Disney Stuff

Today I cherished my last free Saturday for awhile...it's looking like my part-time animation courses may have enough students to run starting next week, at least so far, so we shall see what happens. Was up late last night watching 'Juno' with Jay so we slept in right to the moment we said we wanted to be out the door. Had a lovely family breakfast at Ricky's and then dropped Jay off at the spa for her massage (my birthday present to her)! There was a bookstore next door so naturally I took Ariel there to explore, which was short-lived as Ariel proceeded to pick up books (she says "book" now) and then just leave them in random places. I did manage however to snatch up a few gems...a hilarious childrens' book called A Birthday for Cow and the following Disney finds (click on these to make them larger)...



I've found a Mickey Mouse book like this recently as well, at Michael's of all places. They are re-prints of books published by Disney in the 1930s-40s, printed on a textured linen material. Quite an interesting historical curiosity; more information on the original books (at quite hefty prices) I found online here at Foundling Books.

These particular volumes are a strange mix of decent art and crappy off-model art. They say these books were created by artists at the Disney studio, but some of the drawings make you wonder exactly who at the studio would have done them. (Such is the case with most of the crappy DVD covers they still release today.) The way the text is written is also a little bit funny.

I like this page...today in the book store I tried reading this book to Ariel (until she squirmed away) and got to at least teach her the names of the 7 Dwarfs and have her repeat them back. She did well with "Doc" and "Happy"...the rest were typically "Ho-vo" which is usually her word for "my mouth can't quite figure that word out yet."



This one starts the book off and has some strange text about Grumpy, as if there is some sort of riddle we're supposed to figure out.


An interesting reference here to the deleted bed-building scene...



...and then the final page of the book, which focuses just on the dwarfs' relationship with Snow White and leaves the queen out completely, all of a sudden sums up the whole wrap-up of the story in the text but doesn't actually show us the happy ending. Some kid looking at this book who couldn't read would possibly be very mis-led and think that she just died at the end.



The Pinocchio book is even more bizarre, including some pretty badly-drawn illustrations where Jiminy looks really strange...



...and a cannonball being fired at Pinocchio as he escapes. Does anyone know, was this deleted from the film?



And speaking of rare Disney items, the latest post of some awesome rare records by fellow blogging animator Ward Jenkins inspired me to scan an image of a neat record I found at my favorite record store in Langley a couple years ago.



I was intrigued to pick this up when I found it, because it appears to be very rare and makes me wonder if it was only available for purchase at Walt Disney World. It's both a record and book (pages of the book are all displayed smaller on the back of the record), and it's all based on the Mickey Mouse Revue, an animatronic attraction which I remember seeing at DisneyWorld in Florida in 1979. Someone graciously posted some awesome footage of it, and I love watching it because it's almost like watching Disney cartoons in stop-motion. Sadly it's no longer in the US but currently resides in Tokyo.



Anyway, other events of my last free Saturday included working on my animation course, buying new pants and shoes at the mall, and getting together with my friend Brenda to work out some plans for the upcoming "Breath of Life Animation Festival" we will be holding at our church on June 7. More details to follow!