"Walt Disney: An American Original" Part III Book Review {by Bob Thomas}

TITLE OF THE BOOK: Walt Disney: An American Original
AUTHOR: Bob Thomas
PUBLISHER: Disney Editions
NUMBER OF PAGES: 384
YEAR PUBLISHED: 1994
GENRE: Biography





BOOK SUMMARY: A biography of the American legend, Walt Disney, chronicling the failures, successes, relationships and experiences that shaped this fascinating man.

Star Review: 3.7 /5 Stars

Angie, who moderated this book club meeting, came up with a fun way to discuss this book. She divided up the group into 4 groups, by giving each book club member a pair of "Mickey ear" clips themed to a certain land in Disneyland - Adventureland, Fantasyland, Frontierland, or Tomorrowland.

Each group was given a time period of Walt's life, and were asked to come up with some discussion questions/topics for the whole group to discuss. Then we all got back together and went through the questions.

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The first group was given the time period of Walt's childhood and earlier years. One thing that we discussed
was his relationship with his father, Elias Disney. His father was a very strict and stern man, who made his children work very hard, and did not shy away from corporal punishment. Was he abusive, or is part of our perception of him due to generational differences? What impact did his father have on how Walt would deal with things later in his life? They both had to deal with a large amount of failures, but they did so in different ways.



The second group was given "the war years" - what happened to Walt and his studio during WWII. In 1941 Walt received a call telling him that 500 army soldiers would be moving into his new studio building, and that they needed to remove the film equipment to make room to install gear for repairing trucks and anti-aircraft guns. They stored ammunition in the employee parking sheds. About 1/3 of Walt's artists were drafted into the war. The studio made many instructional cartoons for the government, as well as designing more than 1,400 military insignia.  The studio lost a lot of money on the government work that they did, and got even deeper into debt. The interesting thing to discuss was Walt's attitude toward all of this. He is quoted as saying "I had to do it. Those kids grew up on Mickey Mouse. I owed it to 'em." He had a surprisingly good attitude toward it, and wanted to do his part to help the country.

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The third group was given Walt's adult years. We had an interesting discussion on the relationship between Walt and his brother Roy. They were very different - Walt was the creative dreamer, and Roy was often the one who dealt with the practical issues, and helped keep the company running. They often had disagreements about things, but were also quick to forgive, which is something we really admired about them. Some members said they wished that the book had been able to include more about Walt's family life.


The last group was given the topic of Walt's legacy. We discussed what we thought Walt would think of the company now - including the Disney Channel, the theme parks, cost of food at the parks, the direction of the animation department, Pixar, commercialization, straight to video sequels, etc. Of course it is a mixed bag, but we did think he would love the attention to detail and storytelling that Pixar brought back into the movies. We also went around the room, and everyone shared their favorite Disney movie, and told of a way that Disney impacted their childhood or adult life. It was really fun to hear about funny childhood memories, Disney park engagements, and to realize what a large impact Walt Disney has had on us all.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
We were sad to learn that Bob Thomas died very recently, just in March of this year. He was an American Hollywood film industry reporter and biographer. He covered a record 66 Oscar ceremonies as a reporter, and interviewed many of the industry's biggest stars. He was the author of nearly 3 dozen books, including biographies of Walt Disney, Abbott and Costello, Marilyn Monroe, Katharine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, Marlon Brando and Liberace, among others.

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*CONTENT CATEGORIES*
LANGUAGE/PROFANITY: Mild
SEXUALITY: N/A
VIOLENCE: N/A
DRUG/ALCOHOL USE: Mild

This review was written by Jenny

"Walt Disney: An American Original" Part II Book Club Ideas {by Bob Thomas}

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Let's continue with our Disney book club meeting by learning a little more about Walt shall we?

DID YOU KNOW...

That Walt was the original voice behind Mickey Mouse?

While mostly known for his skills as an animator, director and producer, Disney also tried his hand at voice acting. From Mickey’s inception in 1928, all the way to 1947, the mouse’s voice was provided by Disney before being turned over to English voice actor Jimmy MacDonald. Disney loved the character so much that he returned to the studio in 1955 to voice Mickey Mouse shorts for his company’s television show The Mickey Mouse Club.

