The Mouse Castle Lounge 05-29-2018 - Artist Denise Chamberlain Talks About Mary Blair

EDITOR'S NOTE: After posting this interview with Denise Chamberlain, I was contacted by Mary Blair's niece, Maggie Richardson, contesting information in the interview. In an e-mail, Maggie told me Denise is not a blood relation of Mary Blair, never met her, and does not represent the Blair family. I contacted Denise for comment, and she confirmed her relationship to Mary was through Denise's uncle, who married Mary's niece, Jeanne, when Denise was a child. Denise still contends that when she was young, she met Mary at various parties and family functions, and still considers Mary her "great aunt," even if not by blood.

Not clarifying Denise's actual relationship to Mary Blair in the interview was an oversight on my part and I apologize for the confusion. Maggie has asked me to delete the podcast and all related materials due to the inaccuracies she is claiming. I have declined,

What follows is the podcast's show notes as originally posted.

Denise Chamberlain

To say Denise Chamberlain has art in her blood…is a pretty accurate statement. Her great aunt, Mary Blair, is a Disney Legend whose distinct artistic style influenced classic Disney animated films like Cinderella, Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland as well as perhaps her most famous work, the Disney park attraction It’s a Small World.

Growing up, Denise got to know Aunt Mary and continues to feel her influence even now, 40 years after Mary’s death. Denise is a successful painter and muralist whose work can be seen throughout Colorado and via her website at MagicBrushArts.com. She joins us today to share stories about Mary Blair and talk about the impact art has had on her life. Denise Chamberlain is Tim's guest today in The Mouse Castle Lounge.

Enjoy!

Denise in front of her outdoor mural, The Spirit of Niwot.

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The Mouse Castle Lounge 05-16-2018 - Jungle Cruise Skipper Stories with David Marley

Doctor Skipper David Marley

David Marley is a historian with a PhD from George Washington University, but that's not important today. What matters is for four years he was a Jungle Cruise skipper at Disneyland! In 2016, he wrote Skipper Stories: True Tales From Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise, which contains dozens of interviews with fellow skips past and present. It's an insightful and often very funny look at one of Disneyland’s most popular attractions. The book has proven so popular that volume two of Skipper Stories will be out later this year.

David is going to share some of those stories with us today, so remain seated and keep your hands and arms inside the boat at all times. And don’t worry about that tiger that can jump over 20 feet. We’re 19 feet away—he’ll pass right over us. David Marley is Tim's guest today in The Mouse Castle Lounge.

Enjoy!

Skipper Stories is available on Amazon and Theme Park Press.

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The Mouse Castle Lounge 05-01-2018 - The Return of The Mouse Castle Lounge with Disney Historian Jim Korkis

Jim Korkis and Friend

The Mouse Castle Lounge is back! We’ve pulled the dust covers off the furniture and restocked the bar. And Tim is happy to welcome back a good friend of The Mouse Castle Lounge. Tim's guest is a prolific author, especially when it comes to Disney history. His books include The Vault of Walt series, The Secret Stories of Walt Disney World series, Who’s Afraid of the Song of the South and The Book of Mouse. His latest book is Call Me Walt: Everything You Never Knew About Walt Disney. Ladies and gentlemen of Team Mouse Castle, we’re back! So please welcome our guest, Jim Korkis, to The Mouse Castle Lounge.

Enjoy!

Books by Jim Korkis are available from Amazon and Theme Park Press.

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The Mouse Castle Lounge Returns May 1!!!

We're back, baby!

Almost.

One week from today, The Mouse Castle Lounge reopens! We're taking the dust covers off the furniture, restocking the bar and kicking the doors open as we welcome back our good friend, Disney historian and author Jim Korkis. He's the first of our terrific lineup of guests dropping by the Lounge in May. We hope you can join us!

May 1 - Jim Korkis, Disney historian and author; Call Me Walt, The Vault of Walt series.
May 8 - Tammy Tuckey, singer, actress and podcaster; You'll Find Me on Main Street.
May 15 - David Marley, historian, author and former Jungle Cruise skipper; Skipper Stories.
May 22 - Denise Chamberlain, artist, great-niece of Disney Legend Mary Blair.

