“Happy birthday, it’s Donald’s birthday, happy happy birthday to you.” These are the lyrics to Disneyland’s 1984 parade celebrating the 50th anniversary of Donald Duck, and they seem appropriate today. On this day in 1934, audiences were first introduced to an irascible little duck named Donald in the Disney animated short subject The Wise Little …
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Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? Certainly not Walt Disney Productions, because after the 1933 success of the Academy Award®-winning Three Little Pigs, three little sequels followed. First was The Big Bad Wolf (1934), followed by Three Little Wolves (1936) and The Practical Pig (1939). The Big Bad Wolf is a combination of two …
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It lasts just a little more than a minute, but the famous “flypaper sequence” that concludes the Mickey Mouse cartoon Playful Pluto, which was released on this day in 1934, remains one of the most influential animations of all time. The dazzling sequence, from the hand of William Norman “Norm” Ferguson, the primary animator of …
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On this day in 1934, Mickey and Minnie took to the great outdoors in the early black-and-white cartoon short Camping Out. Joined by Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow, the gang finds themselves under attack by an excessive swarm of mosquitoes and teams up in an effort to get the pests to bug off. Both Clarabelle …
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It was on this day, in 1934, that the Silly Symphony cartoon short Grasshopper and the Ants hopped into theaters, telling the story of a grasshopper who believes that the world owes him a living. After his life is saved by some ants, he realizes he owes the world a living rather than the other …
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Diane Disney Miller, the eldest daughter of Walt Disney and Lillian Bounds Disney, was born on December 18, 1933. Weeks before Diane’s birth, Walt wrote a letter to his mother, Lillian, saying, “I suppose I’ll be as bad a parent as anyone else. I’ve made a lot of vows that my kid won’t be spoiled, …
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Ever wonder why you never see the names of the voice actors in the Disney cartoon shorts of the past? Well, according to Clarence “Ducky” Nash, the voice of Donald Duck, Walt Disney felt it would destroy the illusion to publicize the people who did the voices. Today, however, it’s much more well known that …
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In the Mickey Mouse cartoon short The Pet Store, released on this day in 1933, Tony’s Shop is hiring, and Mickey gets the job and promptly gets to work. When Tony steps out, Minnie happens to visit. Meanwhile, the gorilla Beppo, “the movie monk,” is in his cage browsing a movie magazine and doing impressions …
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The 39th Silly Symphony, The Pied Piper, first lured audiences to the theater on this day in 1933. Based on the classic tale, the pied piper is hired to lure the rats from Hamelin by charming them away with his musical pipe. When the townspeople agree with the mayor that all he did was “pipe …
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Here’s a D23 trivia question: Which Disneyland attraction pays tribute to the Silly Symphony Lullaby Land (answer is below)? In the 1933 Silly Symphony Lullaby Land, a baby boy and his toy dog fall asleep “into Lullaby Land of nowhere, sleepyheads always go there. Sugar and spice and everything nice, can all be found in …
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