Getting ready to discuss the book

Our members love any excuse to dress up and take photos so we set up a simple iPhone photo booth and props table to make everyone's selfie dreams come true! ;)

Angie was the PERFECT Snow White, she even had the dreamy fairytale princess look down!

Enjoy scrolling through some of our members photos and giggling along with us.

We tried to recreate how we felt when we saw Disneyland for the first time!
#nailedit

Thanks for sharing these super fun photos Kitch!

We couldn't STOP taking fun pictures! 

Photo by Kitch

Two Snow Whites and an adorable Peter Pan

I GUESS AT SOME POINT WE SHOULD DISCUSS THE BOOK RIGHT? (Hang on, let me take just one more picture...)

When we finally sat down to discuss the book Angie told us that she had a little surprise!

Keep reading...

Photo by Kitch

Angie handed out folded pieces of paper to everyone in the room and told us that she'd handmade four sets of adorable mickey ears, one for each land at Disney (Frontierland, Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, Adventureland), and that the four random winners would each get a pair to wear and take home. 

Once all the papers we handed out we were told we could all open them to see who had won.

What happened next was priceless.

As each person opened their papers, people started yelling out with excited voices, "I WON, I WON!"

We quickly started to notice that there were more far more than four winners and that's right when Angie stood up and declared in grand "Oprah fashion," 

"YOU get a pair and YOU get a pair..." to each person in the room!

EVERYONE won a pair of the special Mickey ears!!

You can see Kitch modeling a pair of Adventureland ears below.

After each of us got our ears and put them on, we broke up into our different lands and were asked to each come up with 2-3 discussion questions based on different times of Walt's life.

Our group got the time of Walt's life that occurred during WWII.

DID YOU KNOW:

Not only did a young Disney attempt to help America on the field of battle, but he also helped several federal agencies throughout his career with animation. He created training films for the US military, propaganda films urging Americans to pay their taxes, and multiple anti-Hitler shorts meant to boost US morale at home. Disney also helped the State Department improve relations with South America by making a 1941 goodwill tour (featuring a specially made movie entitled Saludos Amigos), and later aided NASA by developing documentaries about the space program.

 

Walt received more Academy Awards and nominations than any other person in history!

Between 1932 and 1969, Disney won 22 Academy Awards and was nominated 59 times. Included amongst this trove of Oscars are three awards created specifically for him — one for creating Mickey Mouse, another recognizing his contribution of music in the field of animation, and a specially made prize honoring Snow White and the Seven Dwarves that featured a traditional statuette, and seven miniature versions alongside of it.

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After our lengthy discussion (because let's face it, who wouldn't want to talk about all things Disney related for hours?) Angie had one more surprise for us...

...A special toast to Walt.

"If visitors came to lunch, they were ushered into Walt's conference room at noon. He served them an aperitif of V-8 juice which surprised some of his international guests who expected something stronger. Walt's secretary often warned visitors that if Walt offered them a glass of "tomato juice" they had best accept it."

Angie with our V8 tomato juice shots for our special toast to Walt

Angie thanked Walt for his vision, his determination to follow his dreams and for being a kid at heart which has allowed millions of people around the world to do the same. Each of us raised our glasses to Walt and recalled our memories of Disneyland or our favorite Disney movie.

Thank you Walt for giving us all memories to last a lifetime and for a lifetime of memories for generations to come.

Sincerely, 

      Kelly

"Walt Disney: An American Original" Part I Book Club Ideas {by Bob Thomas}

This books Moderator was...

ANGIE!

*As Moderator, Angie planned the entire evening, finding all of the fun Disney décor, the Walt inspired menu, our "Imagine-Ears" giveaway, the discussion questions and topped the evening off with coming to book club dressed as SNOW WHITE!
THANK YOU ANGIE!

I've been wanting to read a biography about Walt Disney for YEARS and I finally talked my book club into reading one and the result was pure magic!

Check out some of the decorations Angie gathered up to get everyone in the Disney mood right when we walked in the door.

 

We told all the members to feel free to come wearing any Disney attire they might have and most everyone came wearing something! (You can see the majority of our members outfits in part II coming tomorrow.)
It was a testament to me to see how ingrained  and loved Disney truly  is in the world!

Before we got too far into the evening, each of us went on a blind date with a book.

