WEE're Going to Disneyland! December 4-6, 2009 [View All]

[Demeter]

Yes, I know. We've already made two trips to this well. But let's face it, if you are a Boomer, or to either side of the Pig in the Python, you were formed in a culture saturated with Pixie dust. It guided us, or misguided us, throughout our formative years. We can learn a lot from the Man in the Mouse Ears. Our story continues:


"1941–1945: During World War II

Disney and a group of animators were sent to South America in 1941 by the U.S. State Department as part of its Good Neighbor policy, and guaranteed financing for the resulting movie, Saludos Amigos.

Shortly after the release of Dumbo in October 1941, the United States entered World War II. The U.S. Army contracted most of the Disney studio's facilities and had the staff create training and instructional films for the military, home-front morale-boosting shorts such as Der Fuehrer's Face and the feature film Victory Through Air Power in 1943. However, the military films did not generate income, and the feature film Bambi underperformed when it was released in April 1942. Disney successfully re-issued Snow White in 1944, establishing a seven-year re-release tradition for Disney features. In 1945, The Three Caballeros was the last animated feature by Disney during the war period.

In 1944, William Benton, publisher of the Encyclopædia Britannica, had entered into unsuccessful negotiations with Disney to make six to twelve educational films annually. Disney was asked by the US Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA), to make an educational film about the Amazon Basin and it resulted in the 1944 animated short, The Amazon Awakens.

1945–1955: Disney in the post-war Period

The Disney studios also created inexpensive package films, containing collections of cartoon shorts, and issued them to theaters during this period. This includes Make Mine Music (1946), Melody Time (1948), Fun and Fancy Free (1947) and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). The latter had only two sections: the first based on The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, and the second based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. During this period, Disney also ventured into full-length dramatic films that mixed live action and animated scenes, including Song of the South and So Dear to My Heart. After the war ended, Mickey's popularity would also fade as well.

By the late 1940s, the studio had recovered enough to continue production on the full-length features, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, both of which had been shelved during the war years, and began work on Cinderella, which became Disney's most successful film since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The studio also began a series of live-action nature films, titled True-Life Adventures, in 1948 with On Seal Island. Despite rebounding success through feature films, Disney's animation shorts were no longer as popular as they used to be, and people began to instead draw attention to Warner Bros and their animation star Bugs Bunny; by 1942, Warner Bros' Termite Terrace officially became the most popular animation studio.<68> However, while Bugs Bunny's popularity rose in the 1940s, so did Donald Duck's; Donald would also replace Mickey Mouse as Disney's star character in 1949.

During the mid-1950s, Disney produced a number of educational films on the space program in collaboration with NASA rocket designer Wernher von Braun: Man in Space and Man and the Moon in 1955, and Mars and Beyond in 1957."

So early on we can see the US Government taking to film and using Disney to promote its policies and set the tone for future events. It was easy money, influence, flattery, it paid the bills and kept the venture alive. In a way, I cannot blame Walt for doing so. I'm sure he thought it patriotic, as well as profitable. But it was the first step on a slippery slope of mixing politics and culture, a baby step to the Culture Wars around us, as well as the melding of corporation and Constitutional activities...

I will be missing in action for much of the evening, dealing with some family business. Do keep this thread going. There's too much to let it slip. See you later!