Many years ago I attended a college for the Arts. I was already an avid reader of comic books and so was constantly sketching my favorite heroes and cartoon characters.
By studying more seriously I was able to go from copying to creating. In more recent years I only have time to dabble. Below is a little ink rendering of Mickey Mouse that I’ve done:
Not likely to get me a job with Disney, but I think I did a pretty fair likeness. I added my own crosshatching for shadows (under the nose) and pointillism (on the tongue) to add a little interest.
Then I went on to see if I could create a character in the Disney style. Below is my attempt:
The debate about Pluto and Goofy both being dogs and why is one on all fours and barking while the other is on two legs and talking rages on! I wanted to see if I could create a character that looked like a dog but would be a contemporary of Mickey and his anamorphic friends.
Did I succeed? I never named him/her, so if you have a suggestion, I’d love to hear it!
“Ahoy, me hearties!” And with that salutation, we are off and running (away from pirates) with our look at Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1883). This adventure novel tells the tale of buccaneers and buried gold, friendship and betrayal. Its influence has been enormous on today’s popular perceptions of pirates. For who hasn’t heard of treasure maps marked with an “X”, the infamous Black Spot, being marooned on a tropical island, and a certain one-legged seamen bearing a parrot on his shoulder? Aye, Jim Hawkins, it’s a veritable cornucopia of tropes and double-crosses! However…
“We must go on, because we can’t turn back.”
Ahead we see that it was made into a movie by Walt Disney which begat this soundtrack:
The cover of this long-play record was painted by Paul Wenzel. You can see his signature at the bottom right corner. At first I thought it was the name of the previous owner of this soundtrack, as some people have the nasty habit of scrawling their mark, in pen (!), across otherwise mint-condition collectibles like this. But a quick Google search proved otherwise!
Paul Edward Wenzel (born February 14, 1935) was an American artist, best known for his career with The Walt Disney Company, creating illustrations for movie posters and retail merchandise. Wenzel first began at Disney in 1958, working for the studio for 42 years, creating thousands of illustrations for movies and consumer products. Wenzel worked on over 100 movie posters during his tenure as a designer/illustrator for the Motion Picture Advertising Department.
Now that’s a career! Now, if ye be brave enough to continue…
“Beware the Black Spot!” – Billy Bones
Right. Getting back to this record:
It’s a straight soundtrack of the movie, somewhat edited, and narrated by Dal McKennon. McKennon sang and provided many character voices for Walt Disney Animation. His distinctive voice can be heard in too many Disney movies to mention here! He also provided the voices for many Disney attractions.
Now that’s a career as well!
The back of the cover sleeve presents a nice selection of stills from the actual movie with captions to explain the action. We also have a list of the main Cast. Most known would be Bobby Driscoll, who starred in Song of the South, So Dear to My Heart, and Treasure Island, before voicing the iconic character of Peter Pan.
Disney records can range in price from $10.00 to well over $20.00, depending on the title and who is selling them. I paid just under $10.00 CAN for this near mint copy of Treasure Island at a regional Antique Mall. Paying above $25.00 for any Disney record should only be done if you absolutely have to have it! Otherwise, you are paying too much, for this type of Disney collectible isn’t very sought after and resale value is low and slow.
What better way to end this post than with the most famous Sea Shanty of all time:
The true Age of Radio has passed. The sad part is that most aren’t in mourning because of it! From evening musical programs to exciting westerns, comedy hours to The War of the Worlds, radio was the sole entertainment for an entire generation! Now it’s just a source of repetitive programming and commercials.
But back in its heyday, radio was King. So it was wonderful to see this Hallmark Keepsake Ornament released to keep the memories alive!
Time to Tune In
Designed to emulate the classic cabinet style of radios at the turn of the last century, this ornament has such a high level of detailing it’s almost too much to take in! Mickey rocking the stand-up bass is a nice touch.
