Saturday was a bit less busy than
originally planned, as my buddy Libby let me off the hook for a ride to SJO
early in the morning, but, the wife and I spent the afternoon at the Walt
Disney Family Museum, listening to Author and former manager of the Walt Disney
Archives Robert Tieman talk about “Selling Walt: The Business (and Fun) of
Movie Promotion.” We spent the hour and
a half talking about what the Studio did to help theater owners promote Disney
movies coming to their establishments. I’ll
try to having another piece on this after I get a chance to go over my notes.
Finally the weekend’s main event was
on Sunday. A third trip to the Walt
Disney Studio in Burbank for a tour of the Studio, this time with my youngest
daughter. Someone asked me, “don’t you
get bored, see the same stuff?” Simple
answer, NO!!! It kind of the same with
the Walt Disney Family Museum; no matter how many times I visit, I always
manage to learn something new each time. This is helped on the Studio tour by the fact
that in three visits, We’ve had three different tour guides. While there is a defined tour guideline for
what we get to see, there is no set script.
So, each guide can add their own special stories that they relate to the
Studio and Walt.
More on the tour in a moment, but
first, back to beginning… Since this was
a one day trip, departure time set for 5:00 AM.
Tee must have been anxious because we were on the road at 4:58, and the
trip progressed nicely until we were about an hour and a half into it. For some reason I tapped the right front
pocket of my jean, and gasped…
DAMN!!! Actually, I think my word
choice might have been and little different, but… Tee’s eyes slammed open with a WHAT??? I had remembered everything for the trip
except one critical component… one of my wallets, the one that has all my
credit cards and my D23 membership card in it.
No credit cards, no gas… No D23
card, no entrance to the Studio tour. As
we turn back north, thinking the trip and event may well be over, Tee calls her
Mom to see if she can meet us about have way back with said wallet? Fortunately, was up to the task, and hopped
into the other vehicle with our oldest as navigator, and headed south, as we
were headed back north. We met up in
Gilroy, I got my wallet and a quick Mickey D’s breakfast, we exchanged goodbyes
and thanks, and were headed back south again…
hoping that I could make up enough time not to miss the tour. Again, fortunate with Pam bringing me my
wallet, we didn’t lose the full hour and a half’s driving time. I pedaled it a little harder than I normally
would have, and the quick breakfast stop in Gilroy, so, just a single gas stop
in Buellton (of Anderson’s Split Pea fame), and we made Burbank with a half and
hour to spare… cutting it close, by my
travel standards. A quick stop to let
Tee change clothes, a quick tour around the studio lot, and we were driving
into the Buena Vista Gate at the Walt Disney Studios at the prescribed no more
than 30 minutes before our scheduled tours.
WHEW!!! J
As we are checking in for the tour - D23
card required – in front of the Hyperion Bungalow, who should come around the
corner but Jeffrey Epstein. I have had
the pleasure of meeting Jeff on several occasions, including most recently at
the Walt Disney Family Museum’s presentation of the D23 Fanniversary. Jeff is one of those many truly friendly
Disney Cast-members who is just a joy to be around. Well, guess who turned out to be the guide
for our 1:30 tour, none other than Jeffrey.
J While waiting for our tour to start, Tee and
I got a chance to look through the D23 Merchandise Store in one of the rooms of
the Hyperion Bungalow, where I pick up a few items, and then a quick troll
through the Employee’s store across the walkway. Jeffrey gathered his tourists together at the
prescribed time, and ushered us to shady spot – it was, of course, and normal
warm and sunny afternoon in Burbank. From our nicely shaded location in front of
the Employee Store, Jeffrey began to explain some of the sites around us:
·
The Hyperion Bungalow behind us, one
of several buildings that were moved from them original Hyperion Avenue studio
in the Silver Lake district. The bungalow
now has two rooms, fittingly called the Hyperion and Silver Lake rooms, and is
used for meetings, and as the check-in point for the tours.
·
Next to us was the Employee Store,
which had been redone since my last visit, and the Employee credit union behind
it.
Next, a look across the street was the
Mickey Mouse topiary. The Mickey topiary
was a anniversary gift to the Studio from Walt Disney World, and Michael Eisner
declared that the Walt Disney Studio should become the West Coast capital for
topiaries. Until… The plant started to die and the studio
landscaping staff had to spend a bundle of cash to develop an internal watering
system so this Mickey could flourish.
