An Interview Tim O'Day
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Tim O'Day with the voice of Cinderella, Ilene Woods, at the Cinderella event

If you were at last year's Haunted Mansion event, Cinderella's 50th Anniversary Celebration, Mr. Toad's Enchanted Evening or any number Disneyana, Walt Disney Art Classics or NFFC Conventions, you've seen Tim O'Day. He's known to many Disney fans as the moderator of so many panel discussions. He's also known to collectors as the representative of Walt Disney Art Classics at many collectible events. And soon you may get to know him from his work at the new Disney Auctions. But one way or another there's a good chance you've seen Tim O'Day.

O'Day began his Disney career at the age of 13 working in Disneyland Entertainment throughout high school. He went to college at Cal State Fullerton and began to work in Disney's public relations department at many events including the opening of the New Fantasyland, Captain EO, Star Tours and Splash Mountain. He originated the Disneyland media book that is now in its eight version, the most recent being for the New Tomorrowland. 

After leaving Disneyland in 1991 he went to work for Walt Disney Imagineering in the communications department. Speaking on his time at Imagineering O'Day said "that was a terrific education because [Imagineering executive] Marty Sklar was Walt’s publicist - more or less - and wrote many speeches, did some great presentations, wrote the original Disneyland souvenir book which I think is one of the best ever. Just working and being around Marty was a great experience because Marty taught you that Disney vernacular. He taught you the Disney culture. One thing he pounded into us which I have now pound into everybody that worked with me - get the names right. Marty said, 'the lawyers do a lot of research to get these names approved, and you’ve got to get them right and that’s what sustains the show, the spirit of things.'"

While working at Imagineering O'Day worked on Walt Disney World's 20th anniversary and that's where he first got to know many of the legendary Imagineers including Claude Coates, John Hench and Marc Davis. Immediately after that he went to Paris to work on publicity for EuroDisneyland. After Imagineering O'Day worked for Disney Publishing which includes Disney Adventures, Family Fun and Discover magazines then moved on to Disney Art Editions which later became Walt Disney Art Classics. There he was instrumental in bringing artists like Marc Davis, Ward Kimball, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston on to create pieces and voices like Mary Costa and Ilene Woods on to sign artwork.

More recently O'Day wrote the text and captions for the most recent softcover and hardcover Disneyland souvenir books. And in the past couple of months he has left Art Classics to become the Director of Marketing for a new joint venture between Disney and eBay called Disney Auctions.

I had the opportunity to interview Tim O'Day over lunch on a Friday afternoon at the Carnation Cafe in Disneyland. O'Day discussed past panel discussions, the Pirates Event on May 20th, his work on the souvenir book, the upcoming Disney Auctions web site and more.

Note: At the end of the article are links to many of the events, products and people mentioned in the interview.

LaughingPlace.com: Tim, our readers probably know you best from your panel discussions. How did you come to be the moderator of those?

Tim O'Day: I don’t remember. I think the first had something to do with Disneyana a few years ago. I had an entertainment background here at the park, here at Disneyland. Because of my entertainment background or something, somebody tapped me into it somehow.

I remember now, I know how it came about. It was Disneyana, 1993 I think it was, and I had seen a panel discussion that Howard Green hosted with [animator] Frank [Thomas] and Ollie [Johnston] and I believe Ward Kimball. It was a free for all. It was a total free for all here at the Disneyland Hotel. I thought that’s the way it should be. Everybody wants to hear the great stories that these guys had and get to meet them. I thought Howard did a great job, the whole situation was kind of my inspiration. The first thing I did after that was 1995 or 1996, and we did a conversation with Richard Sherman, the Sherman brothers at Disneyana in Florida..

After that we kind of took off and these have been great. These panel discussions always are a lot of fun for me. What makes it fun for me is watching everybody’s reaction. I got to tell you, to be honest with you, I was actually blown away by the panel discussion for the Haunted Mansion event. The presentation was done and in the can as they say. All I had to do is show up and moderate it. Nobody told me it had sold out as I had landed that day from Chicago. I was at the International Collectibles Expo in Chicago. I had landed at 4:00 o’clock that afternoon, went home, changed, took a shower, the whole deal, ran out here to Disneyland and said “hi” to all the legends, everybody that was going to be on the panel discussion and I was standing backstage at the Fantasyland theater and out comes Cynthia Harriss and I hear this roar go up. ‘What is that?!.’ I went running outside. I peeked through the curtains, I had never seen that theater so packed before. So that was fun.

And other ones we’ve done subsequently have been a kick. That’s what makes it so great. It has nothing to do with me, I’m just the mouthpiece. It’s everybody that participates. It’s the panelists. It’s the reaction of the audience. It’s always fun to see what happens when something goes wrong. We’ve had some occasions where somebody flubs a line or tells a story that is a little, you know - the audience just loves it. It’s also fun to show people some of the old clips from the TV shows. Everybody seems to like those. We keep doing them. The next one is Pirates on the 20th. There’ll be Alice Davis, X. Atencio, Sam McKim, Harriet Burns, Bob Baranick and Kim Irvine and some of the gang so we’ll have a good time. Everybody loves pirates. It’ll be fun. It’s fun to do the research on those.