Tom Best is the artist who crafted this particular piece. He is an official artist for Hallmark. He has been doing ornament designs since 2003. You can see many of his other designs by clicking the link.
Hallmark usually demands a premium for these keepsakes. This one costs $29.99 US or $37.99 CAN. If an ornament prices out at over $20.00 it will most likely have a special feature, like movement, sound, or music.
On both sides and the back we have wonderful images of Mickey playing different instruments. Each one has musical notes flying around making for a very fun design feature.
And you just can’t go wrong with a Hidden Mickey! On the bottom of the radio we find the holes for the speaker are shaped like the head of our favorite mouse.
Now it’s time to sit back and relax as we listen to this evenings programming:
Here is a list of the segments:
Mickey’s Music Hour / Dedication from Donald to Daisy / ‘You Can Fly’ song from Peter Pan Mickey’s Mystery Theatre / Weatherman Mickey / ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ from Pinocchio Goofy’s Wild Wild Western
It comes with three cell batteries. You simply remove the battery compartment door, insert the batteries, and replace the door. Then when you twist the dial on the front of the ornament, the face lights up and the sound bites start. You have to twist again to activate each one.
These ornaments make great year-round display pieces.
If you’re interested in old radio programs, you can check out one of my earlier posts which shows many albums containing vintage broadcasts from some of the era’s most famous acts. These include Gene Autry, Edgar Bergen (the cover of which shows an old radio much like the one emulated by this ornament), Jack Benny, Ozzie and Harriet, and even a selection of Vaudeville presentations. One was recorded by Thomas Edison in 1888!
Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride is a theme park attraction and dark ride at the Disneyland Park. It is loosely based on Disney’s adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows (1908), and one of two segments comprising the animated package film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). The ride was was an Opening Day attraction from July of 1955.
To commemorate the 65th Anniversary of the opening of Disneyland, Funko Pop! released five vinyl figures that featured various characters, some linked to attractions by name. The one I am featuring today needs no further introduction:
This is only a figure with no real connection to the attraction that is linked to him. There is no backing card to depict the ride vehicles or a scene from the Dark Ride. Pity.
You can see that Captain Hook and Peter Pan are not labeled as coming from Peter Pan’s Flight, the Dark Ride, but Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse are linked to the Matterhorn, for some reason. It doesn’t appear that a lot of thought went into this series of Pop! figures. It seems a bit hit and miss?
Love those eyes! I paid only $8.00 CAN on sale for this figure (regular price is $12.99 CAN). Now let’s have a closer look at the figure itself:
Entranced by the Motor Car
I think Mr. Toad is overlooked as a Disney character. Many only know him from the attraction in Disneyland, and because his ride was removed from Walt Disney World, many others have forgotten him.
But if you revisit the 1949 animated film where he first appeared to Disney fans, I know you will fall in love with this little mischievous amphibian with the penchant for Motor Cars! “Beep Beep!”
Show me the Flap
The Castle Logo was fun to find on the flap. It’s a shame that Disneyland was closed for it’s 65th Anniversary in 2020. But Disney released the commemorative merchandise anyway, and I for one am glad they did!
I have one other piece of the Disneyland Resort 65th Anniversary collection. It’s a Funko Mini and features Mickey on the Matterhorn. Check it out!
I’ve never managed to be at a Disney Store at ‘rope drop’, or as they call it, the ‘Opening Ceremony’. Each day before the store is officially opened to the public, the first person in line is chosen to ‘unlock’ the store with an oversized key. It is this key, or at least a replica of it, that is the focus of this post today.
But before we get to the replica, let’s have a look at the real thing in a video showing an opening ceremony in progress:
Video by pitypang79
All Disney Stores have the key used in the ceremony on display in a box behind the checkout counters. It looks like this:
Actual Disney Store Full-size Opening Ceremony Key
At the end of the video the guest was given a replica key. This isn’t the special one we are featuring, but a plastic one. Like this, only different:
Less detail than the original or the special replica
I received my plastic replica version for free at my local Disney store because I bought the Disney Rewards Special Edition below:
I saw this beautiful box during my last visit to the Disney Store and passed on it at that time. But, as usual, I regretted my decision! So I went back and picked it up. I feel fortunate to have gotten one because there weren’t many left.
