Happy 100th Birthday, Marc Davis!

Yes, today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Marc Davis, one of "The Nine Old Men", Disney's celebrated group of veteran animators. Andreas Deja has been writing up some great posts on his blog, so I'm not about to compete with that. But I also love and admire the work that Marc did after his career as an animator, when he moved on to design and create many of the best attractions at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Attractions such as The Haunted Mansion, It's A Small World, and The Pirates of the Caribbean were all a big part of my childhood in those early years of family road trips from Ottawa, Canada, down to the brand new Walt Disney World in Florida in the early 1970s. Actually, though, my personal favourite attraction that Marc designed was The Country Bear Jamboree, that had its debut at Walt Disney World before also being built for the Bear Country area in Disneyland.

Marc Davis concept art.....

At that time in the 70s, both my Dad and I were big fans of country music, so The Country Bear Jamboree was a well appreciated parody of Nashville's beloved Grand Ole Opry, with its caricatures of familiar character types from that era of country in the form of cartoon bears in various shapes and sizes. To this day I still love vintage country music (although not its vapid pop/rock incarnation as "New Country"), and The Country Bear Jamboree in its heyday remains a favourite of mine. Sadly, I hear that the show has been recently pared down in length by the philistines who currently run Disney, as they feel that they can get more performances crammed in per day in this abbreviated form.

....Translated into the actual show!

On a similar theme, I recall onetime going down to WDW and seeing a diorama with models on display in The Walt Disney Story on Main Street, of a new proposed attraction called The Western River Expedition. This would have been another water based ride featuring audio-animatronic characters, similar to The Pirates of the Caribbean, then only at Disneyland. Sadly, it was never to see the light of day, as they figured that it would be more cost effective to instead recreate the Pirates ride for the Florida audience.

Marc Davis working on The Western River Expedition model

Concept art for the saloon scene

Many years later, I had finally achieved my dream of working down at WDW as a character illustrator in the Marketing Art Dept in 1990. A couple years later in 1992, I took a vacation out to Disneyland to attend a convention put on by The Mouse Club, a fan club not officially associated with The Disney Company. They had quite a roster of guest speakers lined up, including Marc Davis who was to take part in a panel discussion on the creation of several of the Disneyland attractions. I was staying in the Disneyland Hotel where the convention was being held, and as I was making my way to the room where this event was to take place, I luckily bumped into Marc Davis and his wife Alice just as they were entering the hotel lobby. Since they weren't sure where the room was, I gladly offered to escort them there, taking the opportunity to chat with them along the way. 

Western desperadoes!

The room was on the second floor, but Marc, though walking slowly with a cane, did not want to take the elevator and insisted he could make it up the stairway, which fortunately had shallow wide steps. The hotel had recently been renovated, and there had been some panels of park concept art put up as decoration, so when Marc and Alice arrived at the top of the stairway, there facing them on the landing were a series of large panels featuring the above concept art from the never built Western River Expedition with the masked desperadoes on their horses, also comically wearing masks. I'll never forget Marc's reaction to seeing this art he'd created so many years before. He gazed slowly across the panels, then gradually smiled and started to quietly chuckle to himself. I could tell that he was getting some great amusement from seeing his work again and seemed quite touched that it was on display quite large for people to enjoy. I only met Marc Davis that one time, but I'll never forget witnessing that sweet moment with Marc and his wonderful cartoon art. Happy Birthday to Marc Davis, a genuine Disney Legend!

Happy 30th Anniversary, EPCOT!

Today, October 1st 2012, marks the 30th anniversary of EPCOT, the second park to open as part of Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Though I'll always love The Magic Kingdom best of all, EPCOT runs a very close second for me, and I feel a particularly close connection to that park. You see, back on opening day, Oct. 1st 1982, I was gathered along with my parents and sister in the huge crowd of thousands patiently waiting outside the gate, incredibly excited to know that we would be among the first guests to enter this long anticipated new theme park that had such an interesting evolution.