Today, the Mickey topiary is the singular nod on the Studio lot to what
seems so natural in Florida. A few yards
to the right of the topiary stands one of two flagpoles from the 1960 Winter
Olympics in Squaw Valley, where Walt Disney was the Chairman of Pageantry and
responsible of Opening and Closing ceremonies.
This first flagpole was acquired by Walt after the games, its sister
flagpole, a few more yard down, was donated by another company so that the
Studio could have the pair. Behind the
topiary and the flagpoles sit the Studio Commissary. In 1940, when the studio first opened, there
weren’t a lot of eatery options in the area, so Walt made sure that his people
were taken care of for meals with the commissary. To this day, the commissary still serves Walt’s
favorite meal… Chili. I couple of years
ago, I was fortunate to attend an event at the Studio which included dinner at
the commissary. I had the chili, and it
was – while not my Texas Red – a very good bowl of chili. Actually, if you want the recipe, it’s on the
D23 website – Walt’s
Own Chili recipe.
Now we move on down the street to the
corner of Mickey Avenue and Dopey Drive, or have we? If you have seen “The Reluctant
Dragon,” then you know the street sign right next to the old Animation
Building. If not and you are a Disney
fan, you’ve probably seen a picture or two of the street sign for Mickey Avenue and
Dopey Drive. This sign was installed
as a prop for the 1941 short film “The Reluctant Dragon,” where Robert Benchley
(yes, that is Peter Benchley’s… of JAWS fame… father) dashes around the studio
in search of Walt Disney to pitch him a story.
As travels the Disney lot, we learn different aspects of the animation
process. An interesting note about the
street sign… if you follow the sign to the several department, you’ll find
yourself even more lost… as they point the wrong direction. Right next to the street sign is a fire
hydrant with a sign painted on the curb “Pluto’s Corner.” In the cement next to the hydrant are three
distinct paw prints… wonder where that fourth paw is??? J
Standing on the steps of the Animation
Building, we look across the walkway to the studio theater. This theater has been used over the years as
a screening theater and a sound mixing studio for putting the finishing touches
on films. A few years ago, the company
finished a complete retrofit and remodel to the theater. Today, it is used to screen new film for
employees and to hold special screening for the public. I had the good fortune to event a couple of
those special screenings, and the inside is as beautiful as the outside. The walkway outside was where they once place
the cement encased handprints of recent inducted Disney Legends, much like they
do outside of Grauman’s Chinese
Theater in Hollywood. Years ago it
was discovered that these cement tributes were slowly degrading with all the
foot traffic, so the Archive team preserved them, move them to the Archive and
install replicas in the new Legends’ Plaza.
The Plaza was close for this a special “Brave” reception, so we didn’t
get to go in. Moving on, we entered the
Animation Building, and tour the first floor main hallway, looking at many
examples of the animation and storytelling process. The Animation Building was specifically built
for Walt’s Animators. It is a three
story building running north and south, with eight wings, four on either side
east and west. When Walt was build this
new studio after the success of ‘Snow White’, he ask is artists what the needed
most… the clear answer was LIGHT!!! With
the eight wings, the Animation Building has lots of light. On the third floor in the north east corner
is where Walt’s offices were located. In
that wing Walt had his formal and working offices, and a reception area. On second floor, one wing south was where Roy
had his offices. The running joke for
Walt was that, “this was so that he could look down on Roy and keep and eye on
him, but Roy couldn’t look up and see what he was doing.” Unfortunately, the D23 Studio tours don’t
make a trip to the 2nd or 3rd floors, but, if you keep
your eyes open, there are a few events that do.
J
Moving on to Disney’s first utilidor…
Utilidor, you say… What the heck is a Utilidor? Well, it is a utility corridor, and how many
of you know that there is a whole subterranean world under Walt Disney World’s
Magic Kingdom? Well, actually it isn’t
subterranean, because of Florida’s high water table; Walt Disney World is
really built one story above sea level, with much of the Parks unseen
operations conducted in the first floor utilidors. I’ve been told that there are a couple of
small utilidors at Disneyland, but nothing like the complex at Walt Disney
World. Maybe I’ll do an essay on the
Magic Kingdom Utilidors and why they came to be, but, the Walt Disney Studios
had the first Utilidor. The Animation
Building has a basement that was used primarily for storage, with a utilidor
that accesses the Ink and Paint building next door. While this passage has been used as a prop in
several Disney productions (think Alias for one), it had a real function meant
for its design. This was the path that
animators’ cells took in route to be painted and finished, before moving on to
the Camera department, keep the cells protected from potential weather or dust
from being outdoors.