The box opens up in two stages to reveal a velvety ‘pillow’ upon which sits embedded the awesome Opening Ceremony Key replica.
Pictures don’t do it justice! It is six inches long and made of a metal. It’s of a very good quality with a nice level of detail.
Back of Display Box
The box tells us that this ceremony has been going on since 2010. This special replica was released in 2020 to commemorate 10 years of unlocking our imaginations each and every business day. You can also see the price of $41.99 CAN which I felt was a little high but… I think it was worth the cost to have “the magic… in (my) hands!”
Replicas Compared
In the image above, the plastic replica is on top with the metal replica below. You can really see how much more detailed the metal replica is. The foliage is raised and sharper and colour deeper.
Have you ever attended an Opening Ceremony at your local Disney Store? Did you get to turn the key and unlock the imagination?
It all started many years ago when I decided to try my hand at cartooning. But what subject matter could I choose that would stand out from the cluttered fields of serialized comic strips of the day? I wanted it to be Canadian with characters rendered in a new way.
First I had to have a Concept. So I decided on a beaver named Ronald Beav who could channel my inner anger in humorous ways (and would also mirror the shtick of Donald Duck, who was always quick to get angry. See what I un-originally did there?) The next stage would be Character Design. Again, I wanted the characters to be rendered in a different manner that would make them instantly recognizable. So I turned to a craft base with a dash of DIY and based my cast on common household items.
For Ronald Beav, I used a brown paper lunch bag:
The idea begins…
We’ll get to his signature sound effect later. But below you will find my mock up made out of the brown lunch bag, white cardboard (teeth), two Styrofoam balls (eyes), and colored marker (features). Have a look:
Cute, right? A basic design that would be easy to render for the strips and easy for parents to make at home if their children enjoyed the character and wanted a version for themselves.
With the Concept and Character Design established, it was time to work out the Visual Style for the strip. So to get back to the defining attribute of Ronald Beav we have to address his temper. He can go to calm to blazing in seconds flat! Below, you’ll see what I settled on for rendering and coloration, as well as his signature gag: The Slow Burn.
Anger Progression
‘FOOM!’ usually denoted the ignition of his anger into a full blaze above his head. The ‘POOT!’ sound effect would be used if he failed to ignite or when his flame suddenly extinguished. See, even anger can be cute! By the way, the payoff for this joke is that he’s a paper bag that bursts into flame when he is angry. It gave him a unique feature.
Lastly I had to settle on The Format of the strip itself. Would I use the standard three or four-panel square format? The one-panel round format? Or develop something else? I’m not sure if any other cartoonist has used this, but I decided on a three-panel round format. Originally I released the strip on my blog with the panels stacked on top of each other to compliment the action of scrolling down, common to blogs. But here, I’m going with the more common side-by-side distribution to more closely mimic a standard newspaper format:
Fully Realized Cartoon Strip
Each strip is a conversation between a Narrator and one or more of the characters. Each strip also has a self-contained story or gag, although it was usually a part of a longer story arch told over several strips. But even so, each strip could be read and enjoyed on its own.
I originally drew all of the strips by hand, inked and lettered them by hand, and released them in black in white. But I soon realized that they didn’t pop that way, so I switched to a digital rendering program and colored them.
The last decision I made was to follow the trope of having the characters come out of the panel. You can see this in the strip above in Panel One as Ronald leans against the bottom of the circle, and Panel Three where he is grasping the Narrator’s box at the bottom for stability as he ignites.
