1966: The End of a Magical Era
In the 1960s, the Walt Disney Studios were at the top of their game. From the triumphant success of Disneyland, to films like Mary Poppins (1964), and The Jungle Book (1967), to the early development of the “Florida Project,” which would go on to become what we know today as Walt Disney World, the Disney Studios were riding higher than ever before. Sadly, on December 15th, 1966, Walter Elias Disney passed away to cardiac arrest following lung cancer surgery. In honor of my 50th blog, I’d like to tell you about some of the great achievements from Walt’s last prolific years…50 years ago…
In 1964, the same year the studio released “Mary Poppins,” Walt and his brother Roy, purchased over 27,000 acres of land in central Florida for a project that they were to call “Disney World.” It was to include a more elaborate version of Disneyland, which was to be called the Magic Kingdom and it would also include a number of golf courses and resort hotels. The heart of “Disney World,” however, was to be an Experimental Prototype City (or Community) of Tomorrow, or EPCOT, where residents would live, work, and interact using special technology. EPCOT ultimately developed into a Theme Park that opened in 1982, 11 years after the Magic Kingdom opened in 1971. On July 24th, 1966, the New Orleans Square opened at Disneyland. It was one of the last additions to the park overseen by Walt himself. Walt created this to capture the flavor and the architectural detail of New Orleans Bourbon Street. To this day, it is the current park locale to Pirates of the Caribbean attraction and the Haunted Mansion attraction.
In addition to theme parks, with the release of “Poppins,” Walt was also able to achieve his long-term goal of receiving an Academy Award Nomination for Best Picture, a goal he had been hoping to achieve since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Although “Poppins,” lost the Best Picture Oscar to My Fair Lady (1964), it won 5 Academy Awards, out of a total of 13 nominations, including Julie Andrews as Best Actress for her performance as the titular character and Best Original Song “Chim Chim Cheree,” and it also went on to become the biggest hit in the entire history of the studio at that time. (Other live-action films that were in-production around this time were Follow Me, Boys! (1966) and The Happiest Millionaire (1967), which ignited the careers of Golden-Globe-Nominee Kurt Russell and Academy-Award-Nominee Lesley Ann Warren, who appeared together as brother and sister in The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968)).
Walt also first brought Winnie the Pooh into his storytelling universe with the very first “Winnie the Pooh,” short Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966). The short was released on February 4th, 1966, just 10 months prior to Walt’s death. Walt also approved the final storyboarding for The Jungle Book (1967) and The Aristocats (1970), but unfortunately didn’t live to see the final cuts of either film. Each of the above turned out to be hits for the studio, and “Winnie the Pooh,” and “Jungle Book,” spawned several theatrical and direct-to-video sequels, as well as television shows. (The sequel short to “Honey Tree,” Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968) won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject, Cartoons. It also marked the first appearance of the characters of Tigger and Piglet, who hadn’t been in “Honey Tree,” previously.) A live-action adaptation of The Jungle Book was released to theaters on April 15th, 2016, which played to rave reviews. There is currently a live-action adaptation of “Winnie the Pooh,” in development at the studio. Plans for a sequel to “The Aristocats,” were developed, but ultimately scrapped.
In 1966, Walt Disney passed away, an artist at the top of his game. He left behind the most extraordinary legacy in the entertainment industry that no other filmmaker neither prior to him nor since him has ever been able to surmount. He created magical/family-oriented storytelling through the mediums of film, television, and amusement park attractions. It took a great deal of time for the magic to “come back to life,” after his death. While the theme parks have expanded a great deal and have continued to remain popular since their opening dates, it wasn’t until 23 years after his passing that the Disney films finally started again to look as though they had been produced by Walt Disney himself, with the release of The Little Mermaid (1989). Walt once said “Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.” There, undoubtedly, was a great deal of imagination left in Walt Disney and while he might not have gotten to achieve everything that we would have wanted to achieve, I’m sure we can all agree that we would be proud of everything that has happened at his studio since.
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