Watch for more MCL news coming soon!

Watch Tim and Cheer for the MCL on Tonight's Podcast Awards!

The People's Choice Podcast Awards will stream live tonight at 5:00 p.m. PT. The Mouse Castle Lounge is honored to be nominated for Best Society-Culture Podcast. Please tune in right here to see if we take home the trophy. Also, I'm happy to say I'll be presenting awards in two categories (Entertainment and Games & Hobbies) with emcee Jason Bryant (Mat Talk Online). I hope you can join us.

Society - Culture

CoasterRadio.com [url] [rss]

Disney Parks Podcast [url] [rss]

Life of Caesar [url] [rss]

Mousetalgia [url] [rss]

Mysterious Matters [url] [rss]

The Budget-Minded Traveler [url] [rss]

The Catacombs of Halloween Horror Nights [url] [rss]

The Mouse Castle Lounge [url] [rss]

The Phileas Club [url] [rss]

Those Conspiracy Guys [url] [rss]

For a complete list of all nominees, please visit www.podcastawards.com.

By Tim Callaway

The Mouse Castle Lounge Happy Hour - Facebook Live 04-07-2016

So, apparently I'm in the minority when it comes to choosing #TeamIronMan over #TeamCap. I can't even catch a break choosing #TeamBlackWidow.

How do I know this? Because a bunch of you let me have it in the first Mouse Castle Lounge Happy Hour on Facebook Live.

It was supposed to be just a friendly get together on National Beer Day, but no.

All I can say is I better get my red carpet invite for Tuesday night's Captain America: Civil War premiere. It'll be at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood with the stars arriving about 5:30 p.m.

But, I digress.

Because, you see, we talked about a lot of other stuff during Happy Hour. Well, I talked. The rest of you typed. It worked out.

Here's what else we discussed. It was a lot of fun:

• The new Rogue One trailer.
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens on Blu-ray.
• Walt Disney World's "Early Morning Magic."
• Pixar's Piper.
• The Haunted Mansion "Ghost Post."
• D23's Destination D.

Please take a look and don't forget to like The Mouse Castle on Facebook. You don't ever want to miss happy hour. 

Cheers!

The Mouse Castle Lounge Happy (Half) Hour
Posted by The Mouse Castle - Disney Podcasts on Thursday, April 7, 2016

By Tim Callaway

'Inside The Mouse Castle' Goes on Hiatus

It's time for a break.

After 20 months and 97 episodes, Inside The Mouse Castle is going away. For how long, we're not sure.

Make no mistake, Anthony and I love doing the show and we love all of you who have taken the time to listen to our offbeat and (sometimes) intoxicated musings.

But, in the crowded and competitive world of podcasting--especially Disney podcasting--it's a daily challenge to stand out from the crowd and grow your audience.

Over time, we've discovered that doing a (more or less) weekly Disney news and commentary show might not be the way to go. While our listeners are loyal (thank you), we're not seeing the audience growth we would like. If we were a TV show, you'd call it bad ratings.

So, with that in mind, Anthony and I are taking a step back to assess and retool ITMC. What we'll come up with and when we'll come up with it, we're not sure yet, but you'll definitely read about it right here in The Mouse Castle.

In the meantime, what would you like to hear in a Disney podcast? More park stuff? Movie news? Disney history? Please, be our guides and share your comments with us below.

By the way, for fans of The Mouse Castle Lounge, nothing is changing. We'll still have the same great guest interviews we've always had. Stay tuned...

Thank you all for being a part of Team Mouse Castle!

--Tim

'Inside The Mouse Castle' Gets a Home of its Own

By Tim Callaway

Inside The Mouse Castle is getting a new home. Sort of.

For the 15 months or so that Anthony and I have been doing the show, we've always piggybacked it with The Mouse Castle Lounge on iTunes, Stitcher and the many other mobile apps and podcast directories out there. One podcast channel, The Mouse Castle; two shows.