Originally EPCOT had started out to be something far more ambitious, the "Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow", the personal model of an actual working city as envisioned by Walt Disney himself. Sadly, Walt passed away before this grand experiment could be put into motion, and the plan for an actual working and living community was ultimately decided to be too great a challenge for those who were now in charge of running Walt Disney Productions. To be honest, I don't blame them a bit. It would have been a huge venture, fraught with potential problems and financial risk, and without Walt there to guide them they seriously doubted whether they could make it work.  

So instead, they re-envisioned EPCOT Center as more of a permanent World's Fair, a showcase for new ideas in the area to be known as Future World, and a second area featuring a series of international pavilions circling a manmade lagoon to be called World Showcase. I would imagine that the success of Canada's own EXPO '67, that was a keystone of our centennial celebrations built in Montreal, was also a huge influence on how EPCOT Center evolved into the new theme park it would become.

I loved EPCOT in that first visit on opening day, as it was a thrill of a lifetime to see Disney history unfolding before my eyes. I have several favourite memories of that visit, including that first time experiencing The Universe of Energy, where the guests were directed to their seats in the large theatre before a film began on the history of oil formation during the age of the dinosaurs. As the film ended, the curtains parted and, much to our surprise, the "theatre" broke up into a series of huge ride vehicles that then lined up one by one to enter through the curtains into a fog-filled, musty smelling land of life-sized audio-animatronic dinosaurs. Perhaps audiences today are somewhat jaded, but back in 1982 this ride was truly state of the art! 

My other very fond personal memory happened at the finale of The American Adventure show in the American pavilion in World Showcase. Aside from the technical marvel of the very sophisticated audio-animatronic historic figures that told the story of America's turbulent beginnings and evolution, what really sticks with me is what happened during the filmed portion that plays out afterward. As the attraction's theme music swells majestically, images fade in and out toward us of many key moments in the 20th Century. When filmed images of John F. Kennedy, then Martin Luther King appear, there was spontaneous applause from the audience. But when they are followed not long thereafter by Walt Disney himself, the crowd rose to its feet applauding wildly. It was one of those moments where you had to be there to feel the huge emotional response in that theatre.

Two years after visiting EPCOT, I was to begin my own career at Disney, working initially in the Canadian Merchandising Division in Toronto for 6 years, then transferring to Florida to work in Walt Disney World's Marketing Art Department for an additional 4 years. I started in WDW in 1990, and in 1992 EPCOT celebrated its 10th Anniversary. As one of the character illustrators in that department, I was asked to illustrate the article about EPCOT's 10th that was featured in The Disney News magazine. They wanted a painting that would promote the celebration show that took place around The Seven Seas Lagoon in World Showcase, but in a cartoon style featuring the Disney characters. The show admittedly had some problems that would become apparent a couple weeks after its debut. For one thing, it took place at midday, and I have to say that fireworks are not too impressive at that time - more visible smoke than light display against the sunny Florida sky! Additionally, they had performers flying around in para-planes above the lagoon, dressed in Disney character costumes. Though the character heads were constructed of a lightweight mesh, rather than solid fibreglass like the walkaround versions, the pilots found that their vision was still not that great through the coloured mesh, and Disney decided to cancel that part of the show before the possibility of some tragic accident occurring!

I enjoyed doing the illustration immensely, and the article below shows the stages of the creative process in the way an illustration evolves from concept sketch through to final painting:

More Walt Disney World Art

The above image was the very first illustration I did for Walt Disney World Marketing, although it was created about a year before I was actually hired on staff, which would place it as being done around 1989. I was still working for Disney's merchandising division here in Toronto full-time when this project was offered to me as a freelance assignment. I was being considered for a permanent staff position in Florida at the time, so I really poured my heart and soul into this illustration. I wanted the painting to really capture the look of the film, so I treated the background more like watercolour, using dilute glazes of gouache to create that translucent look. The Dwarfs were painted with gouache full strength, to give them more opacity like animation cels.

