Windows to the Past: The Mickey Mouse Weather House

Forget about the Weather Channel and all those high-tech weather apps on your smart phones and tablets.  In 1948, people predicted the weather the good old fashioned, common sense way--they relied on cartoon characters.  "Watch for balmy days when Mickey is out--beware of rain when Donald's about."

It was as simple as this:

"There is no difficult mechanism to get out of order--nothing complicated to study.  You'll love the beloved Disney clan--Figaro the Cat, the rooster weather vane and Pluto the Pup. The Mickey Mouse Weather House is sturdy, works indoors or out, is made of brightly colored plastic all hand painted."

The Weatherman company out of Chicago sold these types of devices via mail order and advertised primarily in general interest magazines and comic books.  It appears to employ a very basic hygrometer.  For $1.49, it was likely more gimmick than science.  They must have been rather disposable.  I have never ever seen one and a quick eBay search produced no results. 

Windows to the Past: Donald O Duck

 

A marquee malfunction inadvertently gives the temperamental cartoon star an Irish heritage in this vintage photograph that was likely snapped in early 1948, based on the release date of the movie Road to Rio.  The location is the Carolina Theatre in downtown Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  The theater has since evolved into the Stevens Center for the Arts and bears little physical resemblance to its original movie palace incarnation.  The image is part of the Digital Forsyth collection.

The Streets of L.A. Noire

Of late, I have become quite immersed in the recently released videogame L.A. Noire.  And although a discussion of the subject would be better suited to my neglected sister blog Boom-Pop!, I find myself more interested in playing six degrees of Hyperion and relating the certainly very obscure connections to my own research efforts that I found within the game's expansive recreation of Los Angeles circa 1947.

I  have spent an enormous amount of time over the past few years via testimonials and photographs, attempting to visualize in some way the Los Angeles that existed during Disney's Hyperion days, and also explore the area's iconography that inspired the Imagineers who created the initial designs for Disney-MGM Studios.  To free roam within a virtual replica of a place I have extensively explored on an academic level has been a great deal of fun to say the least.

The setting of L.A. Noire is a decade removed from Disney's Hyperion days, and unfortunately does not as yet include the Silver Lake and Los Feliz neighborhoods which were central to the studio's early history.  I've as yet only completed about 50% of the game but I have bumped into a few landmarks that relate to the architecture of the Hollywood Studios park at Walt Disney World.  The Brown Derby, the Max Factor building, the Crossroads of the World and Grauman's Theatre can all be found with L.A. Noire's virtual landscape.

The oddest bit of game to blog synergy happened when, during gameplay, I discovered the RKO Theatre.  I had recently published a Window to the Past here at 2719 Hyperion that showcased that theater's location on Hill Street in downtown Los Angeles.  Upon seeing the theater within the game, I quickly pulled my police car over to the curb, and ran down the street to find the area that was documented in the photograph I had featured.  Here is what I saw:

Just a little bit of fun I'd thought I'd share.  Please do not judge my momentary over-the-top geekiness too harshly.

Service With Character: Memorial Day Edition

In honor of the Memorial Day holiday, we are presenting a special edition of our very popular 2719 Hyperion Exhibition Hall series Service with Character: Disney World War II Insignia.  Today we feature twelve emblems collected from 1944 issues of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories.

32nd Sqd. Air Training Corps

494th Base Headquarters and Air Base Squadron

Co C 714th Tank Btn. 12th Armored Div.

799th Bombardment Squadron

881st Field Artillery Battalion

Army Nurse Corp

 Bombing Squadron 102

 Hq. Sq. 41 MBDAG-41

 Ships Repair AD-40

 U.S.S. Piedmont

 U.S.S. Sapelo

U.S.S. YMS 329

Explore the 2719 Hyperion Exhibition Hall:

Service With Character: Disney World War II Insignia

Service With Character: Whimsical Thought and Serious Intent

What a Character! - The Beechcraft Busy Bee

Unlike most of the insignia-related characters created by Disney artists during World War II, the Beechcraft Busy Bee was very much a homefront hero.  Beechcraft was founded in 1932 by husband and wife partners Walter H. Beech and Olive Ann Mellor Beech.  With designer Ted Wells, they created the Model 17 Staggerwing, a civilian plane that was manufactured in their Wichita, Kansas factory.

Walter and Olive Ann Beech in the Wichita factory, 1942.

