The Fabulous Disney Babe
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I've finally nailed the most difficult part of writing a weekly column - figuring what
to put in that very first sentence.
I'm typing this on my brand-new computer. Bill Cousert, a reader and pal, built it
for me from the circuits up. I know how to use about one-tenth of the programs on it
so far. This should be fun - but at last I have enough disk space for everything I
want. For now.
Last Friday, the tribute to David Mumford took place at Descanso Gardens. As I
predicted, the 250-seat hall was overflowing. Speakers included Marty Sklar, Tony
Baxter, David's brother John Mumford, Larry Nikolai, Mike Vaugn and Bruce Gordon.
Pam Dahl, who performed songs from Mary Poppins with The Bruce and Dave Show at the
NFFC Convention a few years back, sang "The Eyes of Love" and Katherine
Meyering, Roo Morgan and Ron Dante also contributed to the music program. The capper
for the tribute was Richard M. Sherman singing "The Age of Not Believing",
David's favorite song "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", which was playing in the room
when David crossed over, and finished off with "One Little Spark". It was
a beautiful tribute to a wonderful man. Kevin Rafferty even checked in from Florida
via video. Afterward, a few friends, including LaughingPlace.com columnist Ken
Pellman, gathered together for dinner. Paul Newitt had written a beautiful piece
about his long friendship with David. It's posted on http://www.davidmumford.com in the
message board section. Paul took us out to the car and showed us his model of the
Space Needle. It's a badly-concealed fact that I'm nutty over the Space Needle - I
love its circa 1962 modern architecture, its stature, and, of course, the Starbucks
inside. I own a Space Needle martini glass. I can't wait to buy a Newitt Space
Needle model.
The next morning, I woke up with two thin, stark-white streaks emanating from my temples.
I'd had a few stray silver hairs, but this was nuts. What the heck was IN
that omelette? Alice said: "You know that woman in the comic book with the
white stripes in her hair like that?"
"Yeah," I said, flattered.
"You look like her mom!" (SFX: sound of balloon deflating)
I think I'll keep them anyway.
The topic of discussion? The restoration of it's a small world. Alice Davis
often told me that her best friend, Mary Blair, designed the outside of it's a small world
in white and gold to represent the purity of children - that they had no hate or
prejudice, and that they were priceless. Alice was very unhappy when it was changed
to pastels. When I was at Disneyland Park one afternoon, I came upon the building
covered with scaffolding. They were painting it white! I grabbed my phone and
called Alice right away to tell her the news. She was delighted, and said
"that's the way it's supposed to be." But wait! That's not all!
The entire sound system has been restored. A fellow iasw nut sent in the
following information:
The original music and vocal recordings were done for the New York World's Fair in 1963. They were recorded on 35mm magnetic film, a standard in the film industry, on dozens of 2000-foot rolls. They made mono mixes of each orchestration, about 40 different versions. In 1966 the show was installed at Disneyland and the same mixes were used with the addition of the Façade music, the Clock show, the Eskimo music and the Islands of the Pacific scene.
Unfortunately, the mono mixes that had been done had gone through several generations back in the 60s and sounded rather dull and lifeless.
In the early 1990s, we built the Disneyland Paris park and decided that since these tracks were not that good, fidelity wise, along with the desire to try something new, the show was re-recorded using the concept of one overall underliner track that played everywhere during the ride, and simpler tracks for the individual scenes. It is a nice variation but due to the underliner playing everywhere, you hear the same two-minute track over and over.
After DLP opened, it was decided to install the DLP tracks at Disneyland due to the higher sonic quality of the tracks. Some of the speakers were replaced and some were added for the underliner. The Holiday show followed the same approach.
In the meantime, the Sound Archives Dept. at the Disney Studio did a complete transfer of all of their magnetic and optical soundtrack rolls onto digital multitrack tapes for archive purposes. This was a huge effort that took over seven years.
One day, a request came through to do a CD set for the New York World's Fair shows. It was to have soundtracks and out takes, etc. for the four shows that Walt Disney did at the fair.
We checked with the archives and pulled the new archived rolls for all of the shows and that's when we discovered that the small world original recordings had been recorded in three channel stereo and sounded very good. We made stereo mixes from the three channel masters and people were all amazed at the improvement in quality. Richard Sherman, of the Sherman Brothers, who composed the song, was thrilled when he heard the tracks. He said that it was like being at the recording sessions again.
Unfortunately, the CD project was put on hold but shortly after, we became involved in a project to upgrade the sound system at Disneyland and decided to put the original soundtracks back in. This time, we did a complete replacement of all of the source equipment, processors, wire, and speakers. In many of the sets, we installed stereo speakers to take advantage of the stereo recordings.
Now, instead of hearing the same underliner over and over again, each scene has its own orchestration of the song. Many have foreign languages that sing both verses. The English moon singers sing the second verse in English.
The Eskimo music is back, along with the Yodler, the Penguin music and many other wonderful orchestrations that gave this original version of the show its charm and personality. This was the show that Walt Disney personally supervised.
One of the best things is the re-installation of the original Finale Chorus. This second, and bigger chorus had been edited out when the show was installed at Disneyland because they decided to wire up the same tracks to play in the entrance tunnel (the Hello room) and the tunnel between South and Central America and the Islands of the Pacific scenes. When they did this, they found that the verse-chorus-chorus pattern of the finale tracks sounded out of sync with the verse-chorus-verse structure of the adjacent scenes. To fix the problem, they had the Studio edit the Finale tracks to follow the verse, chorus, verse pattern of the rest of the show.
In our restoration, we have an extra set of tracks. One set that can play to the tunnels in the VCV pattern and the other that plays to the Finale in the VCC pattern, so now the original Finale chorus is back! Many people will recognize this track as it was used on the phonograph record, except that now, it is in Stereo.
The Facade and Clock Show tracks have also been restored to their original versions and play through new speakers in the Facade and Clock tower. The animation effects sounds, fanfares, and parade music are now in stereo.
Please visit Disneyland soon to hear it's a small world with its new digital sound system and original soundtracks digitally re-mastered in stereo!
As much as people joke about the attraction, I think it's my
favorite in Disneyland. I'm just so glad that the original New York World's Fair
soundtrack and gleaming white spires are back. Now, if only we could admire those
spires from the Peoplemover....
I made a small mention of the Theme Park History class I'm going to be teaching later this
year at a university in Orange County. I was inundated with emails asking about it -
I'll tell you all the information as soon as they decide the wheres, whens - and, of
course, how-muches. I sent some copies to the Dean, who noted all of the requests
for an online version of the class and forwarded it to the head of e-learning.
Thanks to your requests, there WILL be a separate online version of the class.
Details to follow as above. I have to take a course in teaching an online
class, first. I've only ever taught in a classroom. All I had to do was
promise that I wouldn't use Times New Roman - right, soda label guy?
See you next week.
Fab
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-- Michelle Smith
Michelle Smith can be reached using the Talkback form below or by emailing her at [email protected].
The Fabulous Disney Babe's column is posted every Friday and whenever else she has something to say. For more on Michelle's background, see her first column. She also offers The Fabulous Tour: Disneyland Secrets and Stories. Click here for more information.
The opinions expressed by our Michelle Smith, and all of our columnists, do not necessarily represent the feelings of LaughingPlace.com or any of its employees or advertisers. All speculation and rumors about the future plans of the Walt Disney Company are just that - speculation and rumors - and should be treated as such.
-- Posted February 18, 2003