American Experience: Walt Disney on PBS Sept. 14-15

[Californian Elitist]

Did a lot of people dress in '50s attire, as was recommended by the company, in celebration of the anniversary?

I would love to see some pictures if so. And did they do any special ceremony that you saw?

Yes, lots of people showed up. I was standing waiting for Soundsational to start and saw a guy dressed accordingly for the occasion. I complimented him on his outfit and struck up a conversation with him, and it turned out he was 17 years-old, had just graduated from high school, and came from Pennsylvania just to celebrate the big day. He was alone, so I invited him to join my group and he spent the rest of the day with us. That was one of the highlights of that day for me. There were "A-E" ticket photo ops and 1950's Disneyland photo ops, where the backgrounds were throwback Disneyland photos from the 50's. Those pictures looked really cool if one was dressed in appropriate attire.

There was a re-dedication (Disneyland does this every year), Michael Colglazier spoke, some Disney legends were introduced, as well as original CMs, and Richard Sherman and Ashley Brown performed "Feed the Birds" before we all sang "Happy Birthday." That was another highlight. As a pre-parade for Soundsational, the Main Street vehicles came down with the legends and original CMs in them, which was also neat.

 

[Californian Elitist]

The new friend I met:

 

[Figments Friend]

The ceremony was nice.
There are some decent videos of the event and the pre-parade up on YouTube well worth checking out.
Lots of famous faces from Disney's past and even Ron Miller turned up.

Those Guide Maps were cool too, as was the fun pin back buttons.

 

[Magenta Panther]

Playing devils advocate here. Regarding the strike. Put yourself in the place of the in-betweeners, assistant animators, new guys in the department, ink and paint girls, camera department folks, etc...you've just moved into a "workers paradise" that cost a relative fortune. Beautiful facility, some of the folks are making a GREAT buck for the time but, as stated in the doc, you can't afford to eat in the cafeteria, can't access the rooftop club and couldn't afford it even if you could, you worked around the clock to get "Snow White" finished. It gets done, money pours in and you are still broke. Bonuses were handed out rather selectively and without any apparent scale.Purely subjectively. I can see why they were disgruntled and frustrated especially when it was implied, if not stated by Walt that the success would be shared. It wasn't with everybody in a direct, pay your bills sense. That's why unions exist to a large degree, or at least why they should (they aren't without fault by any means).
There's a saying in the TV business that I've heard for years at every level and it translates perfectly here to this situation. "Don't alienate your crew. They can make you or break you." Walt alienated much of his crew and they broke him...at least for a while.
He's still an amazing man, but I sure get why they did what they did.

Oh, I'm not faulting the animators (although Herb Sorrell was a piece of work). Of course they wanted a living wage, after working so hard to make Snow White a success. And unions can be a good thing (although my dad and sister, both union members, aren''t too keen on them for various reasons). It's just that there are two sides to the strike story, and both sides have their merits. I just wondered if PBS put the strike into a balanced context.

 

[216bruce]

Oh, I'm not faulting the animators (although Herb Sorrell was a piece of work). Of course they wanted a living wage, after working so hard to make Snow White a success. And unions can be a good thing (although my dad and sister, both union members, aren''t too keen on them for various reasons). It's just that there are two sides to the strike story, and both sides have their merits. I just wondered if PBS put the strike into a balanced context.

I do know that the federal mediator sided with the union on every point of contention, so, apart from Walt's "d&d's" from the strike, I don't know what the other side would have been. Ultimately in a strike everyone loses some though. No doubt.

 

[prberk]

Cool, thanks @raven24 . Looks like you all had a blast!

Love the pics. It even likes like you matched the new friend. I wonder if he visits this site. As a Philadelphian he might have a history with WDW as well. Probably gave himself a DL trip for his graduation. Cool.

Anyway, I apologize to everyone else for the thread drift, but I appreciate your indulgence. Glad heard about it and saw the pics.

So, just as ABC probably said after the DL show ran over on July 17, 1955, "And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...".

 

[Californian Elitist]

Cool, thanks @raven24 . Looks like you all had a blast!

Love the pics. It even likes like you matched the new friend. I wonder if he visits this site. As a Philadelphian he might have a history with WDW as well. Probably gave himself a DL trip for his graduation. Cool.

Anyway, I apologize to everyone else for the thread drift, but I appreciate your indulgence. Glad heard about it and saw the pics.

So, just as ABC probably said after the DL show ran over on July 17, 1955, "And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...".

He's been to WDW, but he prefers Disneyland. That's what he told us.

Yes, we had a great time! Looking forward to the 75th, 15 years from now haha.

 

[Bluewaves]

Really well done shows, In 4 hours you aren't going to cover everything and 40 years in the public life is a lot to cover especially for someone who had their hands in so many things, some points are going to get glossed over.