Chili Just Like Walt Disney Used to Eat

Walt’s own recipe for this family favorite!

So wrap yourself up under your favorite blanket, slot in your favorite Disney movie and relax with the perfect comfort food—Walt style!

Ingredients

Chili
2 lbs. coarse ground beef
2 onions, sliced
2 cloves garlic
¹⁄₂ cup oil
1 cup chopped celery
1 tsp. chili powder (depending on taste)
1 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. dry mustard
1 large can solid pack tomatoes
2 lbs. dry pink beans
Salt

For Extra Zest
Add a pinch of the following spices:
1 little yellow Mexican chili pepper
Coriander seeds
Turmeric
Chili seeds
Cumin seeds
Fennel seeds
Cloves
Cinnamon
Dry ginger

Preparation

Soak beans overnight in cold water. Drain, add water to cover (2 inches over beans), and simmer with onions until tender (about 4 hours). Meanwhile, prepare sauce by browning meat and minced garlic in oil. Add remaining ingredients, and simmer for 1 hour. When beans are tender, add sauce to beans and simmer for ¹⁄₂ hour. Serves 6 to 8.

Aladdin on Broadway Takes Over New York’s New Amsterdam Theatre

January 30, 2014March 27, 2018

The wait is almost over!

Watch Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theatre prepare for the arrival of Disney’s new musical:

Disney’s all-new musical Aladdin, adapted from centuries-old Arabian folktales including One Thousand and One Nights, is only a month away from opening, and the New Amsterdam Theatre is transforming to welcome Prince Ali Ababwa.

Located in the heart of Times Square, the historic New Amsterdam Theatre is one of New York City’s most stunning Broadway theaters. It was built in 1903 and was once home to the legendary Ziegfeld Follies. Before Disney’s Aladdin, the New Amsterdam Theatre was previously home to the stage musical Mary Poppins.

This brand-new stage production is directed and choreographed by Tony Award® winner Casey Nicholaw, and composed by Tony Award® winner Alan Menken. It features lyrics penned by the legendary Howard Ashman and Tony Award® winner Tim Rice, with book and additional lyrics by Chad Beguelin. Aladdin also showcases an incomparable design team with exquisite sets, costumes and lighting by multiple Tony Award® winners Bob Crowley, Gregg Barnes and Natasha Katz.

Journey into the rehearsal studio:

Director and Choreographer Casey Nicholaw talks about the Disney’s new musical comedy:

Director and choreographer Casey Nicholaw and the show’s writers had previously collaborated on a well-received pilot production of the musical at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre in summer 2011 mounted for a limited run with the goal of trying out new material and structure. The Broadway version will be an entirely new production featuring a new script, tunestack and a wholly original design scaled to the Broadway stage and an epic story.

Book writer Chad Beguelin, talks about the development:

Previous live versions of the film, unrelated to the new Broadway production, have included Disney’s Aladdin – A Musical Spectacular at Disney California Adventure, regional productions of the show licensed last summer and versions of the script which have been available to schools for several years.

Adam Jacobs (Aladdin) has appeared on Broadway as Marius in Les Miserables and Simba in The Lion King.

James Monroe Iglehart (Genie) appeared in Memphis and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

Courtney Reed (Jasmine) has appeared in the Broadway productions of In the Heights and Mamma Mia.

As Jafar, Jonathan Freeman brings to the stage the role he indelibly created in the animated film. His Broadway credits include The Little Mermaid, The Producers and his Tony®-nominated turn in She Loves Me.

The show also stars Brian Gonzales, Brandon O’Neill, and Jonathan Schwartz as Aladdin’s sidekicks Babkak, Kassim, and Omar. Clifton Davis (Sultan) returns to Broadway where he received his first Tony nomination for the landmark production of Two Gentlemen of Verona in 1971; and Don Darryl Rivera as Iago. Merwin Foard and Michael James Scott will standby for several principals.

Aladdin comes to Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theatre February 26.

California Grill’s Chocolate Lava Cake

For those of you with a sweet tooth

—or a mouth full of them!—we recommend this sinfully sweet recipe, the mouth-wateringly perfect “topping of the cake” to any of your own home-cooked culinary masterpieces. Then again, who really needs a meal when you can proceed directly to this molten deliciousness? While this delectable dessert is no longer available at California grill, you can treat yourself at home!