The fact that I did this years ago and you have never heard of it until now should tell you how popular it became! In hindsight, I did rely too heavily on common tropes, and the humor was simple. On the plus side, I do think the use of everyday household objects in the creation of the cast was original and fun. Here are a few more examples of this:
Sock Puppet Potential
I had many pairs of oversized work socks. I thought of sock puppets and you can see what happened when I tried to work it as a character! Another Canadian icon is the Moose, and as the sock looked like it had a big nose, Mickey Moose was born. As Ronald was a take on Donald Duck, Mickey Moose became a riff on Mickey Mouse. Like I said. Not very original. Mickey Moose became the affable friend and foil of Ronald, usually having a much more positive and optimistic view of the world, even if he did come up with some very strange ideas sometimes. Like opening a Snow Cone business in an Igloo in the middle of winter:
Mickey Moose Sample Strip
The Canadian in-joke is that the most popular fast-food franchise in Canada is Tim Hortons, or Timmies for short. And so Gimmies was born!
What other characters sprang from my humble abode? My wife had just about burned our oven mitts to death when I decided they would make a good pair of characters. Bears are also very prevalent in Canada, and I felt I needed a married couple in the strip to play on those male vs. female perspectives, and so:
Bear Couple Oven Mitts and Sample Panel
Lastly, I introduced two characters to represent another iconic form of wildlife native to Canada, the Loon. These birds are known for their devotion to each other for life, so where the Bear couple always bickered and had misunderstandings, the Loons did everything together with joy and love. But always with disastrous results! In the conclusion to the panel below, the strip tells us that they even crash land together.
Loonie and Toonie Balloon BirdsSample Panel
Loonie (the purple male) is named after the Canadian One Dollar coin (the Loonie, because it has a Loon on it) and Toonie (the pink female) is named after the Canadian Two Dollar coin, nicknamed the Toonie to play off of the nickname for the dollar coin, which came out first. They are intended to be balloon animals, another simple construct that most parents could fabricate with something they would likely have on hand in the house or could get easily at a Dollar Store. Inspiration for these characters also came from the wonderful Wally Boag who was known for making balloon animals in his act, named Boagaloons, and who worked for Walt Disney. I used a lot of Disney references in the strip.
And that was my attempt at creating a Comic Strip based on Canadian stereotypes, animals, and culture.
There just isn’t anyone around when you get that itch in a place you can’t reach! It’s a first-world problem, but a real annoyance, none the less.
Minnie Mouse has always been a helpful ‘person’. She wants to make everyone’s day a little bit brighter no matter what she has to do to make it happen. Even… scratching your back:
This would have been an inexpensive souvenir to remember your visit to Walt Disney World. It’s made of a light weight plastic and not the heavier Bakelite material that earlier versions seem to be made of. I do have two Mickey Mouse back scratchers made of that material.
Older back scratchers had the WDW Globe logo in this spot. But this later version has this rather generic Castle Logo instead. Original versions sold for just over a buck in the Parks but I had to pay $8.00 CAN to pick this one up in a local Antique Mall. So who has an itch?
Please check out my matching Mickey Mouse Back Scratcher from Walt Disney World with an alternate version included. Will I ever find a Donald Duck or Goofy version? Possibly, as I found these versions on an image site:
The Hunt Continues
Different in style, but similar in character and function. I will have to redouble my efforts to complete my Disney back scratcher collection!
This endearing story began as an American folktale that became widely known in the United States after publication in 1930 by the Platt & Munk Company. The story is used to teach children the value of optimism and hard work. If you’ve ever said “I think I can!” then you were quoting the little engine that did.
Walt Disney Productions released this wonderful vinyl version of the story in 1964:
Casey Jones and John Henry are also folktales that involve trains, and so they are included on this record to fill out Side One.
Side Two switches things up and deviates from a train to a streetcar. A streetcar that goes underwater. The motorman and conductor are taken into the sea by a merman and promptly get into a fight with an octopus. Soon they are back on dry land with a red herring in the conductor’s pipe (get it?) and a suspicion that it might all have been a dream.
