Roy E. Disney and the Second Golden Age of Disney Animation
When we got back to our seats the first announcement was NO Photography in this next session.
But oh well, at least there is Google Images!
The second session started off with a hilarious short called Mickeys Audition. It was done in 1992 (thank you IMDb!) Mickey was sitting in the executive chair, Angela Lansbury came in as his secretary, and gave him piles of paperwork to go through. But he was more interested in reminiscing about the good ole days (as he looked at a picture on the desk). Michael Eisner comes in and asks how things are going in Florida, and that Mickey better get it all figured out. Eisner exits and Mickey picks up his Michael Eisner phone to make the call. Start the dream sequence, he shows up at the audition, which is run by Mel Brooks, the cameos just keep flying by, Dom DeLuise, Ed Begley Jr., Roy E. Disney playing his uncle Walt. It was wild, whacky and fun!
Following the short, our panel came out to greet us.
John MuskerNoted Disney animation writer, director, and producer whose directorial Disney film credits include some of Disneys most successful animated films The Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Hercules, and The Princess and the Frog.
Ron ClementsNoted Disney animation writer, director, and producer whose directorial Disney film credits include some of Disneys most successful animated films The Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Hercules, and The Princess and the Frog.
Dave BossertAuthor of an upcoming book on Roy E. Disney, and creative director and head of special projects at Walt Disney Animation Studios; artistic coordinator and visual effects supervisor on Fantasia/2000 and associate producer of the short Destino among many other accomplishments.
Don HahnNoted author, Disney animation historian, and producer of some of Disneys most successful animated films of the second golden age, including Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Emperors New Groove.
Roy P. DisneySon of Disney Legend Roy E. Disney, former Disney Imagineer, and first-hand witness to Disney animations second Golden Age.
Ill have more on the above picture later. They started off by showing some pictures of Roy when he was a boy. I was able to find one of them on the internet. This photo has Roy O Disney on the left, his wife, not sure the next guy, but there is Walt, the woman next to him is NOT Lillian, the young girl is the model for Alice and Roy E Disney is on the right end.
Heres another from that same day, not sure if they showed this one.
They showed a couple other exclusive shots from his wedding and honeymoon.
Heres a shot while he is still fairly young.
Roy was never handed a job at Disney Studios in fact he actually started off at NBC. He was working on Dragnet which was filmed on the studios, but it was not a Disney venture. When that ended he literally had to beg for a job. His first project was to work on the True Life Adventures Series which was about animals in the wild.
Heres another with him and Ward Kimball and I assume one of the other nine old men.
They played a clip of Roy talking about one of the episodes of True Life Adventures, and not having the proper footage. They were out in the wild filming some ducks which were landing on a lake, frozen solid with ice. Now this is kind of one of those you had to be there moments, but I will try to explain it to you and use your imagination. At least it will give you an expectation of the level that Walt demanded from his employees.
So during the filming, one duck didnt compensate properly and his landing was less than graceful. He slid into a gaggle of already landed ducks, and just as he started to make contact with the other ducks the camera man stopped filming!
So later Roy is showing the footage to Walt, and when the film stops, Walt asks, Where is the rest of the film?
Roy says, Thats it, the camera man stopped filming.
Oh, no, Im sure the footage is there. Walt tells him.
So Roy spent the next week viewing all the footage, looking over the shoulders of the librarian. He told Walt once more that the film was just not there. Walt told him to go back and look again. So they flew out to some lake in Idaho where it was still frozen and literally started tossing ducks at each other. Evidently after a few takes, the ducks got wise to what was going on. Some tried to run away knowing a colliding duck was approaching, others were reluctant to stay in the group. But eventually they got some duck colliding video.
It was pretty hilarious to watch all the takes that they did, because this time they DID NOT want to miss out on the duck crashing. They did it over and over until the ducks refused to participate, which evidently happened fairly quickly. When Roy finally came back with the footage, Walt said, I knew you had it! Roy was pretty sure that he meant for them to go back and shoot it again all along at whatever cost.
Roy really loved animals and he was instrumental in building the Animal Kingdom Park and Lodge, so all you Jamborinis and Kidanites should thank Roy for our love! A lot of this love came from the True Life Adventures that he produced and they proved invaluable to him over the years. OK, so Im reporting this in the order that they told it to us, but now as I kind of look back, they did a little backtracking so bear with me.
When the studio was working on the LM they looked at the underwater True Life adventures and the Octopus that they had filmed for that series gyrated and moved perfectly for the song that Alan Menken had composed for Ursula, and that is how she came to be an Octopus. Part of their research involved putting a poor little actress inside of a frigid tank of water so that they could examine how her hair moved in the water.
