Welcome back to Thoughts While Watching, my exploratory series that dares to ask: what was going on back in the day?! Join me in witnessing Disney’s vintage-est media with modern eyes.
THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF DISNEY’S DISNEYLAND COLOR TELEVISION SPECIAL
And one of my favorite-est bits of Disney’s vintage-est media, my TWW north star if you will, is an episode of the long-running if much-renaming anthology series. Call it Disneyland, call it The Wonderful World of Color, call it The Wonderful World of Disney, call it anything you like – the older the better! Because if we’re very lucky, Walt Disney himself will walk us through it.
Today we’re focusing on an entry that somewhat took me by surprise: the 1957 episode “Tricks of Our Trade.” Far from a mere compendium of animation hacks, our own Uncle Walt takes us behind the scenes for a look at how animators capture the weight and depth of a character. From sketching off live models to slowing down video to breaking glass and staring at milk droplets with an intensity the dairy industry may never experience again, “Tricks of Our Trade” does NOT share anything I’d call a trick. Rather, it showcases how seriously Disney and his animators took their art form. We even get an up close and personal look at the vaunted multiplane camera!
The bad news is that due to copyright law the YouTube versions all remove sections of Fantasia and Bambi that were originally included to illustrate some of the concepts Uncle Walt discussed. The good news is that this baby is now down to barely more than 30 minutes, so you can knock it out during your lunch break. Press play, press play!
And now…
16 THOUGHTS I HAD WHILE WATCHING DISNEY’S TRICKS OF OUR TRADE (1957)
1 Uncle Walt doesn’t seem super excited to film this episode. I wonder why?
2 Oh my gosh, is that Walt Disney’s The Art of Animation book available to buy?! (It might not be; I just checked Alibris and didn’t see any matches.)
3 I’m trying to figure out if these are real animators or actors or some combination thereof. I know there was a mix in The Reluctant Dragon. Just based on sight I don’t think we’re looking at any of the Nine Old Men, but I could easily be wrong. The guy with the glasses looks familiar.
4 I love how every episode features something that would’ve been a cancellable offense today. Fat jokes for everyone!
5 I feel like a lot of Walt’s “tricks” like incidental action parallel how people are starting to catch undisclosed AI.
6 “A group of our highly skilled animators” and it’s a couple guys playing with fire.
7 Fantasia mentioned!!! … but not seen on YouTube. What can ya do.
8 All right, so we know at least one real Imagineer is in this – Joshua Meador is specifically called out in the effects demo alongside Jack Boyd and Dan McManus.
9 I like this two-page flipping strategy. I might try that for some of my run costume sketches.
10 Am I crazy, or is this bubble drawing sequence actually pretty fascinating?
11 I wonder if they still have any of these proof of concept pastel drawings. I bet they’d be worth a lot.
12 “From cosmic to microcosmic is a long long jump” is exactly the sort of trust in the audience’s intelligence I feel like you don’t get as much of nowadays.
13 Okay, I am kind of loving Uncle Walt’s explanation of the multiplane camera.
14 These MUST be real Imagineers rather than actors because that dialogue delivery is terrible.
15 Hey, how do I apply as a ballet model for the animation department? I can do it! Although I must say these Imagineers do not look impressed.
16 More fat jokes??? About the ballerina????? … Ohhh, the hippo and ostrich ballerinas. Well played, boys.
IN CONCLUSION
Everyone loves a Disney animated short or Fess Parker tall tale of the week, but for me, there’s no better Wonderful World episode than one that shows off Disney’s artistic prowess. Not to go off on a rant (just kidding; rants are what blogs are for), but this is kind of what bothers me about all these Disney live-action remakes. It suggests that whether to make a movie live action or animated is an arbitrary decision, when clearly animation as an art form enables artists to tell their story in such a way that the medium and narrative serve each other.
I’ve heard rumors that Disney is considering once again making a movie using old-fashioned hand-drawn animation – and I for one dearly hope they will. Just think how much passion the Imagineers packed into those thirty minutes. It feels like a crime to let it languish like this, don’t you think?
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