After and quick tour through the Short
building, the third and final building (well in reality, its two buildings that
were combined into one on the new lot) moved over from the from the Hyperion
lot, we made our way through the sound stages.
Not really much to say are or seeing but, the outside of these huge
buildings where much of the Disney magic is produced. During the development of Disneyland, several
of these stages were used to build mock-ups.
One interesting note for fans of Mary Poppins, all of the live actions
scenes for the movie were done on a sound stage, nothing was done outdoors or
on location. Out of the sound stages as
walk by the iconic water tower (built with 6 legs, instead 4 or 5, because it
was more esthetically appealing to Walt’s Brother Roy), we emerged onto what
was once the studio’s backlot… the Zorro parking structure, over by the
Riverside Gate, stands where the sets for the Zorro T.V. show once stood, along
with other western sets. As we walk
along the street, we see the only remaining backlot structures at the Studio
today, a row of store fronts. Within a short walk we come upon the backside of
water (sorry for the Disneyland reference) err… of the Ink & Paint, and
Camera Departments. The most important building
here was the machine shop where Roger Broggie took on
an interesting apprentice… his boss, Walt Disney. It was in this machine shop that many of Walt’s
innovation were brought to life, and where Walt with Roger’s help created the Carolwood
Pacific Railroad, a miniature train which he operated around his Holmby
Hills home in the earlier 50s.
Now for one of the special treats of
these tours, a trip to the Main Office of the Walt Disney Archive, and some
face time with the one and only Dave Smith.
As we were told on a couple of occasions during the tour, Roy O. asked
Dave to create the Archive in 1970. One
of Dave’s first tasks was to catalog and document Walt’s offices in the
Animation building which had been shuddered since his death in 1966. An exhibit of Walt’s Office has been on
display at One
Man's Dream - Walt's Office in Disney Hollywood Studio at Walt
Disney World. Also as I understand it, Walt’s
formal office has been recreated for the Treasures
of the Walt Disney Archive exhibit which opens July 6 at the Reagan Library in Simi
Valley. Well, we got to spend about
a half an hour with Dave, as he showed us some of the artifacts he has
discovered over the last forty years.
Items such as, the ticket and parking pass for the Disneyland opening
day media event, the first year ticket book for the Magic Kingdom at Walt
Disney World, and one of Walt Disney many Oscars. I’ve seen some of the exhibits from the
Archive at events like the D23 Expo, but, there is nothing like being in the
same room listening to the man who started the Archive.
From the Archive, we
moved past the Legends Plaza (no visit there today) to the Rotunda of the Team
Disney building that sits on the corner of the lot at Buena Vista Street and
Alameda Avenue, and houses Disney’s executive management team. In the rotunda lobby are two large tiled
pictures of the company founders… Walt and Roy.
As we leave the rotunda, we pass by the Roy Oliver Disney Building. Built the 80s, on our last visit to the
Studio, this building was an ivy covered box which looked a little out of place
between the new Team Disney and the old Animation Buildings. On this trip, the building has been
completely remodeled and refurbished.
Gone is the ivy, and the old ugly cross beam support structure has been
pleasantly disguised by clean concrete, smoked glass windows, and a lattice of
natural woods covering the lower half of each floor. This building now looks like it belong on the
lot, and is a much more fitting tribute to the man it is named after. And a few minutes later, we are back at the
Hyperion Bungalow, and with some sadness, an end to our tour. A hearty thank you to Jeffrey, and a quick
trip into the Employees’ Store, and we were on our way home with our trinkets and
memories.
As it turns out, the
trip home turned out to be as eventful as our travels down. First, yours truly flubbed again and took the
wrong freeway exit and to turn around.
Wound up heading back to the Studio.
After getting my direction squared away, and heading north, we made our
way to Camarillo and a stop for fuel, for both auto and human. Finished with dinner,
we were again headed north, only to be slowed to a crawl a few miles north of
Santa Barbara. It took us 2 hours to
make it three miles, because (as I discovered later) a drunk took out another
vehicle and completely blocked both lanes northbound. After getting passed the accident, Tee and I
decided the meal stop was a good decision, had we decided to just drive
through, we’d have been at that spot at right about the time the accident
happened and could have been involved, instead of gripping about the slow
crawl, and arriving home after 12:30 AM
All and all, another
great trip with one of my girls, but, stay tuned... I have a run south planned
for August and event at Disneyland. J
Your
comments or questions are always welcome.
If you have a correction or something you think I should look at in my
research, please feel free to contact me at mr.grumpyguy@gmail.com
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