Walt & Animals: "I Respect Nature" by Katherine and Richard Greene
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Walt's first pet was a Maltese terrier on the farm in Marceline, Missouri. "He was my pal," Walt said. "He'd always come up and grab you at the heel. We wore stockings, and my mother was always having to repair the stockings because he'd tear them out. Then, one day, my brother Roy went into town in the buggy and he let the dog follow him. When he got into town he lost the dog. We never saw him again. That was a big tragedy."
Fortunately for Walt, there were a number of other animals to play with on the farm. He learned how to ride the large hogs the family kept. And he became close to Charlie, a sway-backed, gray-dappled horse that pulled their buggy. When, on one occasion, Walt accidentally killed an owl, he had bad dreams about the creature for years.
Although it would be a long time before Walt would have another pet - there was hardly room for one in the Disney house in Kansas City - his love of animals was a lifelong affair. After he was married, Walt discovered that Lilly didn't share his affection for animals. "I wanted a dog," he said. "And my wife would have nothing to do with dogs. She said, 'Oh, they get hair on everything. They're dirty. And there's dog odor.' So I got a book about dogs and read a story on the chow. The chow does not shed hair. The chow does not have fleas. The chow has very little dog odor...The next day, I went out and bought a chow, and I kept it under wraps until Christmas. I got a big hatbox and put a big ribbon on it. When the time came, I put the little puppy in the hatbox and tied it up with a ribbon.
But when Walt presented Lilly with the hatbox, she was dismayed; Lilly liked buying her own hats and didn't want one as a present. "When she opened it," Walt said, "the little chow stuck its head out. From that time on, that was her baby. I've never seen anybody so crazy over an animal. And, my gosh, she wouldn't let it out of her sight."
One of the few fights between her parents that stands out in Diane's mind concerns an animal - in this case a goat. In the early years of the new studio in Burbank, every Fourth of July was the occasion for a company picnic on the studio lot. There was always a softball game or maybe some badminton on a sound stage. On one of these occasions animator T. Hee, who raised goats, gave Walt a small female goat with a ribbon and a bell around her neck. It was ostensibly for his daughters, but Walt was delighted with the gift. As Diane recalls, "When it came time to go home, Dad put the goat in the car and Mother said, "We're not taking this goat home.' And Dad said, 'Well, what do you mean?' She said, 'I won't have it.' Dad said, 'Well, of course you will. It was a gift to the kids and we're going to take it home.' So we put the goat in the car and we were on the road home when all of a sudden I heard this sobbing in the back seat, and mother was sitting there crying. These furious tears were coming down her cheeks. It was really quite a tense situation. Anyway, Dad got furious, and said, 'OK, we won't keep the goat.'
Walt may not have gotten his goat, but he found plenty of opportunities to be in the company of animals. His affection for the miniature horses at Disneyland was legendary. When one of them had a colt, Walt was smitten. He spent hours petting the little horse, and the young animal would crawl right into his lap.
Walt's loyalty to creatures, wheter domestic or wild, is part of Disney family lore. "I remember Daddy coming home at night and going out and feeding nuts to the blue jays," his daughter Sharon once recalled. "They're mean birds. But Daddy would sit out there and feed those things." Walt's niece Marjorie remembered a similar, typical incident: "One time, the gardener was complaining because the squirrels were eating all the fruit. He had planted all these beautiful fruit trees down in the canyon by the house." Apparently, the gardener planned on poisioning the squirrels. But Walt wouldn't hear of it. As Marjorie recalled, "He just said, 'Plant some more. Plant enough for everybody.'" He told Lilly, "Look, you can go to the market to buy fruit. They can't."
Walt's affection and respect for animals comes through in many of his television shows and films. Says director Ken Annakin, "I think Walt felt that if he observed animals well they should be wonderful instruments for him to make entertainment." Indeed, movies like Old Yeller, Savage Sam, and The Incredible Journey feature animals as their stars. And the lead-ins to Walt's television shows repeatedly showed him enjoying the company of all manner of creatures - dogs, cats, monkeys, even tigers.
The True-Life Adventures pioneered the dramatic use of animals in their natural environments. "I think he rather admired a coyote," says James Algar, director of several of the True-Life Adventures. "I think Walt was always on the side of the creature who was doing something for himself and was fending off whatever was threatening to him and outsmarting his enemies. The coyote is a very intelligent animal, capable of pulling tricks on people. And I think Walt always admired that in a creature, because he read himself into it. That's what he would have done, if he were a coyote."
Bambi was the first of Walt's films to dramatize the lives of animals (animals, that is, that don't wear white gloves or hats). The film is a heartfelt expression of his great love for animals and his sense of their inherent nobility. It is telling that the only real villian in the story are the human characters. "I respect nature, and the creatures of nature," Walt once wrote in regards to Bambi. "Man can learn a way of life from it - man is the most helpless and pathetic of all animals."