Ingredients

8 1-ounce semisweet chocolate squares, chopped or 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 sticks of butter
5 egg yolks
4 whole eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour

Preparation

Preheat oven to 375°F.
Lightly butter sides of 6 individual (3/4 cup) ramekins. Lightly coat with sugar, shake out excess.
Melt chocolate and butter in top of double boiler set over simmering water. Stir until smooth.
Remove from over water and cool 10 minutes.
Beat egg yolks and whole eggs together in a large bowl; add sugar and beat until thick and light, about 2 minutes.
Fold in chocolate mixture. Sift flour, then fold into batter, mixing until smooth.
Divide batter among prepared cups, filling 3/4 full. Place on a baking sheet and bake about 35 to 40 minutes or until sides of cake are set and middle is still soft. Do not over-bake.
Using a small knife, cut around sides of cakes to loosen. Invert onto plates and serve with your favorite ice cream. Serves 6.

Cook’s Notes
You can also use muffin tins; recipe makes 12. Bake for 15 minutes or until set and middle is still soft.

Sleeping Beauty is as Beautiful as Ever at 55

On this day in 1959, Sleeping Beauty was awakened in theaters across the country. Based on the classic fairy tale and including musical themes from Tchaikovsky’s famous ballet version of the story, the entire look of the film was different from any animated movie ever produced, partly because of a budget that exceeded $6 million dollars—the most expensive of any of Disney’s features to date—and largely due to the unique painting style of artist Eyvind Earle.

The title role of sleeping beauty Princess Aurora, was voiced by Mary Costa. Her performance launched a successful singing career that has included everything from appearing with Frank Sinatra to singing at the Metropolitan Opera.

Mary told D23 about one particular memory of seeing the film. “When my mother was in her late 90s, I took her to a small complex to see Sleeping Beauty. She was sitting by me on my right and no one knew who we were. She just loved it. She had seen it before, but she just loved it and she just chuckled over it. During one scene my mother said, ‘(rather loudly) Oh, Mary! That looks just like you!’ Everybody turned around. I had to put my hand over her mouth. She never was a stage mother ever. She was extremely supportive and was a lady of great faith and she was just my buddy and my friend. But I can’t see [the movie] to this day without thinking of how sweet that was.”

In spectacular style, the film recounts the simple story of Princess Aurora, who is cursed by the evil fairy Maleficent to die before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday by pricking her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel.

Despite the loving attempts of the three good but often bumbling fairies, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, the curse is fulfilled. The good fairies put everyone in the castle into a deep sleep until the spell can be broken.

It is only with the aid of Prince Phillip that Maleficent, transformed into a towering, fire-breathing dragon, is destroyed, and the Sleeping Beauty is awakened by a kiss.

The great voice cast included Bill Shirley as Prince Phillip. Bill was a stage and film performer, and was the uncredited singing voice for “On the Street Where You Live” in 1964′s My Fair Lady. The evil Maleficent was voiced by Eleanor Audley, who began her career as a radio actress in shows such as Father Knows Best and then successfully moved on to film and television. For Disney, she also voiced the wicked stepmother Lady Tremaine in Cinderella and the voice of Madame Leota inside the crystal ball for the Haunted Mansion Disney park attraction.

Concept Art From the Goofy Short How to Be a Lumberjack That Never Was Released

We all recall Mickey’s deeds of giant-clobbering glory as the Brave Little Tailor. Not to mention Donald Duck’s trip to Bahia—and Goofy’s super-goofy horseback riding lessons! But how many of us remember Mickey’s battle with a desert bandit? Or Goofy’s goof-ups as a lumberjack? Or Donald’s fight against an ultra-annoying teenage robot?

These cool cartoon concepts were developed alongside the classics we love; but unlike them, never got completed or released. Today they are footnotes in Disney history—

fascinating footnotes we want to know more about!

Join us as we vacuum the cutting room floor . . . for an up-close look at the untold tale, How to Be a Lumberjack.

A narrator loftily explains how “virgin timber” is “Nature’s most precious gift to man,” and its harvest is managed by “that almost-legendary figure—the lumberjack!” But Goofy, our demo model, is almost-legendary for goofing up! Lumberjack Goof wastes no time getting a longsaw stuck in his overalls. Then he tries to chop down an undersized runt tree; an un-choppable petrified tree; and a whole line of telephone poles. Gawrsh!

“Tree-topping is the lumberjack’s most dangerous job . . . every precaution known to science is employed to ensure his safety.” Alas, Goofy’s hi-tech safety seat catapults him into a lumber flume. He jumps in a hollow log to stay afloat—and ends up just missing a deadly sawmill blade!