This is how the project looked in full, as my illustration was just the centerpiece within a graphic design that had been put together by one of the Walt Disney World designers at the excellent WDW Resorts Design division. They produced many holiday posters over several years, which were printed up and given out to guests in the various Disney resort hotels. Once I was working at WDW full-time, I contributed to several more of these, although this one will always remain my sentimental favourite.

Soon after first joining the WDW Marketing Art division I remember getting this fun assignment from their travel agency. Originally, I had done the concept art of Donald Duck with his two amigos from The Three Caballeros, José Carioca the parrot and Panchito the rooster, swooping over The Magic Kingdom on their flying serapé. Unfortunately, the client had never seen the film and wondered who the parrot and rooster were and, despite my trying to educate him on the matter, insisted that I change it to Donald's nephews instead. I still enjoyed doing the illustration but I don't think it makes as much sense as the original concept sketch did. Ah well...

This piece was actually done several years after I'd left WDW in Florida and had returned back home to the Toronto area. I was still doing a lot of regular freelance work for WDW, mostly through the Resorts Design division. I remember really enjoying working on this illustration for a chocolate box which would sell in the WDW gift shops. It wasn't often I got to do the 1930's style of Mickey and the gang, so once again there was the novelty in trying to capture that delicate watercolour look of the background, themed to the 1937 cartoon, Hawaiian Holiday. By this time I'd finally gotten myself a computer and had been dabbling with Photoshop a bit in my art. Quite frankly, to this day I'm still far more comfortable painting with real gouache on illustration board and I can't imagine capturing that same feel digitally, so I still paint backgrounds traditionally and scan then in to the computer afterward. However, I do find Photoshop handy for painting the characters, making them look more like animation cels like in the films. I still ink them traditionally, then scan in the linework and use Photoshop to add the colour. That's how this illustration was accomplished, and I have continued using this hybrid method to illustrate a great many children's books for Disney since.

I'm still sorting through folders of old art and printed samples, so I may start posting up more of my Disney work in the near future.

Walt Disney World Kids Menus

Continuing with the theme of Walt Disney World celebrating its 40th Anniversary, here are some more samples of projects I worked on while employed there in the early 1990's. Specifically, these are some of the kids menus I illustrated for the various restaurants in the WDW resort hotels - projects that I particularly enjoyed doing due to their novelty factor.

I always enjoyed illustrating Donald and his nephews, as the ducks are my favourite of the standard Disney characters. This was one of the numerous, more economically produced menus/placemats that were easily printed up on 11 x 17 stock. It was created for Olivia's Café at the Old Key West Resort. The menu items are actually listed on the back of this placemat, in among some illustrated puzzles for the kids to work out while eating. The novelty aspect was the fish that was a separate insert that kids could remove and replace in the net.

In a similar vein, this was another economical novelty menu created for Boatwright's at the Port Orleans Resort (which was originally a separate area known as Dixie Landings Resort). As I mentioned in my previous post, it was always a treat to illustrate the characters from Song of the South, as they were not utilized that often. Again, there is the novelty of the ruler insert with small stencils cut in each end.

As I'm a huge fan of The Jungle Book, it was a particular thrill to get to illustrate this kids menu that was used in one of the restaurants over at The Polynesian Resort. (I can't recall which one, though.) It was about 36" wide, so I decided to illustrate it actual print size just to keep it a manageable size on my drawing table, rather than 25% bigger or so, as I normally chose to work. The only direction I'd gotten from the client was that it had to depict the various characters gathered around a table in the jungle and there had to be room to print the menu items somewhere too. Hmm, that was a tricky problem - how to achieve that directive, yet keep the solution somewhat faithful to the jungle environment itself.

I decided to treat the table as a gigantic stone tablet that might have been part of King Louie's ruined temple. Likewise, the menu items appeared on more tablets suspended by vines overhead. To be sure, the situation with the characters is quite contrived, but I enjoyed coming up with gags that seemed right for each of them, such as Kaa the snake's front end appearing in the first segment while his tail end is shown further along in the scene. The whole scene was painted with gouache on illustration board, and I enjoyed trying to maintain the look of those beautiful backgrounds from the film.

