Movie Musings: Disney and More

Disney’s Americana

Knowing that the 4th of July, otherwise known as Independence Day, will be here in three days from now, I thought in this blog we could acknowledge some of the artifacts produced by Disney that acknowledge the history of America. We will talk about movies, television shows, and theme park attractions and why many of them are special today. 

For starters, in 1953 the Disney Studios produced a short called Ben and Me. The short told a fictional story of how a mouse named Amos met and befriended Benjamin Franklin and collaborated with him in contribution to the American Revolution and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The short featured the voice talents of Disney film veterans Sterling Holloway as Amos and Charles Ruggles as Benjamin Franklin. The short also featured Hans Conried as Thomas Jefferson and Bill Thompson as Governor Keith. (Ironically Conried and Thompson also lent their voices to Captain Hook and Mr. Smee in Peter Pan (1953), which was released the same year as “Ben and Me.”) It received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Short Subject, Two-reel, but was beaten by Bear Country (1953) which is a documentary in Walt Disney’s True-Life Adventure Series. (Concidentally, “Ben and Me,” played in front of another one of the True-Life Adventure Series, The Living Desert (1953), which won the first-ever Oscar for Best Documentary!)

In 1954, on the ABC Network, Walt Disney began airing the Davy Crockett series, starring Fess Parker as Crockett and Buddy Ebsen as his sidekick Georgie Russell. The show also featured Hans Conried as Thimblerig. The mini-series had a total of three episodes which aired from December ’54 to February ’55. Later, the mini-series was combined into a feature-length movie called Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier. The show was an incredible hit, and led to production of all kinds of “Crockett,” merchandise, including coonskin caps. More significantly, the show has been referred to as the very first television mini-series ever, though it was a little longer before that term was officially labeled. All of that led to a sequel/prequel production film called Davy Crockett and the River Pirates which aired as a two-episode series from November ’55-December ’55, and was later edited together as a movie in 1956. The show also led to the creation of Davy Crockett Ranch, which opened at the Euro Disney Resort in April 1992. 

Disney has also made short films acknowledging figures in American folklore. In 1948, the studios created Melody Time, which featured a short about the character of Johnny Appleseed and the song “Lord is Good to Me.” Ten years after the film, Disney released the short Paul Bunyan with Thurl Ravenscroft as Bunyan—who in addition to having many Disney voice-over roles—was also known for having voiced Tony the Tiger in all the Frosted Flakes commercials. The short received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Short Subject, Cartoons. Like “Ben and Me,” it can only be seen on the DVD collection Walt Disney Treasures: Wave Five, released in 2005. In 2000, Mark Henn, who was the supervising animator on many of Disney’s princesses, directed a short called John Henry, featuring the voices of Geoffrey Jones and Alfre Woodard—who will next be seen in Disney’s upcoming live-action adaptation of The Lion King (2019).                   

Walt Disney’s all-time favorite U.S. President was Abraham Lincoln, and he was such a huge fan of Lincoln, that as a child he dressed up as Lincoln in school for a special project where he recited the Gettysburg Address from memory in front of his class. His performance was so well received, that he was even asked to give encores to the other classes at school. The memory of this experience stayed with Walt the rest of his life, and ultimately it hatched an idea in his head to build an attraction at Disneyland that would be an homage to Lincoln.

Walt originally planned the idea as a theater show called “One Nation Under God,” with robotic figures of all the U.S. presidents before and after Lincoln, and he planned on testing out the attraction at the New York World’s Fair, before it would move to the Disneyland Resort. When the project was in production, Robert Moses, who was the head of the New York World’s Fair came to the Disney Studio to see it, and he was so impressed that he insisted on having the attraction open at the fair. Walt was satisfied but decided that there was not enough time for them to finish the entire attraction before the opening day of the fair. Thus, the project was made to focus only on Lincoln. With their reliance on historical artifacts and the breakthrough of audio-animatronics, Walt Disney’s imagineers brought to life Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, premiering at the New York World’s Fair just in time, along with three other attractions: It’s a Small World, Carousel of Progress, and Ford’s Magic Skyway. Walt hired actor Royal Dano to provide the voice of the animatronic Lincoln. “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln,” opened at the Disneyland Resort the day after the park turned ten years old on July 18th, 1965. In 2012, Disney-owned company Touchstone Pictures released Lincoln, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln, for which he won both the Oscar and the Golden Globe.

Walt’s original idea for the every-president animatronic attraction was later re-invented by his imagineers for attraction known for The Hall of Presidents, which opened on the Liberty Square in the Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort on October 1st, 1971. The hall includes every president from George Washington to Donald Trump, with Royal Dano reprising his role as Lincoln. (Dano appeared in Disney’s film adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983).) The Liberty Square is also home to The Haunted Mansion attraction, The Muppets Present…Great Moments in American History, and the Liberty Belle Riverboat.   

Disney has acknowledged American History creatively in many different forms, using entertainment to remind us all how our nation got to where it is today.