Laura Olsher narrates the tales and Bill Kannady sings the songs.
Another Disney tie-in to this story is found in the 1941 Disney movie Dumbo. When the circus train named Casey Jr. puffs up a hill, he chants “I think I can!” and when going down the hill he chants “I thought I could!”
It appears that the images used on the back cover of the sleeve are of the circus train from Dumbo. I don’t believe Disney ever did a cartoon of The Little Engine that Could. I doubt a child would know the difference between the two trains.
I have another version of this record that was released in 1969 but with the inclusion of an 11-page book of full-colour illustrations. Disney believes if it’s worth doing once, it’s worth doing again and again until people stop spending money to buy it!
I’ll be doing a post on that album later, but I thought I’d make just one observation about it here:
Is he in disguise?
Disney doesn’t just recycle the artwork for this later release. Instead, a sketchier style is used to depict The Little Engine, giving him his own look apart from the circus train in Dumbo. He’s given glasses and an Engineer. If you revisit the picture on the album cover featured in this post, you’ll see the train is pulling a circus organ. But the cars this new train pulls are open and filled with toys, more in keeping with the original story.
The ongoing debate surrounding Autopia in Disneyland (1956) and the Tomorrowland Speedway in Walt Disney World (1971) is just how is a gas-powered engine something of the future? And in 2021, the issue is even more relevant!
But who cares. They’re both fun.
Yes, I never miss the opportunity to breathe in the noxious fumes as I’m deafened by the noisy putt-putt engine. I thrill to the pedestrian pace of my ‘race’ car as I have no choice but to follow the path laid out for me. Ah, the not-so open road! Fun.
It may not make sense, but I’m obsessed with this attraction! I collect anything related to it, such as this wonderful Hallmark Keepsake Ornament:
See? Even Mickey loves it!
Hallmark used to release a series of ornaments based on various intellectual properties a few months before Christmas each year. Now it seems that there is always a selection. I just picked up this 2021 release in July. A tad before the season!
I’m not a big fan of holidays (vacations yes, holidays no). What I like about these ornaments is that they can be displayed year round. With no Santa hats or celebratory slogans scrawled on them, they really can be collected as a work of art.
I usually find many of these ornaments attractive. But they can range in price from an entry level offering like this one at $18.99 US / $23.00 CAN to well over $40.00 or more! Ouch.
The level of detail on these ornaments is always impressive. They constitute a true representation of the intellectual property being rendered. And Hallmark ensures that the quality matches anything Disney might be releasing through the Disney Store or any of its Parks.
Each new release is crafted by an artist. I wish the artist’s name was imprinted on the piece as is the case with Disney Vinylmations. Credit where credit is due!
Even the inside of the piece is detailed. Mickey has his foot on the gas pedal, his hand on the steering wheel, and his butt firmly planted in a seat.
The show: Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-in. The time: 3/2 of 1970. The premise: A man is trying to get out of a traffic ticket by utilizing name dropping.
And the name he first chooses to drop gives us our Disney tie-in: Annette Funicello. And just before he utters the moniker of the famous Mouseketeer, he says:
Artie Johnson Sports the Ears
“Would it do any good to mention that I’m a personal friend of Annette Funicello?“
As he does so, he dons an appropriate set of Mickey Ears! Yes, it just goes to show once again that you just don’t know when something Disney will show up.
Artie Johnson (January 20, 1929 – July 3, 2019) starred on Laugh-In from 1968 to 1973 where he received billing above most of the other members of the cast. He played characters as diverse as a confused German army soldier to a dirty old man who mumbled. But now we know his most prestigious role was as a middle-aged Mouseketeer!
Before you go, check out another Found Disney moment from this psychedelic show as Mickey Mouse Visits Laugh-In. It’ll creep you out, but you’ve come this far, so there’s no turning back now!
Disleelandia 