Speaking of Kaa, the reverse side of the menu featured a line drawing of the snake (a segment shown above) for kids to colour in with crayons, then punch out along the perforations to fasten into a loop that could then be placed around the head like he does with Mowgli in the film. Unfortunately, this novelty led to the unintended effect of kids asking for a second intact menu after they ruined the first one by punching out the snake. Ultimately this resulted in the item being discontinued after about a year, as it was costing the restaurant more than their budget had allowed for!

Finally, here is the only item for which I ever got to illustrate the characters from The Rescuers. This menu was created for Port Orleans Resort, if memory serves. The menu items appeared on the reverse side listed on the underside of the gator's belly, as it was the same scene depicted, only as if you were underwater looking up. Very tricky to make it look optically correct, as I recall. Again the novelty involved punching out the gator, then folding down his side panels to end up with a dimensional relief sculpture that the kids could play with while eating. Alas, this one as well often resulted in twice as many menus being requested due to ruining the illustration in the process, thereby being replaced sometime later with a simpler, more economical menu instead.

I look back with a lot of fondness on these kids menus, as they were usually more creative and playful than a lot of the other illustrated assignments I worked on. They were all produced in collaboration with the great design team who worked in the WDW Resort Design Department. To those who are still working there today, I salute you!

Happy 40th Anniversary, Walt Disney World!

Yes, on October 1st 1971, Walt Disney World in Florida officially opened up to an appreciative public. I'm sure that many other Disney enthusiasts are posting articles today that go into the history of the park, so I'm going to do something a bit different. Instead I want to post up some of the artwork I did while employed at the WDW Marketing Art Dept. back in the period of 1990 to 1994. In 1991, of course, WDW was celebrating its 20th anniversary, so there was some special art that was produced for that year-long celebration:

Some of the 20th Anniversary material featured Roger Rabbit, who had made his screen debut just three years earlier. Unfortunately, at this point poor Roger was in the centre of a rather ugly legal battle between Disney and Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, whom had partnered up with Disney to produce the movie. I strongly recall a memo being circulated around our office at that time, informing us that any projects we had on the go involving Roger could be completed and used, but nothing else could be initiated until further notice. I had this painting in progress, so they told me I could keep going on it. The way it ended up, Disney and Amblin were never able to resolve their differences, and Roger Rabbit ended up in a sort of legal limbo. This illustration was one of the last depictions of Roger for quite some time, although there have been some exceptions I've noticed in recent years, notably some sculpted figurines from the Walt Disney Classics Collection.

This colourful phone directory cover was my favourite illustration project that 20th Anniversary year. There was a festive parade featuring the Disney characters in Mardi Gras style costumes. In fact, they'd coined it the "Party Gras Parade", and it was actually recycled from a Disneyland 35th celebration the year before. You can see a bunch of images from it here on the Jim Hill Media site. I was given the happy assignment of creating the Lake Buena Vista phonebook cover art that year where I got to interpret the parade back into cartoon illustration form of the Disney characters.

Though the Splash Mountain attraction actually opened up the following year in 1992, I thought I'd include this illustration I did for the presskit folder that would have heralded the news to the media. I must admit I've had ambivalent feelings about that attraction, as the WDW Marketing Dept. tried to sell it as thrill-packed log flume ride while radically downplaying the theme of the Br'er Rabbit characters from Song of the South. They didn't show the character theming at all in the TV spots promoting it at the time. As we all know, Disney has kept that lovely film locked tightly in the vault out of fear that its time period of the immediate post-Civil War American South would upset and infuriate ultra-sensitive types. I'm just happy that I was able to illustrate the folder cover in a way that paid tribute to a film that has long been a warm memory from my early moviegoing years.

