The Fabulous Disney Babe
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I
had a nice dinner with Paul Barrie of The Country Bear Playhouse and some friends a couple
of weeks ago. Paul surprised us with original ads from the Country Bear Jamboree opening
(I'm a huge fan of the original show.) - they were autographed by Pete Reneday,
who'd done the voice of Henry and Max in the show. "Oh, man, I'd love to talk to him
about The Discovery Bay Chronicles" I told Paul, admiring my present.
A few evenings later, just as Alice and I were starting the Bedtime Drill ("I'm not
tired! Just one more chapter! I want a glass of water! I have to go to the bathroom! I
forgot to put my homework in my backpack! My <insert name of gruesome or
multi-mandibled horrible insect here> got out of my bug cage - have you seen him?
Does this look infected to you?") the phone rang. "Hi, Michelle. This is
Pete Reneday." THUD. Bless you Paul! We made plans to meet so that I could
interview him and I asked a big favor. Then, I called Alice to the phone, and she talked
with "Henry". I wish I'd had my Mavica out - her eyes were as big as saucers.
She turned bright pink and stammered. It would have been great to show to her future prom
date. The kitchen sink photos will have to do. I wish I could find the doughnut ones.
One morning, when Alice was just walking, I woke up to find that she'd climbed out
of bed and was in the living room, where her father had left a box of Dunkin Donuts Holes
(the little round ones). She was holding two powdered sugar donut holes, each with a bite
out of them. There was powdered sugar on her face and in her hair. She put down one of
them and held the other high in the air, crowing with delight at her trophy. I'd grabbed
the camera by then.
A few months later, a pal at WDI called us. He'd been put on the team to restore a
gorgeous miniature carousel for the then-being-built Disney's Boardwalk Resort. The
carousel had actually been used by the man who built it to take to prospective buyers of
his full-size carousels - they could see the level of craftsmanship he performed in
building them. They were repainting cherubs on the inside of the canopy, but they had
faded to almost unrecognizeable. Could we send him a few photos of Alice? Sure! She
was going to appear all over the canopy interior as is, taken from several different
photographs. One of the team members had a concern: all of the cherubs on the original
carousel were white. Wouldn't it be better if they were different races? So they changed
many of the cherubs to reflect many different people - but, my friend said - "they're
still all Alice, just different skin colors!" Cool! The lead horse on the carousel
has a little bit of carving on the bottom of his hoof, which is raised so that the bottom
of his hoof is pointing straight behind him: "AH". Right above it, on the
interior canopy, is a painting of a cherub, a look of delight on its face, holding one
hand way up - and every time I look at it, I think of a little girl covered with sugar,
crowing with delight at her cleverness.
I met Pete at a restaurant not too far from the Disney Studios and Imagineering, and, as I
later learned, just around the corner from where The Discovery Bay Chronicles had been
filmed. We introduced ourselves, and I mentioned I'd done a little voice work in Hawaii,
on the radio. "I could tell," he said, "by your voice on the phone."
And I'd forgotten - til I saw him in person - that he'd played John Jacks, Jax's father,
on General Hospital. "So, are you gonna do Super Soap Weekends?" "Oh, no,
who'd want to see me?"
He tells some great stories, and hasn't a bad word to say about anyone else on the planet.
Not too long ago, he took some of his cousins on a visit to Disneyland. As they rode the
Mark Twain, the Captain's voice boomed overhead. "Wait a minute," Pete realized:
"that's ME!"
Pete shares a special distinction with Rex Allen, Thurl Ravenscroft and Jack Wagner: he's
one of the most familiar Disney Voices. In fact, for fifteen years or so, he voiced Mickey
Mouse, winning a platinum record for his work on "Mousercise", along with
working on "Yankee Doodle Mickey" in the late seventies, working alongside
Clarence "Ducky" Nash. ("Very good!" Pete says of him) Ducky
told him he was "the best Mickey since Walt" at the time.
There's a group of voice artists called the "Famous Phone
Friends". They call up sick children "to bring them some cheer", as the
characters they voice in cartoons. Pete called as Mickey for about fifteen years. He's
done other things, too - ask any Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Geek who Splinter was, and
they'll come up with Pete's name right away. In fact, while doing research prior to this
interview, I plugged his name into Yahoo! and up popped about 30 TMNT fan pages. To get to
the meat of his Disney credits, try "Peter Renoudet". He changed the spelling
while he was appearing onstage in "All the Way Home" - he was tired of people
misspelling it!