This has worked out pretty good for a while, but over time we noticed a few things:

• Some of you like The Mouse Castle Lounge more than Inside The Mouse Castle. We're cool with that.
• Some of you like Inside The Mouse Castle more than The Mouse Castle Lounge. We're also cool with that.
• Some of you like both shows. You're our favorites.
• Some of you can't stand either show. You're probably not reading this.

Realizing that each show tends to appeal to a different slice of Disney fan, we decided to spin-off Inside The Mouse Castle into its own listing, which you can now find separately on iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you access your favorite podcasts.

So, what really changes?

Not much. Both shows will still be here on The Mouse Castle blog and on all our social media spots. You'll still be able to search all our shows on your favorite mobile app. If you have a podcast subscription to The Mouse Castle, however, you'll need to also subscribe to Inside The Mouse Castle now to keep up with everything we've got going on. It's pretty simple, really. Just make sure you subscribe before November 8. After then, all the ITMC shows will vanish from The Mouse Castle directory, which will once again become The Mouse Castle Lounge.

A note to Mouse Castle app users: on November 8, all the ITMC shows will go away and the app will only play Mouse Castle Lounge shows.

And for our SoundCloud subscribers, good news! Nothing is changing for you. SoundCloud lets us split The Mouse Castle podcasts into two different playlists. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Hopefully, this isn't too confusing. We're changing things up a bit to make it easier for our current and future listeners to find and enjoy both Inside The Mouse Castle and The Mouse Castle Lounge. Thank you so much for your patience and understanding. As always, we love that you're part of Team Mouse Castle.

Listen and subscribe to Inside The Mouse Castle on iTunes, Stitcher and SoundCloud.

The Mouse Castle Lounge 02-19-2015 - At the 87th Academy Awards

By Tim Callaway

Neil Patrick Harris hosts
the Oscars on Sunday.

We were going to talk to Neil Patrick Harris in this episode of The Mouse Castle Lounge, but we just couldn't make time for him. No, really. Listen to the show. Everything we said is true. Most of it. Okay, some of it. But Neil Patrick Harris was really there. No he wasn't.

What did happen is Team Mouse Castle descended upon Hollywood this week for our annual Oscar preview show. It's the one show each year where we depart from our usual Disney obsessions to indulge in our movie obsessions, sharing our knowledge, insight and lame-ass opinions about who we think will win in the major categories at the Academy Awards. 

This year, I was joined by my good friends Anthony Reynolds, Christi Andersen, Jennifer O'Brien-Chavez and Tina Joplin at Trastavere at Hollywood & Highland. We dined Italian and drank copious amounts of wine just steps away from Hollywood Boulevard where red carpet preparations were underway. We also spent some time on the red carpet itself, where I managed to get in the way of just about everyone who was working there. I am not proud of this.

For those of you playing at home, here are the categories we cover on today's show. Who are your Oscar choices? Please share your thoughts in the comments below. Enjoy!

Best Picture
American Sniper
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash

Best Director
Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Richard Linklater, Boyhood
Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher
Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game

Best Animated Feature
Big Hero 6
The Boxtrolls
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Song of the Sea
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

Best Actor
Steve Carell, Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper, American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything

Best Actress
Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon, Wild

Best Supporting Actor
Robert Duvall, The Judge
Ethan Hawke, Boyhood
Edward Norton, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher
J.K. Simmons, Whiplash

Best Supporting Actress
Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Laura Dern, Wild
Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game
Emma Stone, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Meryl Streep, Into the Woods

Neil Patrick Harris will host the 87th Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood this Sunday. The show will be televised on ABC beginning at 4 p.m. Pacific time. So far as we know, Neil is still waiting to talk to us.