“A dangerous life, you say? Yes; but thanks to these fearless men of the woods, [we have] 1001 life-sustaining necessities such as the chopstick, the yo-yo, the pogo stick, and that great old American tradition . . . the hot foot.”

Poor Goofy gets to demonstrate that, too—with a burning wooden match in his shoe. “YEOW!”

Disney’s axe-handled epic grew up from a twig—starting in the 1930s, when it was first planned to star Donald. In that form, it sort of reached the public eye: Disney’s licensed children’s page in Good Housekeeping magazine was just then adapting shorts in development, and “Lumberjack Donald” (October 1937) was included. This 1937 Good Housekeeping page represents the original Duck-centric version of Lumberjack. Penciled by Manuel Gonzales, painted finals by Tom Wood.

But the Duck finally landed in a very different treetop tale—1941’s Timber—and the woodman how-to reel was rebuilt for Goofy instead. Full storyboards were created . . . but then the story got the chop, and we’re not sure why.

Lumberjack is as funny as many Goof tales that reached the screen; somehow, the fertilizer must have run out.

Epic Darkwing Duck Concept Art

January 16, 2014July 27, 2017

Dreamed up in the minds of the animators at Disney Television Animation and brought to life on television, the city of St. Canard was filled with dark corners, fast cars, and lots and lots of bad guys. We recently came across some of the original concept art for the television series and just had to share with you. The concept art shows the beginnings of some of the famous characters, vehicles, and locations that became popular in the Disney Afternoon television show Darkwing Duck. The art shows early versions of some of the characters from the show, including Taurus Bulba, Major Synapse, J. Gander Hooter, plus a not-so-ducky version of the Thunderquack.

Let’s get dangerous!

A Peek Inside Jerry Bruckheimer’s Santa Monica Studio

Jerry Bruckheimer invited D23 to his Santa Monica production studio to talk about 40 years of filmmaking and about his new book Jerry Bruckheimer: When Lightning Strikes | Four Decades of Filmmaking. The book reveals the stories behind his films and television shows, written by Michael Singer, who has worked beside the producer in deserts, on tropical islands, and at every conceivable filming location in between.

See Our Interview With Jerry Bruckheimer at His Santa Monica Studio ►

Jerry Bruckheimer When Lighting Strikes Book Signing

40 Years of Filmmaking

A Peek Inside Jerry Bruckheimer’s Santa Monica Studio ►

Miss Piggy: A Pig for All Seasons

January 13, 2014February 8, 2019

By Jim Fanning

It’s a New Year and every swimsuit model, football player or movie star who has their own calendar this January owes it all to the biggest celeb of all. That’s right, it was none other than Miss Piggy who started the whole celebrity calendar craze.

“There were no personality calendars back then,” Michael Frith explained. “No Cindy Crawford, no guys from Chippendale’s. Piggy’s calendar was something completely new.” With this inimitable Muppet diva as everyone’s favorite calendar girl, it’s no wonder we love Miss Piggy every day of the year.

A month-by-month monument to the Muppet goddess’ magnificence, the first Miss Piggy Calendar was issued for 1980, designed and directed by Michael K. Frith. The Muppet design maven created the wall calendar after mocking up some test shots and shooting them with a Polaroid camera to demonstrate how Miss Piggy could stylishly pose in sumptuous, albeit, satirical settings.

The calendar’s enormous success demanded a fabulous follow-up. The Miss Piggy Cover Girl Fantasy Calendar 1981 showcased “the Glamorous International Superstar” in elaborately designed and photographed imaginary backdrops.

The twist is that each month featured Piggy’s dreams of cover girl fame, with parodies of magazine covers in the exact style of each periodical.

Among other prime publications, Piggy graces the cover of Time (in which she is proclaimed Pig of the Year) and Cosmopolitan, featuring a true glam shot of the fab fashionista that was also used for the cover of the calendar’s box.

Jim Henson was particularly pleased with this calendar (with photography by Nancy Moran and Donal Holway and costumes by Miss Piggy’s own stylist, Calista Hendrickson), which was another megahit, creating the celebrity calendar trend that continues to thrive today.

Disney’s 2013 In Memoriam

January 9, 2014March 27, 2018

D23 remembers those contributors to The Walt Disney Company who passed away in 2013.