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Walt's first pet was a Maltese terrier on the farm in Marceline, Missouri. "He was my pal," Walt said. "He'd always come up and grab you at the heel. We wore stockings, and my mother was always having to repair the stockings because he'd tear them out. Then, one day, my brother Roy went into town in the buggy and he let the dog follow him. When he got into town he lost the dog. We never saw him again. That was a big tragedy."
Fortunately for Walt, there were a number of other animals to play with on the farm. He learned how to ride the large hogs the family kept. And he became close to Charlie, a sway-backed, gray-dappled horse that pulled their buggy. When, on one occasion, Walt accidentally killed an owl, he had bad dreams about the creature for years.
Although it would be a long time before Walt would have another pet - there was hardly room for one in the Disney house in Kansas City - his love of animals was a lifelong affair. After he was married, Walt discovered that Lilly didn't share his affection for animals. "I wanted a dog," he said. "And my wife would have nothing to do with dogs. She said, 'Oh, they get hair on everything. They're dirty. And there's dog odor.' So I got a book about dogs and read a story on the chow. The chow does not shed hair. The chow does not have fleas. The chow has very little dog odor...The next day, I went out and bought a chow, and I kept it under wraps until Christmas. I got a big hatbox and put a big ribbon on it. When the time came, I put the little puppy in the hatbox and tied it up with a ribbon.
But when Walt presented Lilly with the hatbox, she was dismayed; Lilly liked buying her own hats and didn't want one as a present. "When she opened it," Walt said, "the little chow stuck its head out. From that time on, that was her baby. I've never seen anybody so crazy over an animal. And, my gosh, she wouldn't let it out of her sight."
One of the few fights between her parents that stands out in Diane's mind concerns an animal - in this case a goat. In the early years of the new studio in Burbank, every Fourth of July was the occasion for a company picnic on the studio lot. There was always a softball game or maybe some badminton on a sound stage. On one of these occasions animator T. Hee, who raised goats, gave Walt a small female goat with a ribbon and a bell around her neck. It was ostensibly for his daughters, but Walt was delighted with the gift. As Diane recalls, "When it came time to go home, Dad put the goat in the car and Mother said, "We're not taking this goat home.' And Dad said, 'Well, what do you mean?' She said, 'I won't have it.' Dad said, 'Well, of course you will. It was a gift to the kids and we're going to take it home.' So we put the goat in the car and we were on the road home when all of a sudden I heard this sobbing in the back seat, and mother was sitting there crying. These furious tears were coming down her cheeks. It was really quite a tense situation. Anyway, Dad got furious, and said, 'OK, we won't keep the goat.'
Walt may not have gotten his goat, but he found plenty of opportunities to be in the company of animals. His affection for the miniature horses at Disneyland was legendary. When one of them had a colt, Walt was smitten. He spent hours petting the little horse, and the young animal would crawl right into his lap.
Walt's loyalty to creatures, wheter domestic or wild, is part of Disney family lore. "I remember Daddy coming home at night and going out and feeding nuts to the blue jays," his daughter Sharon once recalled. "They're mean birds. But Daddy would sit out there and feed those things." Walt's niece Marjorie remembered a similar, typical incident: "One time, the gardener was complaining because the squirrels were eating all the fruit. He had planted all these beautiful fruit trees down in the canyon by the house." Apparently, the gardener planned on poisioning the squirrels. But Walt wouldn't hear of it. As Marjorie recalled, "He just said, 'Plant some more. Plant enough for everybody.'" He told Lilly, "Look, you can go to the market to buy fruit. They can't."
Walt's affection and respect for animals comes through in many of his television shows and films. Says director Ken Annakin, "I think Walt felt that if he observed animals well they should be wonderful instruments for him to make entertainment." Indeed, movies like Old Yeller, Savage Sam, and The Incredible Journey feature animals as their stars. And the lead-ins to Walt's television shows repeatedly showed him enjoying the company of all manner of creatures - dogs, cats, monkeys, even tigers.
The True-Life Adventures pioneered the dramatic use of animals in their natural environments. "I think he rather admired a coyote," says James Algar, director of several of the True-Life Adventures. "I think Walt was always on the side of the creature who was doing something for himself and was fending off whatever was threatening to him and outsmarting his enemies. The coyote is a very intelligent animal, capable of pulling tricks on people. And I think Walt always admired that in a creature, because he read himself into it. That's what he would have done, if he were a coyote."
Bambi was the first of Walt's films to dramatize the lives of animals (animals, that is, that don't wear white gloves or hats). The film is a heartfelt expression of his great love for animals and his sense of their inherent nobility. It is telling that the only real villian in the story are the human characters. "I respect nature, and the creatures of nature," Walt once wrote in regards to Bambi. "Man can learn a way of life from it - man is the most helpless and pathetic of all animals."
Those were my favorite shows of Wonderful World Disney