Finally, here is an example of something else we occasionally got to do in my department. Even though there was a separate WDW Merchandise Art Dept. elsewhere on property, sometimes we would get some of their overflow work. This was one of several illustrations I got to do for them which would appear on candy boxes sold in The Magic Kingdom gift shops. They also were novelty items, in that if you flipped the box over, there would be an illustration of the back view of the situation, in this case revealing a lucky horseshoe from Minnie that Mickey is holding behind his back.

Anyway, I might rummage through more boxes and folders of my old Disney artwork to post a few more samples up here in the next few days.

Your Passport To Adventure!

I was going through some boxes of stuff the other day and ran across some relics from my years in the art department at Walt Disney World. This is the illustration I did for the folder cover that held the 1992 Silver Pass that all Disney cast members (employees) at a certain level would have received. The banner would have been printed in bronze and gold on the passes for other levels. The name of the individual cast member would have also been printed on the banner so that the folder artwork itself was a nice little personalized souvenir for them.

Incidentally, these passes enabled the cast members to sign up to three guests into the park, as a nice side benefit of working for Disney. I believe there was some restriction on how often you could do this during the year, however, as some cast members had abused their privileges in the past. Anyway, I thought it was wonderful to be able to treat my family and friends to a day in the parks when they traveled down to visit me in Florida.

The original illustration itself was probably about twice the dimensions of this printed piece, and I painted it in gouache on illustration board. Modeling on the characters was all done in a dry brush technique, while the shadows underneath the characters and Tink's pixie dust trail were done with an airbrush - something I used sparingly, as I found it rather unwieldy! This was long before I started using Photoshop, which I find so much easier for creating highly controlled airbrush effects. Mind you, I still far prefer the look of the character art done with real paint.

I recall that the most fun part of this particular assignment was getting to draw and paint Henry Bear, the master of ceremonies in "The Country Bear Jamboree", my favourite WDW attraction. Though he may have been a 3-dimensional audio-animatronic character, I wanted to treat him as pure cartoon, like he could have easily existed in a 1940s/1950s Disney animated short, as a close cousin to Humphrey Bear. In fact, I was always disappointed that these bears from that attraction had never been utilized much on Disney merchandise through the years, and had never been portrayed in pure animated cartoon form, especially since the design concept art had all been done by legendary Disney animator and Imagineer, Marc Davis. It's also too bad that Disney didn't adapt them to animation and use that as the basis for the "Country Bears" movie they did some years back, instead of the godawful live-action/costumed crap that they churned out. A traditionally animated feature keeping the characters intact in their cartoon design would have been infinitely more satisfying to we longtime Disney fans.

Ollie Johnston

I arrived home this evening to read the very sad news that legendary Disney animator, Ollie Johnston, has passed away at the age of 95. While it is always sad when such major figures from The Golden Age of Animation pass on, Ollie's death is particularly heartbreaking for me, as I had been lucky enough to have known him, as well as his longtime friend and colleague, Frank Thomas. Though both were wonderful fellows, Ollie always will occupy a special place in my heart for several reasons.

Back when I was 7 years old, Disney's "The Jungle Book" premiered in theatres. As I have written in a previous blog entry, it was this film that was the catalyst in starting me down the path to wanting to be a cartoonist and, hopefully, working for Disney someday. In particular, it was the character of Baloo the bear that I was so fond of, and the warmth and charm of the animation that so skillfully brought him to life. It wasn't until some years later when I started reading textbooks on Disney film history that I began to learn the names of the great animators who were responsible for these wonderful Disney characters. I learned that it was Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston who shared credit for Baloo, with my favourite scenes being handled primarily by Ollie. I felt that Ollie was especially adept at giving a certain warm, cuddly feeling to all of the characters he worked with, including Baloo. There was something about the way the eyes of his characters seemed to sparkle with inner life.



In 1980, I was able to visit the Disney Studio for the first time, arranged through my friend Russell Schroeder, who was then a top character artist at Walt Disney World in Florida. Russell was kind enough to put in a good word for me with Disney archivist, Dave Smith, at the Burbank Studio, and Dave agreed to host my visit there. As soon as I cleared security and was directed through the main gate of the studio, the first person I saw crossing the lot in front of me was Frank Thomas. I wasn't shy about going up to say hi to him, and Frank generously invited me to drop by the office that he and Ollie were using to compile artwork that would be photographed for inclusion in their upcoming book, "Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life". Needless to say, after going off to meet with Dave Smith, I later took Frank up on his offer to visit with he and Ollie.

