This Day in Disney History

[tiggerguy]

February 11

1918:
Animator, Imagineer, sculptor and Disney Legend Blaine Gibson is born in Rocky Ford, Colorado. He will create hundreds of sculptures from which Audio-Animatronics figures and bronzes will be produced for exhibits in the 1964-65 New York World's Fair and Disney theme parks around the world. Among his contributions will be Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, and the Enchanted Tiki Room. He will also sculpt all the presidents for the Hall of Presidents at Walt Disney World and the Partners statue.

1932:
The Mickey Mouse short The Grocery Boy, featuring the voices of Walt Disney (as Mickey) and Marcellite Garner (as Minnie), is released.

1952:
Disney's Alice in Wonderland is nominated for an Academy Award forBest Scoring of a Musical Picture.

2000:
Disney's The Tigger Movie - narrated by John Hurt and featuring five new songs by the team of Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman - is released. It is the first time Pooh and his friends appear in an original, theatrically-released feature film (previous Pooh features were either compilations of shorts, or made for video productions).

2007:
Randy Newman's "Our Town" (from the Disney/Pixar Cars) wins Best Song Written For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media at the 49th Grammy Awards.

[tiggerguy]

February 12

1809:
Abraham Lincoln (the 16th U.S. president) is born in Hardin County, Kentucky. He will be the subject of such Disney attractions as Greatest Moments with Mr Lincoln and Walt Disney World's Hall of Presidents. Walt Disney was always fascinated with the life of Lincoln. He even recited Lincoln's Gettysburg Address to his elementary class as a small boy!

2001:
Ilene Woods - the original voice of Cinderella - appears at a Cinderella Ball in Disneyland to celebrate the anniversary of the motion picture.

[tiggerguy]

February 13

1930:
Autumn, the third 4 seasons Symphony is released. It is directed by Ub Iwerks and released through Columbia Pictures.

1957:
The Disneyland television series airs "Tricks of Our Trade."

1965:
Disney's combination live-action and animated Freewayphobia, featuring Goofy, is released.

1993:
Lumiere's Kitchen restaurant opens in Fantasyland at Disney World's Magic Kingdom.

2007:
Danielle Day and her family from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan spend the night inside Cinderella Castle in the Magic Kingdom. The first time Disney World visitors are the first Canadian family to ever win
a night's stay as part of the unique Disney Dreams Giveaway.

[tiggerguy]

February 14

1998:
The Ghirardelli Soda Fountain & Chocolate Shop has its grand opening at the Downtown Disney Marketplace in Florida

2003:
Disney's The Jungle Book 2 featuring the voices of John Goodman and Haley Joel Osment opens.

[tiggerguy]

February 15

1899:
Lillian Marie Bounds, the wife of Walt Disney for 41 years, is born in Spalding, Idaho.

1907:
Actor Cesar Romero is born in New York City. His Disney credits include the live-action comedies The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969) and Now You See Him, Now You Don't (1972)

1927:
Comedy veteran Harvey Korman is born in Chicago, Illinois. His Disney credits include an episode of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and the live-action feature Herbie Goes Bananas.

1956:
The Disneyland television series airs "Our Unsung Villains," narrated by Walt Disney.

[tiggerguy]

February 16

1904:
Actor James Baskett, Uncle Remus in Disney's Song of the South, is born in Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1945, he will audition for a bit part dubbing one of the animals in the new Disney feature based on the
Uncle Remus stories. Walt will be so impressed with Baskett's talent, that he will hire him on the spot for the lead role of Uncle Remus. As such, he will be the first live actor hired by Disney to play in a feature film.

1920:
Patti Andrews, one-third of the popular singing trio The Andrews Sisters, is born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Aside from frequently playing themselves in movies, the sisters sold over 60 million records and lent their singing voices to Disney's Make Mine Music and Melody Time.

1945:
Frank Welker, Hollywood's "voice god," is born in Denver Colorado. His Disney credits include Mulan II, The Search for Mickey Mouse, The Lion King 1 1/2, Kim Possible: Revenge of Monkey Fist, and Return to Neverland.

2003:
The Wonderful World of Disney airs "Meredith Willson's The Music Man" starring Matthew Broderick
(a 3-hour new presentation of the classic musical).

[tiggerguy]

February 17

1934:
Actor-comic Barry Humphries, the voice of Bruce in the 2003 Finding Nemo, is born in Victoria, Australia.

1981:
Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the voice of Jim Hawkins in the 2002 Disney feature Treasure Planet, is born in Los Angeles, California.

1983:
Disney's Tron is nominated for 2 Academy Awards.

1993:
Disney's Aladdin is nominated for 5 Academy Awards.

[tiggerguy]

February 18

1903:
George Givot, the voice of Tony in Disney's 1955 classic Lady and the Tramp, is born in Omaha, Nebraska.

1907:
Actor-comic Billy De Wolfe, who appears in the 1973 live-action Disney feature The World's Greatest Athlete, is born in Wollaston, Massachusetts. (He is also the voice of Professor Hinckle in the
classic animated holiday TV special Frosty the Snowman.)