Petro Vlahos (1916 – 2013)
Petro Vlahos received a special Scientific award with Wadsworth E. Pohl, and Ub Iwerks from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his work on Mary Poppins. They received the award for the creation and application to use of Color Traveling Matte Composite Cinematography, which helped make possible the combination of live action with animated actors in the film. The special-effects work on Mary Poppins was the most challenging the studio had ever known. Everything from the two-strip sodium process and piano wire to bungee cords were used to create the magical sequences. The work of the special-effects crew, as well as all the production staff, was the culmination of years of Disney innovation.

Norman “Stormy” Palmer (1918-2013)
His onetime assistant, former company vice chairman Roy E. Disney, once recalled, “I particularly remember Stormy’s work on the film Water Birds. For one sequence, he cut images of birds flying to Liszt’s Second Hungarian Rhapsody. This was the Studio’s Fantasia of the nature films, and not only did it create a whole new genre, but it won an Academy Award^®.

Roger Ebert (1942-2013)
Roger Ebert was part of the Disney syndicated television series Siskel & Ebert, which began on September 18, 1986. Chicago film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert reviewed current films each week. Originally aired as Siskel & Ebert and the Movies. Gene Siskel passed away in February 1999. For the 1999-2000 season, beginning September 4, 1999, the title of the show was changed to Roger Ebert & the Movies. In 2000 it became Ebert & Roeper and the Movies when Richard Roeper joined the cast.

Annette Funicello (1942-2013)
Mouseketeer Annette Funicello won people’s hearts with her shy yet friendly smile, and by the end of the first season of the Mickey Mouse Club, her fan mail had ballooned to 6,000 letters a month. In 1955, at the age of 12, she performed the lead role in Swan Lake at the Burbank Starlight Bowl. Little did she know at the time, Walt Disney was sitting in the audience; he was there scouting children for his new television show, the Mickey Mouse Club. The next day, Annette’s dance school received a call from the Studio asking to see the little girl who played the Swan Queen. Annette soon became the 24th Mouseketeer. She would go on to be cast in several of the show’s serials, including Adventures in Dairyland and Spin and Marty. In 1959, after the Mickey Mouse Club disbanded, Annette was kept on contract with the Walt Disney Studio and went on to appear in many television shows, including Zorro, The Horsemasters, and Elfego Baca, as well as feature films The Shaggy Dog, Babes in Toyland, and The Monkey’s Uncle.

James Gandolfini (1961-2013)
James Gandolfini appeared in A Stranger Among Us (Tony Baldessari), Money for Nothing (Billy Coyle), Angie (Vinnie), Terminal Velocity (Ben Pinkwater), Crimson Tide (Lt. Bobby Dougherty), A Civil Action (Al Love). He was best known for portraying Tony Soprano in HBO’s series, The Sopranos.

Elliott Reid (1920-2013)
Elliott Reid appeared in The Absent-Minded Professor and Son of Flubber (Shelby Ashton), Follow Me, Boys! (Ralph Hastings), and Blackbeard’s Ghost (TV commentator).

Michael Ansara (1922-2013)
Michael Ansara appeared in The Bears and I (Oliver Red Fern), and narrated Shokee, the Everglades Panther.

Irwin E. Russell (1926-2013)
Irwin Russell was named to the Disney Board of Directors in 1987, where he remained until March 6, 2001.

Don Nelson (1927-2013)
Don Nelson wrote “Something Good Is Bound To Happen ” with Buddy Baker, Arthur Alsberg, for Hot Lead and Cold Feet.

Diane Disney Miller (1933-2013)
Diane was a fierce guardian of her father’s legacy who never hesitated to set the record straight, opening The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco to bring her father’s fascinating story to life. She and her sister, Sharon, have long been recognized as Walt’s inspiration for Disneyland, a place he created for families to have fun together.

Marc Breaux (1924-2013)
Marc Breaux was a choreographer, along with Dee Dee Wood, on Mary Poppins.

Dickie Dodd (1945-2013)
Dickie Dodd was a Mouseketeer on the 1950s television show, Mickey Mouse Club.

Cicely Rigdon (1923-2013)
Cicely began at Disneyland in 1957 as a ticket seller. In 1959, she joined the Tour Guide Department and was responsible for initiating its growth and development. “Walt really liked the Tour Guides,” Cicely said. “Every time he would come to the Park he would always stop by and see us and talk to us.” She eventually became the supervisor of Guest Relations, and in 1967 took on additional responsibility for the ticket sellers, ticket receptionists, and Guest Relations. While in Guest Relations, she was responsible for Walt’s apartment above the Main Street Fire Station, and was therefore known as the “Keeper of the Keys.”