Mr. Disney Goes to Washington

There are a couple of Disney items in the news today. I've been making my way through Disney War, a book about the reign of Michael Eisner and all the infighting and battles in the Disney front office. If you enjoy Disney stuff, especially behind-the-scenes stuff, you might like this book.

Eisner is in the last few months of his turbulent reign at Disney, and today he was in Washington DC to open a new exhibit of Disney memorabilia at the National Museum of American History. The display includes a flying elephant from the Dumbo ride, and one of the spinning teacups from the vertigo-inducing Mad Tea Party ride.

(Just as a side note, when I worked at Disneyland 30 years ago, the worst job in the janitorial department was to be assigned the area which included the Mad Tea Party. They kept buckets of what we called "barf dust" nearby to handle the puking patrons, especially on hot days.)

I'll be in Washington a month from now, so we'll get to see the new exhibit while we're there. Since we go to Disneyland many times a year, we won't see anything we haven't seen before, but I can't help but wonder if at some point in my life I rode in one of those cars. Dumbo was my favorite as a kid.

The Corner provided another Disney-themed link to an article written by Michael Ledeen back in 2001. Michael has a very interesting connection to the Disney family, and basically grew up running around Uncle Walt's house and theme park.

December 5th (2001) is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Walt Disney, a great American with whom I had a special bond. My late father designed the air-conditioning system at the Disney Studios in Burbank in the late 1930s and early 40s, and I was born out there a few months before Pearl Harbor, just as the air-conditioning job was finished. We moved east shortly afterwards, and then returned for a year when I was seven, and I later went to Pomona College while Disneyland was being built. According to family legend, my mother was the model for Snow White, and we have a picture of her that does indeed look just like the movie character (although my mother could not carry a tune, and never sang "Some Day My Prince Will Come," maybe because hers already had).

All through my childhood we were an adjunct of the Disney universe. We got wonderful Christmas cards, with sneak previews of forthcoming movies. My bedroom was stocked with Disney creatures, from Mickey and Donald to Pooh and Eeyore. When we went back to southern California, we visited Walt and Roy, and I got to see Walt's "secret room," which you got to by pushing a button under his desk and then a wall panel opened and revealed a playroom full of all kinds of toys and gadgets. And his house was really a playhouse; there was a model train that ran from the kitchen out to the backyard, and on a good day the train would come puffing out with hamburgers and cokes. Such fun.

Then in college I had pretty much free run of Disneyland, and got to go on all the rides even before the park was entirely open. So I'm a Disney friend and a Disney fan, although the days of those privileges are long gone. But not my appreciation of Walt's genius.

June 28th will be the 30th anniversary of my employment at Disneyland for that one brief summer of 1975. I'm working on a piece that I'll post on that day with some recollections from my experiences in the park. It'll probably take me until then to finish it because the brain cells holding all those memories haven't been jogged for awhile. Stay tuned.