It was a memorable visit with Frank and Ollie, surrounded by lots of original Disney cels and backgrounds that they were considering for images in their book. They were so gracious towards me, answering all my many questions, (especially about "The Jungle Book") and happily providing info on the artwork they had all around them. The following year, they ended up traveling to my hometown of Ottawa for the Ottawa Animation Festival. They remembered me and it was nice to renew acquaintance. I also provided them each with caricatures I had painted up for them and they appreciated my efforts.

In 1983 I was again visiting the Disney Studio, and Dave Smith was nice enough to have contacted Frank and Ollie before I'd arrived to inquire whether they would be at the Studio that week. Though there were no plans to, Ollie said he'd be happy to come in and visit with me while I was in town. This was a wonderful surprise for me, and Dave left his office for Ollie and I to chat for awhile together. It was during this visit especially that I just was knocked out by Ollie's warmth and generosity in making a special trip to the Studio just to say hi to a young fan. In the years that followed, I corresponded with Ollie and got to see both he and Frank when they were on a book signing tour that brought them to Toronto about a year after I had started my own Disney career in 1984. They expressed their happiness for me in having finally gotten into Disney to fulfill my childhood dream.

In 1989, I had the offer to go down to work at Walt Disney World in Florida, provided that they could get me a work permit through U.S. Immigration. Tom Tripodi, who managed the art department, said it would really help their case if I could get several letters of recommendation from anybody notable within the Disney or related animation industry. I wrote to Ollie Johnston, asking if he would be able to put in a good word for me and, the next thing I knew, I received a copy from Ollie of the letter of reference he had provided to Tom. I remember being so overcome with joy and gratitude for Ollie's sweet generosity in his appraisal of my work. Ultimately, I got the job, and I really felt that it was Ollie's letter that had helped bring it about. I've posted that letter below, as well as a previous letter that shows how generous and inspiring Ollie was in his correspondence with me.

While working at Disney, I got to see Frank and Ollie on several occasions, the last time was about 1993, when they were visiting in Florida and Ollie phoned to see if I could meet he and Frank for dinner at Disney's Beach Resort. They mentioned how they both had hit 80 that year, yet they were still in very good health. Though I never did meet with them in person again after that, both Frank and Ollie had been keeping in touch with me for over 15 years through personally designed Christmas cards that we all were producing each year. I may scan in some of those in the days to come to share with you, as both of these wonderful gentlemen were still drawing delightful cartoon likenesses of themselves with their wives on most of their cards. Though a bit shakier with age, their drawings still sparkled with as much life as ever. These cards will continue to bring me great joy in the years to come as I think back fondly on my favourite two of Disney's "Nine Old Men".

Adieu dear Ollie...

Goodbye Dear Friend...

Yesterday I received the very sad news that my friend from my Walt Disney World days, Ralph Kent had passed away. It wasn't unexpected, as poor Ralph had been in declining health for awhile now and a mutual friend had recently informed me that Ralph's doctor had estimated he only had a few weeks left. In the dozen years since I'd left my Disney job in Florida, Ralph had gradually been getting health problems due to his diabetes, but what finally did him in was a year long bout with cancer. I'm not sure how old he would have been, but I'm guessing he must have been approaching 70 when he died.

I first met Ralph Kent back in 1976. I was just a teen kid at the time, but I was able to arrange a visit to the Walt Disney World art department during one of my family's annual vacations down to the Florida theme park. It was at that time I met character artist, Russell Schroeder, who is still a dear friend after all these years, as well as fellow artist, Harry Gladstone, both of whom would be instrumental years later in helping me start my own career with Disney. Ralph Kent was the head of the art department back then, and he was quite keen on some little Disney figurines I had sculpted and was showing to the guys down there. He said I should keep in touch after I finished my schooling and maybe they could get me down there working in the art department.