 In 1942, the U.S. Army Air Forces ordered the first of 270 modified Staggerwings for service in World War II.  It was at the same time that Beech commissioned Walt Disney to create a company mascot that would encourage productivity and improve morale among his employees.  The result was the Beechcraft Busy Bee.  A company publication provided the following background:

Created by Walt Disney especially for Beechcraft as a badge of merit and honor to be awarded to employees of any rank or station. To qualify for the award an employee must have demonstrated, by performance, the qualities of high efficiency, interest in his work and in training for further advancement, cheerful cooperation with others, and the constant determination to "Kill 'em with Production."

The Beechcraft Busy Bee, rampant on a field of blueprint paper shaped in the form of a Beech leaf, embodies these qualities. Although this Beechcraft Busy Bee is busy as can be, he's not too busy to look aside to see, if instead of two jobs, he can't do three. His flaunted Beechcraft wing insigne and his cheerful grin are indicative of his high morale, but his determination is written all over his face.

Most Beechcrafters will qualify for this Award. With willing spirit and determination they are pushing production rates ever upward.

Beechcraft would be awarded the coveted Army-Navy E Award in 1942 and subsequent followup awards through the end of the war.  The E Award was given to companies as a reward for excellence in the production of war materials.  The spirit and determination of the Busy Bee was certainly reflected in the Beechcraft workforce.

 

The Bee was featured in numerous company publications, and employees were awarded patches, pins and certificates of merit that all showcased the Disney-created design.

Windows to the Past: "Walt Disney Will Love This!"

This week we open another Window to the Past that provides an additional view of the north African war theater during World War II, a location we visited in similar fashion last week.  In this photograph, dating from April 1943, the flight crew of a B-25 put the finishing touches on their Pluto-inspired insignia.

The photo's caption provided the following details:

"Walt Disney will love this!"  "Pluto gets a break as Lt. John J. Privara of Lions Ill. and Capt. James T. Mckee of Picayune, Miss., Pilot of the North American B-25 along with Lt. Russel E. Wise of Arlington, Mass. co-pilot and William L. Lewis, of Mexico, Missouri admire their new insignia.

Windows to the Past: Donald Duck and the Seasweep

The Kingdom Hearts video game was not the first time Donald Duck was transformed into a mer-creature.  Witness this long-classified photograph taken during World War II at an undisclosed location somewhere in north Africa.  Emblazoned on the aircraft is a fish-tailed Donald, replete with a trident and a stern expression.  The photo's caption reads:

AN ADVANCED NORTH AFRICAN AIR BASE--The crew of "Seasweep" North American B-25 Mitchell bomber of, Major General James H. Doolittle's Bomber Command, have completed their 50th mission. Left to right are: Lt. Wm. J. Hartman, Catskill, N.Y., navigator; Lt. James T. Holey, Tuskaloosa, Alabama, pilot; Lt. Wm. M. Butterfield, Moscow, Idaho, co-pilot; S/Sgt. Alvin L. Langford, Waco, Texas, gunner; T/Sgt. John D. Glass, Biquiu, New Mexico, radio-gunner, and Lt. Marion S. Vestal, Grand Rapids, Michigan, bombardier.

The photograph was dated November 29, 1943.

Disney's Hollywood: Gower Gulch and the Drugstore Cowboy

It's always fun to find trace evidence of bygone popular culture lingering in the background of a classic Disney cartoon.  Such evidence is on display in the 1943 Goofy short Victory Vehicles, and it serves to remind us of a long-faded but still quite memorable Hollywood archetype: the drugstore cowboy.

In Victory Vehicles, Goofy briefly played the part of a drugstore cowboy, aptly demonstrating lasso-powered mobility as a form of alternate transportation.  The narrator even refers to him as a "Hollywood drugstore cowboy."  So, just what exactly is a "drugstore cowboy," at least in context to the Hollywood of Walt Disney's time?  The answer can be found in that very same scene, if one looks beyond the mugging Goofy to the background behind him.  The Gower Gulch Pharmacy is the clue that unravels the story of this particular piece of silver screen folklore.

Gower Gulch is the nickname for a very specific piece of Hollywood geography: the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street.  This was a location central to a number of well known movie studios, including Columbia, RKO, Paramount and Republic Pictures.  Located at the southeast corner of Gower and Sunset was the Columbia Drug Co., famous for both its soda fountain and newsstand.  Both Columbia and Republic specialized in westerns during this time period, and aspiring actors, many of whom were actual working cowboys, would congregate in and around the drugstore, hoping to be selected by the studio casting agents who would frequent the area.  Many of these hopefuls would come to Gower Gulch fully outfitted in their cowboy clothing and gear, and thus the moniker "drugstore cowboy" was born.

For more information about Gower Gulch, check out today's post on our companion site Boom-Pop!--The History and Mythology of Gower Gulch.