Team Mouse Castle at the Oscars.
(l. to r.) Christi, Tim, Jennifer, Tina and Anthony

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The Mouse Castle Lounge 01-29-2015 - 'Walt Before Mickey' Author Tim Susanin

By Tim Callaway

Walt Before Mickey

Tim Susanin is an investigative attorney by profession whose curiosity was piqued just over ten years ago on a family vacation to Walt Disney World. He became fascinated with the Florida resort’s namesake and began to wonder how Walt Disney went from a simple midwest upbringing to founding an animation studio that became a worldwide media empire. So, Tim started reading and researching and digging. He soon discovered that while there was plenty written about Walt after Mickey Mouse made him a success, there was very little detailed documentation about the years that led up to that. What happened to Walt after he returned from France in 1919? What did he do until success ultimately found him in 1928?

Tim did extensive research on the period and talked to other authors and historians, even members of the Disney family. The result of his efforts became the book Walt Before Mickey: Disney’s Early Years, 1919-1928. It was published in 2011 and was received well by fans, historians and critics. Today, Walt Before Mickey is about to become a motion picture starring Thomas Ian Nicholas as Walt Disney and Jon Heder as his brother Roy Disney. Tim Susanin is my guest today in The Mouse Castle Lounge.

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Nominate 'The Mouse Castle' for This Year's Podcast Awards!

By Tim Callaway

THE DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED UNTIL FEBRUARY 6TH. PLEASE GET THOSE NOMINATIONS IN! THANK YOU!

Okay, gang, we need your help. Please take a few minutes to support Team Mouse Castle.

On April 14th, New Media Expo (NMX) will host the 10th Annual People's Podcast Awards in Las Vegas (my hometown). It's one of the most prestigious awards handed out in online media and we'd really like to be in the running for one.

What am I saying? We'd like to win the damn thing.

Accomplishing this requires a lot of help, because you're doing the nominating. So, yeah, no pressure.

If you've listened to and enjoyed our two podcasts, The Mouse Castle Lounge and Inside The Mouse Castle, we hope you'll nominate them for Podcast Awards. It's very easy to do.

First, visit www.podcastawards.com for the nomination ballot.

Next, please enter The Mouse Castle Lounge in the "People's Choice" and "Cultural/Arts" categories. Enter Inside The Mouse Castle in the "Best Produced" and "Entertainment" categories.

Use www.TheMouseCastle.com as the URL for each nominee.

If there are other podcasts you like in other categories, by all means enter them, but please limit The Mouse Castle podcasts only to the categories I named above. It will improve our chances of being recognized and keep us within the rules.

Finally, enter your name and e-mail address, then click "Submit." You're done.

Nomination ballots are limited to one per person only and must be entered before February 2 6, 2015. If we're fortunate enough to make the final ballot, then you can go crazy with voting. We'll let you know when and how.

Thank you for helping us out. You're awesome!

Happy Holidays From The Mouse Castle!

It's been a wonderful year for The Mouse Castle. Thank you for being a part of it.  Have a happy and safe holiday season and an even better 2015!

Click to enlarge.

The Mouse Castle Lounge 11-17-2014 - Walt Disney's Trains

A dapper Michael Campbell celebrates Walt's trains.

Michael Campbell showed up at the presentation in a train conductor's uniform. Being president of the Carolwood Pacific Historical Society, I suspect he's done this before. 

He came to the Walt Disney Family Museum to talk about Walt Disney, trains and the museum's new exhibition he curated, All Aboard: A Celebration of Walt's Trains. It contains over 200 artifacts from Walt's railroad loving past. 

Michael, along with the museum's executive director Kirsten Komoroske, are my guests in The Mouse Castle Lounge. They talk at length about how the exhibition came together and the many unique items that make it up, Michael also shares a delightful and touching story of how Disney animation legend Ollie Johnston--who shared Walt's passion for trains--had the train ride of his life at Disneyland with the help of John Lasseter. 

Enjoy!

Michael Campbell looks on while Kirsten Komoroske speaks at
the Walt Disney Family Museum.

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The Mouse Castle Lounge 07-28-2014 - Disney Imagineer Alan Coats Part Two

Alan Coats' first job at WED (Walt Disney Imagineering) was to destroy attraction and character models that were no longer used or needed. Fortunately, his future projects at Disney actually allowed him to create things.

Alan Coats did lighting design for
Cinderella Castle and it's a small world.

