Sanders
recalled "when I actually got to see it, I threw up because I was so
excited."

Legendary voice actor Jim Cummings fondly recalls one of his favorite
theme park memories when he came face to face with two of the characters that
he was responsible for bringing to life.
Cummings, perhaps best known as the voice of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger,
too, says while he was riding on Disneyland's "Skyway To Tomorrowland" he looked over the gondola to the ground
below and spotted the two costumed characters.
Cummings said he thought it would be fun to approach them once he got
off the ride and have his photo taken with them. Easier said than done. The actor said he had to convince Pooh and
Tigger who he was by providing them and their cast member handlers with some
dialogue. "It was fun," Cummings
says adding that the characters were "very gracious, you know, lots of
hugs and kisses and it was just a lot of fun."