Windows to the Past: Two Deer = 10,000 Bombs

In August of 1942, Walt Disney contributed to the war effort by donating two large lawn ornaments to a scrap metal drive. The setting of the photograph is Walt's Los Feliz home that was located at 4053 Woking Way. In the background, one can see the elaborate dollhouse built for Walt's daughters, Diane and Sharon. Pictured with Walt is General Salvage Chief for California Joseph F. MacCaughtry.  An Associated Press news report from August 10, 1942 provided this background to the photograph:

Walt Disney's two iron deer are leaving his front lawn in Hollywood for the war front. The motion picture producer offered the two deer for scrap and Lessing J. Rosenwald, director of the war production board's conservation division, accepted them. The deer, which weigh a ton, contain enough scrap for one 75-mm. field piece, or 10,000 incendiary bombs.

The photograph is part of the Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive at the UCLA Library.

Soldier, Do You Have a Light?

Earlier this week we unveiled our second wave of Disney-designed World War II insignia in the 2719 Hyperion Exhibition Hall.  As we have noted, we found the emblems and their identifications inside issues of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories.  Another notable use for the designs was on matchbooks.  According to author Walton Rawls in his book Disney Dons Dogtags:

"There were at least two series of matchbooks featuring Disney-designed military insignia, one of which, produced by the Maryland Match Company for the National Match Company, runs to twelve or more and appears to have been intended for use by the units themselves.  The other series, produced by D.D. Dean and Sons, is clearly an advertising gimmick for Pepsi-Cola and runs to forty-eight separate matchbooks."

The Maryland Match Company series actually included twenty-four designs in total, and were distinguished by their bright yellow color.  Both series duplicated many of the designs published in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories.

According to Rawls, Disney granted the United States Government "exclusive and perpetual right and license" to reproduce and use the designs, but it appeared that they did not want any commercial endeavors to extend beyond military channels.  It remains a mystery how Pepsi-Cola secured licensing for their matchbooks under these particular circumstances.

Matchbook images from Hakes.com

Four Color Friday: A Couple of Crocodile Collectors

An interesting scenario:  An editorial staff determines that the cover illustration of a 37-year old comic book in fact, deserves a better story.  Thus in 1988, the world was bequeathed a second Crocodile Collector.

Way back then (has it really been over twenty years?) I was not well educated in regard to Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge comics, especially as they related to a gentleman named Carl Barks.  But ironically, I had found my way to the talents of a certain Don Rosa, who was then working very diligently to create new Duck stories that were very much faithful to the Barks legacy.  The Crocodile Collector, published by Gladstone Comics in Donald Duck Adventures #8, was Rosa's fourteenth Duck tale and his very first long form Donald Duck adventure.  The inspiration for the story?  The aforementioned illustration that was displayed on the cover of Dell Four Color Comics #348, and drawn by none other than Carl Barks, the "good duck artist" and future Disney Legend.  Barks depicted Donald standing atop an apparently hungry croc, carefully examining the creature's hide with a magnifying glass and distinctly in possession of a crocodile-skin ladies handbag.

So what was so special about the original 1951 cover illustration that lead Gladstone's editors and Rosa to create an entirely new Crocodile Collector?  Gladstone staffer Byron Erickson at the time offered this explanation:

"Back In the '40s and '50s. before Donald Duck got his own comic book. he was featured in a series of 30 one-shot comics. Carl Barks had at least one story in 24 of them. One consisted of AI Taliaferro newspaper reprints and the rest were completely drawn by other artists because Barks was too busy. However. the Old Duck Man did do three covers illustrating stories he didn't draw and for a long time we've wanted to base new adventures on them so the covers could be reprinted (the original stories aren't very good)."

Rosa's story takes Donald and his nephews on a rousing and pratfall-filled journey across the African continent in search of a rare breed of crocodile immortalized by the ancient Egyptians and identified by an unusual hieroglyph-type marking on its hide.  Uncle Scrooge has offered a $10,000 bounty on such a creature so to include an example of one in his zoo of exotic creatures.  The story follows a familiar pattern: Donald comically bumbles through multiple escapades while the nephews do the heavy lifting via their own wits and their Junior Woodchuck Manual.  Along the way they discover the source of the Nile and then ultimately uncover their prey in a mysterious and hidden ancient Egyptian temple.  Rosa peppered the tale with numerous details and inside jokes, most of which pay homage to Barks.  Reference is made to Barks' 1951 Donald Duck story Trail of the Unicorn.  Among the occupants of Scrooge's zoo are Barney Bear, Benny Burro and Andy Panda, all MGM cartoon characters rendered for comic books by Barks.  And in the ancient Egyptian temple, a caricature of Barks can be found among column-adorned hieroglyphics.