After this they showed a picture of the Board of Directors once Walt had died. Im not sure if Roy was in there or not, he wasnt in charge if he was in the picture. Tim Oday commented that they must have invested quite a bit into encyclopedia stock because behind them were rows and rows of books in bookcases all around them that resembled encyclopedias!
Willie (Reitherman I think) taught Roy to fly a plane, and we saw a picture of his family on the steps of said plane (now in HS), but because he took a wife he was no longer allowed to fly.
They also showed a childhood photo of Roy O Disneys children standing in front of Cinderellas Castle when it was just a mound of dirt.
One of the big things in Roy E Disneys life was that he funded and supported Cal Arts. For those of you who dont live in the So Cal area, this is a very avant garde arts school in the Santa Clarita area, near Magic Mountain (if that helps) and I remember stories about this place when I was in college, not sayin how many decades ago!
But I always heard it was a really wild sort of place. For those who are musicians and understand about practice rooms, lets just say they had the most liberal of practice rooms! Well the Chenard Art Institute was the one that taught all the classes at the Disney studios and thats the one that Frank and Ollie left Stanford to go study at.
Cal Arts opened in 1970 and it was sort of the extension of the Chenard Institute. However, If Roy Disney hadnt funded the place, it never would have survived. Any of you who were alive in 1970 or the decade following, know that it was a pretty weird time. This was one of the first times that we heard from Roy Patrick Disney on the panel and he recounted that when his father went out to meet with the Board of Cal Arts, they found the President of the school and two other Board members naked in the fountain.
It was quite a time for ideas, expansion and the new generation throwing out everything from the old generation. Several of the guys on the panel attended Cal Arts and they attested that there was still naked swimming in 1975. This was a difficult time. The conservative Disney company was working with a group of avant garde artists grooming them for their studio, but Cal Arts was really instrumental in feeding Disney with talented artists.
So by 1983-84 Animation was key on the chopping block, it was expensive and Disney really didnt know what to do with it. Roy said, Let me take care of it and he saved animation. This was the age of VHS releases and he didnt allow Snow White or Fantasia to be released onto Video Tape, but he allowed all the other feature animations to be released.
Roy was the one who brought back the schedule that an animated feature needs to come out every year. Since it takes 3-4 years to produce an animated feature they needed to get the schedule together. This was around the time of Oliver and Company, so they had Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin in the works. BTW they actually hit all their release dates!
Everyone agreed that even for as well off as Roy and his family was, they were still very thrift conscious. One of the panelists remembers a retreat at the Biltmore in Santa Barbara where Roy came down to one of the meetings and told everyone, Dont eat the cashews in your room, theyre $11 a can!.
Don Hahn told a story about how we wanted to really impress Roy and his wife while out to dinner in France, so he ordered a really nice bottle of wine (about $200) while they were out to dinner. Both Roy and his wife declined drinking any wine that night, so he was left to drink the entire $200 bottle by himself.
When the Roy E Disney Animation Building was built at the Walt Disney studios, there was a hat in the front and center of the building. This was Roys ceremonial office, where he would be interviewed by dignitaries, and TV people. When the building was built he was a chain smoker so they had a special ventilation system installed that would pipe the air out of the office. The funny thing is that shortly after they built the place, he quit smoking!
Roy loved animals, and the Animal Kingdom park was really his baby. He would visit the veterinary department there. They showed a picture of him observing a check up on a cheetah (who was completely sedated). The funny thing is that they all the panelists kept insisting that this cheetah really is alive, they just couldnt work on him with out sedation. This picture was probably taken the same as the picture that I described.
Roy loved being a pilot, but when he got married, his wife quickly squashed that dream, so instead he took up sailing. They talked about how much he loved it, from the actual sailing of the ship to purchasing the supplies and food for the journey. His favorite meal on the ship was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and he liked to make them himself to get the perfect ratio of spread to bread. Also we wasnt just the captain of the ship, he was really a member of the sailing crew and enjoyed it until the very end.
Now I mentioned at the beginning that I would have a little bit more on the picture of Roy Patrick Disney. The picture of of him was from the session I just covered at the very end. There is a special award that Roy O Disney created for Walt called the Mickey Award, to be given to employees who exhibited special merit and Roy Patrick was given one. He was defitely touched by the gesture, it was one of "those moments".
Next up, Disney Animation Today!
I had nine pages of notes, just for that last seminar! I suffer from CRAFT, and learned that at the first Destination D. I got back to my room and wondered, how many outcomes will the new Star Tours have? Was it 52 or 28? 
Since then I bring a spiral notebook and multiple pens. I've had pens run out on me now at both the Destination Ds. The first one I had to start taking notes on my phone and then when my battery started to go I had to use Fran's! 