I wanted to try something a little different for one of our spring meetings and I thought, 

"Why don't we do a little spring cleaning of our bookshelves?"

So, we each choose a book off of our shelves that we enjoyed and wrapped it in brown paper, tied it up with string, and wrote 3-5 "hints" on the paper of what our mystery book was about! 

As each member came they were handed a number which indicated the order in which they would get to select their new book.

It was fun to see each member read through the hints and find a new book that suited their tastes.

We all walked away with a new book to add to our shelves and a fun new book club tradition!

Angie created a menu based off of all of Walt's favorite foods and desserts and I can see why they were his favorites!

I made a Dole whip inspired pineapple punch.

To download a similar Dole Pineapple Punch recipe click HERE

ALL the food that our members brought  to this meeting was SO tasty!

You can download Walt's Chili recipe, Chris' Cold Lemon Pie and the Macaroni Mickey Mousse recipes in one document HERE.

Here are a few of the decoration details that were on the food table.

One of our members, Jenny, collects Disney artwork and we displayed many of her beautiful prints through out my house. I really loved this print of the seven dwarfs, the colors just jump at you!

After we loaded up our plates with food from our Walt approved dinner, we sat down ready to discuss this fascinating book!

Did you know:

• During World War II, when the allied forces invaded Normandy on D-Day in 1944, “Mickey Mouse” was a secret password used by intelligence officers?

• When Walt wanted to make “Snow White and the Sever Dwarfs” he acted out the entire story for his staff before they started working. The performance was so good that many of the animators were brought to tears from the story and the inspiration they felt. Walt would often reenact scenes to keep the staff motivated.

• Walt made his last Mickey Mouse short in 1953 and Mickey wouldn't appear in another cartoon till the 1983 Mickey’s Christmas Carol.

Here's a sneak peek of Part II of our Disney book club meeting that will be posted tomorrow! 

There is a LOT more magic and fun coming your way and you won't want to miss it!

LOOKS FROM BOOKS: Walt Disney: An American Original

Hi I'm Emily from Looks by Lovelies and we are continuing our collaboration with Delicious Reads on a monthly basis to bring you Looks from Books - a series of inspired looks from the books we are reading on Delicious Reads.

This month we had the privilege of reading Walt Disney: An American Original; this read was especially perfect for me because I am a dedicated, serious Disney fan. My husband and I live in Southern California and have Disneyland annual passes, we generally go Disneyland about three times a month. We also chose to honeymoon at Walt Disney World in Florida. I consider Walt Disney to be a personal hero as well as an American innovator and visionary. 

We took the following fashion images at Disneyland and California Adventure. The first set of images are inspired by the era when Walt first arrived in California, in 1923. Walt came to Los Angeles with a "frayed cardboard suitcase" and just "40 dollars in his pocket". The main street leading into California adventure is named Buena Vista Street. It recalls the Los Angeles that he might have experienced in the 1920s and 1930s. Disney fans will recognize quite a few names that are inspired by people and places from Walt Disney's life as they walk along the street leading into the park.

The second set of images reflect a modern day fashionista Disney fan. This look is fun and flirty and were taken in Disneyland. This look is an interpretation of a fashion forward Minnie Mouse with stripes replacing her signature polka dots and bright pink accents. I believe that a modern day Minnie Mouse would rock a pair of Tory Burch Heels if given the opportunity, she has always been very fashionable and has excellent taste in footwear!

Vintage Disney Look

 

 

 

  

 

 

Outfit Details

Mint Lace Blouse - Sold Out (Similar) 

Black Pencil Skirt 

Green Heels - Sold Out (Similar) 

Beaded Handbag - Vintage

Mint Belt - Target

Pearl Statement Necklace - Banana Republic

Long Pearl Strands - Vintage

Sunnies - Nordstrom

 

Modern Day Disney Fan Look

 



  

  

   

Outfit Details

Dress - Eliza J

Black Cardigan - Target

Tory Burch Heels - Sold Out (Similar)

Statement Necklace - Nordstrom

Minnie Mouse Ears - Disneystore.com / Disneyland
Sunnies - Nordstrom

I hope these looks inspire you to learn more about the Walt Disney and visit a Disney Resort this Summer!

Love, Emily