With Yale Gracey, Alan did lighting design at Walt Disney World, often working late hours to get exterior lighting correct for Magic Kingdom structures like Cinderella Castle -- just in time for the October 1971 grand opening. He worked on the interiors of many other attractions, including it's a small world, and later partnered with his father, Claude Coats, to design the Eastern Airlines travelogue ride If You Had Wings. Alan would then move on to various projects at Epcot's World Showcase.

In part two of Alan's visit to The Mouse Castle Lounge, he shares more of his experiences as a self-described "Disney brat" and recalls his father's legacy as an artist and Imagineer.

Two generations of Disney creative artists are yours in this edition of The Mouse Castle Lounge. Enjoy!

Download: http://traffic.libsyn.com/themousecastle/TheMouseCastleLounge07-28-2014.mp3

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Related: Imagineer Alan Coats in the MCL

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Imagineer Alan Coats in the MCL

Alan Coats considers himself pretty lucky. His father, Claude, was a talented Disney artist who worked on almost every feature-length film from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Lady and the Tramp. Claude would eventually shift his talents to Disneyland, designing the Fantasyland dark rides for grand opening before taking on the "impossible" task of creating the Mine Train's Rainbow Caverns. Claude was named a Disney Legend in 1991.

Disney Imagineer Alan Coats

Alan's mother, Evelyn, was a department head at the studio's Ink and Paint Department. She and Claude got married during the hectic production of Snow White, took a three-day honeymoon in Ensenada, then went right back to work.

Alan grew up among all the great names at the studio. He met Walt and Roy Disney. He marched in a Disneyland parade alongside Annette Funicello. He knew all of the Nine Old Men. Artist and Imagineer Yale Gracey took Alan's baby pictures.

Add to that a decades-long career at Disney with stints at Disneyland, Walt Disney World and WED (later Walt Disney Imagineering) and you see before you a very lucky man indeed. Being a talented artist and designer probably didn't hurt either. Nor, for that matter, did being Claude's kid. Alan readily owns up to that one.

Alan is my guest today in The Mouse Castle Lounge. In part one of our two-part conversation, he talks about his father's career as well as his own early days working at Disneyland. Enjoy!

Download: http://traffic.libsyn.com/themousecastle/TheMouseCastleLounge07-21-2014.mp3

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Related: The Mouse Castle Lounge 07-28-2014 - Disney Imagineer Alan Coats Part Two

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Oh Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy!

Me and Mr. Duck. Happy Birthday, Donald!

You know, I really intended to do this quietly. I was going to gradually ramp things up and see if you noticed. Then I realized it was all going to start on Donald Duck's 80th birthday.

Donald Duck doesn't do subtle. Never has. Never will.

So, I guess I won't either.

It's a brand new day at The Mouse Castle. I've been puttering along with this blog in its various iterations for over five years. It's been fun playing around with this decidedly mixed bag of news, movie and product reviews, interviews, commentary, and, well, whatever I felt like writing about. But, it's always been a part-time passion for me, a glorified hobby that more times than not took a backseat to my day job, which wasn't even remotely related to Disney. That meant a lot of stories I wanted to write about went unwritten because I simply didn't have the time. I loved blogging, but I was frustrated by what I couldn't get to.

When I launched The Mouse Castle Lounge podcast in October 2012, it was also something I worked on part-time. It was hectic shoehorning interviews and late night editing sessions into an already busy home and career schedule. Make no mistake, though, I loved every minute of it too and I take great pride in knowing I managed to produce over 60 shows on tight time constraints and shared wonderful guests with you like Diane Disney Miller, Don Hahn, Pat Carroll, the Bancroft Brothers and Marty Sklar. But, yeah, there were frustrations. Too many times I felt rushed and not fully prepared to do interviews. Rushing home on an extended lunch hour is not the best way to interview John Canemaker. But, you know something? I interviewed John Canemaker! I must be doing something right.