1949:
Actor Pat Fraley, whose voice can be heard in such animated features as Chicken Little, Monsters, Inc. and Toy Story 2, is born in Seattle, Washington.

1960:
Under storm-threatening skies, the greatest winter athletes in the world gather in Squaw Valley, California, to begin the VIII Olympic Winter Games. The opening (and closing) ceremonies are orchestrated by Walt Disney (the Head of Pageantry for the Games), and involve 5,000 participants, 1,285 instruments and 2,645 voices from 52 California and Nevada high school bands. Disney artist John Hench has designed the massive Tower of Nations, located at the entrance of the valley. Hench's unique Olympic torch design will be the basis for all future torches! The valley features 30 flagpoles for the flags of the participating nations. Each flagpole has a plaque signed by Walt Disney.

2000:
A new fireworks show entitled "Believe ... There's Magic in the Stars," officially debuts at Disneyland. It has been created especially for the park's 45th anniversary.

[tiggerguy]

February 19

1952:
The Disney short Hello Aloha is released by RKO. Directed by Jack Kinney, this cartoon finds Goofy living out the working-man's dream of walking away from his job and moving to a tropical island paradise.

1987:
Paul Terry, the voice of James in the 1996 James and the Giant Peach, is born.

2002:
The annual meeting of shareholders of The Walt Disney Company is held at the Hartford Civic Center in Connecticut at 10:00 a.m.

[tiggerguy]

February 20

1946:
Actress-dancer-singer Sandy Duncan is born in Henderson, Texas. Her Disney credits include the 1978 film The Cat From Outer Space, the 1976 television program Christmas in Disneyland, and the 1974 TV special Sandy in Disneyland.

1986:
WED Enterprises, first created in December 1952 to oversee the design of Disneyland, is renamed Walt Disney Imagineering. The term "Imagineering" is a portmanteau word that combines "imagination" and "engineering." The term was coined by Richard F. Sailer in an article titled "BRAINSTORMING IS IMAGINation enginEERING" which was written for the National Carbon Company Management Magazine in 1957. The term gravitated to Disney by unknown means.

[tiggerguy]

February 21

1955:
Emmy-award-winning actor Kelsey Grammer, the voice of Stinky Pete the Prospector in Toy Story 2 and the narrator of Hand Behind the Mouse: The Ub Iwerks Story and Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas, is born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands.

1989:
Actor & dancer Corbin Bleu is born in Brooklyn, New York. Best known for his role of Chad Danforth on Disney Channel's hit High School Musical, his Disney credits also include the 2007 Jump In!

[tiggerguy]

February 22

1908:
Actor & Disney Legend John Mills is born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills in Felixstowe, Suffolk, England. He will go on to portray Father Robinson in Disney's 1960 live-action film Swiss Family Robinson.

1971:
Tony Award-winning actress Lea Salonga, the singing voice of Disney's Mulan and the singing voice of Jasmine for Disney's Aladdin, is born Maria Lea Carmen Imutan Salonga in the Philippines.

2004:
At the 10th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, Johnny Depp wins for his performance in Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

[tiggerguy]

February 23

1935:
Disney's Mickey Mouse short The Band Concert is released at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City . The first Mickey cartoon in Technicolor, it is directed by Wilfred Jackson, who will go
on to direct such Disney classics as Peter Pan.

939:
Walt Disney receives a special Academy Award for his classic 83-minute animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, at the 1938 Academy Awards. Shirley Temple presents Walt with one statuette and seven miniature statuettes for "a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field for the motion picture cartoon."

1940:
Disney's Pinocchio is generally released.

[tiggerguy]

February 24

1939:
Disney's Silly Symphony cartoon The Practical Pig (featuring the Three Little Pigs) is released.

1943:
Master Disney animator Vladimir "Bill" Tytla resigns from the Disney Studios. His perception that he is unwelcomed at the Studio, has been given less challenging work, his wife's three-year long illness with tuberculosis, and a desire to live on his Connecticut farm has led him to this decision.
side note: The farm is located in tiggerguy's hometown.

1955:
Steve Jobs, one of the leading figures in the computer industry, is born to an American mother and Syrian father in San Francisco, California. A co-founder & CEO of Apple Computer, Jobs bought Lucasfilm's computer graphics division in the mid-1980s and turned it into Pixar Animation Studios.

[tiggerguy]

February 26

1920:
Actor Tony Randall is born Leonard Rosenberg in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He will go on to appear in the 1989 TV special "The Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park Grand Opening," and host the 1987 TV special "Walt Disney World Celebrity Circus."

1934:
Disney's Building a Building and Three Little Pigs are both nominated for the same Academy Award ... Short Subjects, Cartoon! Ironically so is Walt Lantz's The Merry Old Soul - starring Oswald the Rabbit.

1995:
Grand opening ceremonies begin for Disneyland's newest attraction, Indiana Jones Adventure.

2006:
The Timekeeper - located in Disney World's Magic Kingdom - permanently closes, it first opened in 1994.