On this day in 1961, The Great Locomotive Chase chugged into theaters. It told the story of Civil War Union leader James J. Andrews (Fess Parker) and Confederate train conductor William A. Fuller (Jeffrey Hunter) and the actual historical events that occurred on April 22, 1862 when a party of 22 Union spies stole a …
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From the Haunted Mansion omnimovers to the monorails, Bob Gurr was responsible for the design and construction of countless vehicles in the Disney parks. For the Main Street Horseless Carriage, Bob recalls, “Their idea was that they would go and buy some antique cars and sort of refurbish them in order to have some vehicles …
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That lovable, yet sometimes bumbling, bruin Humphrey returns to the big screen in 1956’s Hooked Bear, filmed in CinemaScope. This time around, Humphrey stirs up a ruckus in his attempts to take the easy approach to catching some fish, much to the chagrin of Ranger Woodlore. Although Humphrey made his screen debut in 1950’s Hold …
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Pictured above is Animator Milt Banta with Pluto By 1956, Walt Disney had released numerous successful feature films and cartoon shorts, but many were left to wonder, “Where do the stories come from?” So on this day in 1956, Walt set out to explain just that to television viewers in an installment of the Disneyland …
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With an active turn-of-the-century Main Street, U.S.A in 1956, it seemed natural to have an old-fashioned parade, just as small-town residents might have experienced in the day, and what better occasion than Easter? So when Easter fell on this day in 1956, Disneyland’s Director of Entertainment Tommy Walker produced a recreation of an Old-Fashioned Easter …
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Matthew Garber, best known to Disney fans as the “extremely stubborn and suspicious” young Michael Banks in Mary Poppins, was born in England on this day in 1956. Matthew made his film debut as Geordie in Disney’s The Three Lives of Thomasina, which also featured a young actress named Karen Dotrice, who went on to …
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Walt was quick to test the waters in the exciting new medium of television, producing two one-hour specials for NBC in 1950 and 1951. But when it came time to pitching a television series, only third-place network ABC was willing to structure the kind of deal Walt wanted—one in which the network advanced $500,000 toward …
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It was once again a battle of duck versus chipmunk in the Donald Duck cartoon short Chips Ahoy, which set sail in theaters — in CinemaScope! — on this day in 1956. When Chip and Dale find themselves hungry with a lack of a food source, they soon spot a big tree filled with acorns …
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The Mickey Mouse Club Circus was a real circus in Disneyland starting in November 1955. And while the extravaganza boasted the Mouseketeers from the Mickey Mouse Club television show and breathtaking acts such as “Professor Keller’s Fantastic Felines,” the Big Top was no match for the exciting Magic Kingdom and closed just two months after …
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Shortly after the opening of Disneyland, the Mickey Mouse Club Circus debuted in Fantasyland featuring acts from the Ted DeWayne Circus along with the Mouseketeers from TV’s Mickey Mouse Club. One of those Mouseketeers was Bobby Burgess, who recently told us, “It was a red-and-white, huge tent, and it was hot and sweaty in there …
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