Which brings us to today, Donald's birthday. This is the duck who beat down Mickey Mouse's "William Tell Overture" with "Turkey in the Straw" on his fife. He's a feisty one, that duck. Right or wrong, he never backs away from a challenge and he can totally rock "Mary Had a Little Lamb" in front of an audience of bratty orphans. So, in honor of Donald Duck's inimitable, irascible style on his 80th birthday, I'm happy to announce that starting today, The Mouse Castle is now a full-time enterprise. I've finally put the workaday grind behind me to devote myself completely to this weird and wonderful corner of Disney fandom. You're stuck with me now, people. Get used to it.

So what does this mean exactly?

It means more news, more reviews, more interviews, more ME! It means more hanging out in the best place around to share your Disney nerdiness...and then joining me for a cocktail or two. It means that after a month-long hiatus, The Mouse Castle Lounge will be back later this month with even more terrific guests.

I could tell you more, but even I haven't figured it all out yet--and that's the most exciting part of all. Stay tuned. I have a few projects going on behind the scenes that I'll reveal when the time comes, but for now, just take a step back inside The Mouse Castle and let's have some fun.

OH BOY, OH BOY, OH BOY!

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'Maleficent' Executive Producer Don Hahn in the MCL

Angelina Jolie as Maleficent

Elegant, graceful and evil to the core, Maleficent, the wicked fairy from the 1959 animated classic Sleeping Beauty, is one of Disney's most enduring villains--and one of it's most original. Is there anything more badass than holding a grudge for 16 years, then morphing into a fire-breathing dragon?

Maleficent has remained so popular that 55 years later, she's finally getting her own live-action film. Maleficent will star Angelina Jolie (you may have heard about it) and opens in U.S. theaters on May 30th. The movie is not just Maleficent's take on the whole Sleeping Beauty saga, but also the back story of how she became the mistress of all that is evil.

Don Hahn

The film's executive producer Don Hahn is quick to give credit for Maleficent's longevity to Disney Legend Marc Davis, who animated the character. "(Sleeping Beauty) was published in France originally, but there was a lot of oral traditions and there was no Maleficent. That's Marc and the story guys and Walt. And she's become this very popular villain."

Don is my guest in The Mouse Castle Lounge today and he talks not only about the character and the film Maleficent, but also about his own amazing career at Disney that's spanned well over 30 years. Don literally started in the basement at the studio, first working underneath the Ink and Paint Department, perusing animation art in the Morgue (which would eventually become the Animation Research Library). He would later assist on such films as Pete's Dragon and The Fox and the Hound before landing his first associate producer gig on Who Framed Roger Rabbit. His breakthrough would come as producer of Beauty and the Beast, the landmark film that in 1992 would become the first animated movie to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. This was the first of a string of producer credits for Don that included exceptional films like The Lion King (1994), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), and The Emperor's New Groove (2000). In 2009, Don would narrate, direct and co-produce Waking Sleeping Beauty, his honest and heartfelt documentary about Disney's second golden age of animation and the many lofty talents and loftier egos that made it happen.

Don is one of the giants of Disney animation and it's my pleasure to welcome him to The Mouse Castle Lounge. Enjoy!

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Related: The Making of 'The Lion King'

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Conversations From the D23 Expo in 'The Mouse Castle Lounge'

Tens of thousands of crazed Disney fans converged on the D23 Expo in Anaheim last weekend and I was one of them. And oh, the people I talked to: the voice cast of Phineas and Ferb and Gravity Falls, singer/actress Susan Egan, Disney Animation Research Library creative director Lella Smith, video game developers for both Disney Infinity and Fantasia: Music Evolved and more. It's a random and thoroughly entertaining hour-long romp through the D23 Expo. Cocktails forever!

It's been a busy week of travel for me, so I haven't been able to pour over the tons of pictures I took last weekend. Rest assured, I'll get through them and post the best ones this weekend. Also, I'm super excited about the next episode of the MCL. On Tuesday, I was able to meet the extraordinary Tyrus Wong, the 102-year old Disney legend best known to fans for his evocative artistic design of Bambi. A retrospective of his work, "Water to Paper, Paint to Sky: The Art of Tyrus Wong" opens today at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. Very soon, I'll share with you my conversation with Tyrus as well as other Disney notables like Pete Docter, Tony Anselmo and J.B. Kaufman as we celebrate the life of a master artist.