But, now let us step back to the very beginning.  In late summer of 1951, Dell Comics published the 348th issue of their Four Color Comics series.  Its formal title: Walt Disney's DONALD DUCK, THE CROCODILE COLLECTOR.  The book's content was exclusively Donald Duck; it was comprised of two 16-page stories and three one-page story-gags.  The lead story was Donald Duck in "Crocodile Collector." It was only recently that I was exposed to this story for the first time.  I was pleasantly surprised.

It is of course, no great masterpiece.  The scope and sophistication of the story pales in comparison to the works of Barks and Rosa, but it is certainly not the dismal disaster I expected.  It is small in scale compared to Rosa's globetrotting epic; Donald and nephews caper to Florida to capture a croc so to ultimately please Daisy with an alligator-skin pocketbook.  (The story actually addresses the crocodile-alligator discrepancy.) Definitely long on alligator-wrestling silliness and short on plot, it still manages to succeed by way of well crafted artwork by a rather exceptional but largely unrecognized artist by the name of Frank McSavage.

McSavage first went to work for Disney in a New York City merchandising office back in 1936.  Five weeks later he moved to California where he soon found himself employed at the Hyperion studio as an in-betweener and breakdown animator.  After a stint with the Walter Lantz Studio and a brief return to Disney in the late 1940s, McSavage found his way to comics in 1949 by way of Western Publishing with their extensive roster of licensed characters.  For the next decade, he would draw the likes of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Li'l Bad Wolf, Woody Woodpecker, Andy Panda, Oswald the Rabbit and Tom and Jerry.  From 1959 until his retirement in 1975, he continued to work for Western, but only produced illustrations for storybooks, primarily due to worsening eyesight.

In a history dominated primarily by names such as Barks, Gottfredson and Walt Kelly, McSavage's talents as a comic book artist have been regrettably overlooked.  His disadvantage in this regard likely stems from his artist-only credentials, his legacy diminished by generally unremarkable stories of which Crocodile Collector is a good example.  He was particularly adept at composing half-page splash panels and he used the additional space such panels afforded to great advantage.  It was in fact the splash panels in a number of Bongo and Lumpjaw stories from Dell's Four Color Comics series that initially brought McSavage to my attention.

Though the editorial staff at Gladstone Comics was quick to dismiss this earlier effort back in 1988, there remains history and merit within those sixteen pages of Four Color Comics #348.  There is plenty of room in this world for more than one Crocodile Collector.

Four Color Friday: Halloween 1943

What might your average kid have been reading in late October of 1943?  Quite possibly Walt Comics and Stories #38.  Though the cover distinctly carried a Halloween theme (with Donald Duck falling victim once again to the antics of his nephews), surprisingly, none of the interior comics stories tied into the autumn holiday.

The lead story featured Donald Duck squaring off with his nemesis Neighbor Jones in the Carl Barks 10-page classic "Good Neighbors."  A hidden gem of the issue is a two-page Gremlin Gus tale written and illustrated by Walt Kelly, entitled "Gremlin Gus and the Widgets."  Another interesting inclusion was a two-page text-story that adapted the 1944 Donald Duck cartoon Commando Duck.  The story's publication predated the release of the cartoon by over seven months, and its single illustration was absent the extreme caricatures of Japanese soldiers that kept the short in the vault for over half a century.

Hollywood Chatter by Minnie Mouse was a regular text feature of the early years of Walt Disney Comics and Stories and typically featured snippets about juvenile performers and the children of famous movie stars.  One notable and certainly ironic tidbit from this issue's column:

"Mickey and I have been having a lot of fun lately, going to parties. One of the best was the party which Joan Crawford gave to celebrate the fourth birthday of her little daughter, Christina. Twenty children were invited and we certainly had fun. We played all kinds of games in the garden and house and there were two ponies for us to ride. When it was Mickey's turn for a ride, he fell off the pony and landed plop!—in a mud puddle. Little Christina rushed to him and tried to wash his face with her tiny handkerchief."

"Little Christina" would famously demonize her mother some thirty-five years later with the publication of her tell-all biography Mommie Dearest.  One wonders if Mickey and Minnie heard shouts of "No wire hangers!" emanating from the Crawford home that day.