Sadly, a few years later there was a series of layoffs which saw the letting go of many in Disney's art area, as well as many in middle management, including Ralph. I believe Ralph was freelancing for about the next ten years or so, working on creative projects for Goebel and others. In the meantime, I had started my Disney career in the character merchandise division that was here in Canada, leaving my Ottawa home to come work for Disney in Toronto in 1984. Six years later, due to the help of Russell Schroeder, I was able to relocate down to Florida to take a position in that art department I'd always wanted to work for.

Coincidentally, not long after I started working at WDW in 1990 I was reacquainted with Ralph, who was in the process of being rehired by Disney as a character artist in their newly established Character Merchandise art department. It was great to see Ralph again after all those years, and we quickly became good friends and frequent lunch buddies. Ralph was also a regular fixture at a ramshackle little bar in Kissimmee called "The Big Bamboo", where he held court regaling Disney fans and tourists with stories of his life at Disney and sketching pictures of Disney characters for them on napkins and such. One time I remember he had been given some flak about that from one of the Disney execs who told him he couldn't draw Disney characters for people. Ralph said to him, "Somebody else told me I could". When the exec furiously asked him who had given him that permission, Ralph looked him in the eye and replied,"Walt did".

Ralph meant it too, as he had started his career back at the Disneyland art department in Anaheim sometime in the early 60's I believe, maybe before that. He said Walt would often drop by the studio and was quite friendly towards them all. According to Ralph, Walt actually encouraged the Disney artists to do little sketches for people when asked, as he felt that it was a nice little goodwill gesture. When Ralph was first approached in 1970 to relocate to Florida to head up the new art services department that would be set up at the brand new Walt Disney World opening in 1971, he was rather reluctant about doing so. You see, Ralph was passionate about being a Disney artist, as that had always been his dream ever since he was a kid himself. To now be thrust into the role of an administrator didn't sit well with Ralph. They assured him that the move would only be temporary, and that he would be brought back to his old job once things were up and running well in Florida. Unfortunately for Ralph, that never did happen, and so he was in a managerial position that, by his own admission, he didn't feel comfortable at. When he was let go in the round of layoffs some years later, I know it hurt Ralph like hell, as all he ever had wanted to be was a Disney artist.

I am glad to report, however, that once Ralph was hired back in 1990, he started to get the respect that had long been due him. Disney, to their credit, now treated him as a veteran artistic talent and, just several years ago when he had retired due to his ongoing health setbacks, the Company officially designated him as one of the "Disney Legends" that year. In addition, he was also presented with his own "Window on Main Street", in the Magic Kingdom in WDW, which I know was something that he took great pride in. Here is a photo of that window right above "Coke Corner" that I took on my trip there last year. That was also the last time I saw Ralph, when I'd gone back for a vacation in Florida after an absence of nearly ten years having stayed away. It was just wonderful to see him again after all those years.

Here's a photo I took of Ralph and his wonderful wife, Linda, while visiting their home. Despite his health problems and looking older, he was still the same ol' Ralph in his friendly, easygoing manner and everpresent big grin. He seemed to have taken things in stride, not dwelling on his problems, and was still talking enthusiastically about his creative projects that he still intended to pursue. We had a really nice visit, but when he told me about the recent diagnosis of cancer I was afraid that this might be the last time I'd get to see this dear man. Sadly, this turned out to be the case and today all the memories of our friendship are just flooding back into my mind. Ralph was a lovable guy who brought so many people a lot of happiness through his art and genuine warmth over his long and successful career at Disney. He will be missed greatly by all who loved him.

(By the way, the cartoon character that accompanies my caricature of Ralph is "Arlo Armadillo", a mascot I created for the Florida based Disney fan club, "The World Chapter", who were kind enough to honour Ralph upon his retirement from Disney with their own celebration. I had done this artwork for that particular event.)