For now, however, it's all about the Expo. Crowded, crazy and oh so fun. Enjoy your visit today to The Mouse Castle Lounge.

The Mouse Castle Lounge can also be heard on iTunes and Stitcher.

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Talking 'Walt's People' with Didier Ghez in 'The Mouse Castle Lounge'

You have to admire someone who takes on a project he admits will take 20 to 30 years to complete.

Didier Ghez is nine years into that project.

Didier Ghez

In a few weeks, he'll release Volume 13(!) of Walt's People, a collection of in-depth interviews with the men and women who knew, worked with, and were inspired by Walt Disney. Like its 12 predecessors, the contributors to these volumes read like a Who's Who of Disney historians: John Canemaker, Jim Korkis, Michael Barrier, Paul Anderson and many others. Of course, the interview subjects are pretty impressive too: Woolie Reitherman, Floyd Gottfredson, Fess Parker, Virginia Davis and Roy E. Disney, just to name a few.

Walt's People was born from an e-mail conversation Didier had with Jim Korkis in 2004 lamenting the dearth of serious Disney history that was available to researchers and armchair historians. As Didier wrote in Volume 1, "Huge amounts of amazing material was sleeping in working cabinets of serious Disney historians, unavailable to Disney enthusiasts for lack of publishing venues. Some would surface from time to time in a book released by Hyperion, some would see the light of day in a fanzine or on a website, but this seemed to happen less and less often."

And so, Didier got to work, reaching out to his fellow historians to clean out those working cabinets and dust off those under-utilized conversations with the greats of Disney history. Thirteen volumes later, he has amassed an astounding oral history of Disney, told by the animators, directors, artists and Imagineers who were there.

In my conversation with Didier in The Mouse Castle Lounge, we talk about his passion for Disney history and all the work he's put into making Walt's People a reality. We also discuss his upcoming book projects, which include the story of Walt Disney's trip to Europe in 1935 and how it continued to influence the Walt Disney Studios decades later.

We've got nothing but good people--Walt's people--in this week's Mouse Castle Lounge. Enjoy!

For more about Didier Ghez, visit disneybooks.blogspot.com or didierghez.com.

The Mouse Castle Lounge can also be heard on iTunes and Stitcher.

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Ashman Talks Ashman: Sarah Ashman Gillespie in the MCL

Sarah Ashman and Howard Ashman in 1983

Last week, I posted a birthday tribute to Howard Ashman, the late writer and lyricist who, with composer Alan Menken, wrote some of the all-time great Disney songs for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. This week, I'm happy to share part one of my conversation with Howard's sister, Sarah Ashman Gillespie, who manages the website Howard Ashman: Part of His World, a celebration of her brother's life and legacy.

Howard Ashman's story is one of both great achievement and unfulfilled promise. A talented wordsmith with a passion for theater, he found success off-Broadway writing and directing the musical Little Shop of Horrors and later adapting the screenplay for the popular Frank Oz-directed film version. Success on Broadway eluded him, however. Smile, a comical and sentimental send-up of teen beauty pageants that he wrote with composer Marvin Hamlisch, flopped and closed at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in early 1987 after only 48 performances.

Ashman's talent would not be denied, however. When Disney came calling in the late 1980s, he and Menken found themselves at ground zero of perhaps the biggest movie studio comeback in Hollywood history and became one of the driving forces behind Disney's animation renaissance. Ashman's death from AIDS in 1991, months before the release of Beauty and the Beast, is one of the great tragedies in entertainment. He was at his creative peak when he passed away, and although the body of work he left behind was impressive and beloved, we are left wondering what musical and theatrical magic might have happened had he lived.

In part one of my interview with Sarah, she talks about the origins of her website, Howard's early career and how he was pursued by Disney. Enjoy!

The Mouse Castle Lounge can also be heard on iTunes and Stitcher.

Related: Sarah Ashman Gillespie, Part Two
             Sarah Ashman Gillespie, Part Three

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