The editors did not abandon trick or treating altogether in Walt Disney Comics and Stories #38.  The issue did feature a number of Halloween activity pages and a four-page text-based story entitled "Goofy's Halloween."  Readers were treated to "Donald Duck's Halloween Costume," a cut-out paper doll activity (where Donald is essentially cross-dressing as a witch):

And "Walt Disney's Place Cards for Your Halloween Party" (Ready to Cut Out and Use).

Finally, not forgetting that during the fall of 1943, World War II was raging across the globe, the issue featured a "Do You Know Who Owns These Shoes?" contest that prominently presented War Bonds and War Stamps as the prizes.

Big-Girl Clothes, Powder and Rouge

Minnie Mouse donned those items in anticipation of her first meeting with Walt Disney back in 1928.  That's according to a back cover feature in Walt Disney Comics and Stories issue #10 published in July of 1941.

The text of the article:

Away back in 1928, Minnie Mouse decided to get a job and help support her family. She read that Hollywood's newest producer, Walt Disney, had just signed a new star, Mickey Mouse, and was looking for a leading lady to play in a wonderful picture to be called "Gallopin' Gaucho."

Minnie wanted that job. She wanted it so badly that she dressed up in big-girl clothes, put powder and rouge on her face, and went to see Walt.

"Minnie," said Walt at the interview, "I have a feeling that underneath your gaudy get-up there beats the heart of a sweet, lovable little girl.  If I could be sure of that, I'd give you the job."

A tear rolled out of Minnie's bright eye.  She told Walt that he was right, and explained to him that it was only because she wanted so much to help her family, that she had tried to appear grown-up and sophisticated.
 

Walt signed her immediately and she and Mickey made "Gallopin' Gaucho." After that, they were so, busy making pictures for Wait that they haven't had time, to this very day, to catch their breath.  Sometime soon, though, they may take a vacation, and if appearances mean anything, there will be wedding bells for Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

You can study Disney history for years upon years, and still manage to learn something new everyday.

Bambi Helps Prevent Forest Fires . . . Again!

The Advertising Council, in collaboration with the USDA Forest Service and the National Association of State Foresters are launching a new series of public service advertisements designed to raise awareness about wildfire prevention.  The PSAs feature characters from Disney's Bambi, which is especially significant; Bambi was featured in the very first wildfire prevention PSA, all the way back in 1944.

According to Peggy Conlon, president and CEO of The Advertising Council, “We are delighted to reunite Smokey Bear and Disney’s Bambi to remind Americans about their important role in wildfire prevention. They are both beloved and enduring characters and these wonderful new PSAs will continue to resonate with a new generation of children and further the reach of Smokey’s critical messages."

We featured that original PSA poster of Bambi in a post here at 2719 Hyperion just over two years ago.  Here it is if you missed it the first time.

More information can be obtained at www.smokeybear.com.

Windows to the Past: Picketing the Reluctant Dragon

Most images we have discovered relating to the 1941 strike against the Walt Disney Studios feature picket lines outside the studio's Burbank location.  This particular photograph from the archives of the Los Angeles Examiner shows about a half a dozen members of the Screen Cartoonist Guild picketing in front of the RKO Palace Theatre in Los Angeles.  Ironically, the film playing at the theater was The Reluctant Dragon, which featured an inside look at a very happy, productive Burbank studio.

Two of the picketers wear masks--one is Mickey Mouse, the other is a Snow White dwarf.

The photograph is part of the Los Angeles Examiner Negatives Collection of the USC Digital Library.

What is Propaganda

I always enjoy digging around through the many, many online digital archives.  On a recent expedition through the Illinois Digital Archives, I stumbled upon a certain Disney duck featured in one of his typical agitated states.  In 1944, our good friend Donald faithfully served his country by appearing in a War Department publication that discussed the nature and potential dangers of propaganda.  What is Propaganda was classified as War Department Education Manual EM-2.  It was part of the G.I. Roundtable series, a series of pamphlets that was also designed to be the basis of potential discussion groups attended by servicemen.

 

Donald's appearance in the 48-page pamphlet is minimal, but still distinct.  He appears on the cover and on two interior pages.  He is never mentioned in any of the text.  He is featured at the beginning of the manual on a page with the heading, "Defining Propaganda," where two different portraits of the duck are used to separately represent the positive and negative natures of propaganda.

He reappears at the end of the pamphlet in a simple cartoon with the somewhat ambiguous caption, "Well, What is Propaganda?"

The booklet features a number of other cartoon illustrations including caricatures of enemy leaders such as Adolf Hitler, Herman Goebbels and Benito Mussolini.

We recently featured another War Department G.I. Roundtable publication on our companion site Boom-Pop! -- Can War Marriages Be Made to Work?