Bob Welbaum
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Congratulations to the NFFC for hosting another truly memorable convention July 21-24! Convention time has become my favorite week of the year... and that includes Christmas now that I’m a grownup.

On the way home, I got to thinking about other memorable conventions. So I’ve gone into my video archives and transcribed some of my favorite convention memories.

Enjoy!

1990 Convention — Van France on working on the 1964 New York World’s Fair training programs:

Well, fortunately my boss was smart enough, because we knew at Disneyland when you have a fair or park, there is no place to do training. So we had leased a motel, called the Fair Motor Inn, where we were going to train all of our Disney people and all of our UNICEF volunteers. ... So I stayed there, my wife and I stayed there, and I had all these handbooks all over. And one time a housekeeper came and she said “You know, my boy Tim is sick, and I wonder if I could give him one of these handbooks?�?

“Shoot, take one.�? I had plenty.

She said “Would you mind signing it?�?

And I thought well, your kid’s not going to know Van France. So I said aw, it’s New York, I could do... There were several people that could forge Walt’s signature. I wasn’t one of them. I said aw, so I wrote down “Get well soon, Tim,�? or what it was, “Walt Disney�?.

And it was like feeding seagulls! Every bartender, housekeeper, waitress in that hotel had a sick kid!

1993 Convention — Luncheon with a Disney Legend honoring Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, remark by Frank Thomas:

Everybody who talks to a group like this takes credit for everything on the pictures, from hiring Walt down to... [the rest was drowned out by laughter].

Now, Bill Evans, the landscape architect who worked on the original Jungle Cruise, is also working with us. And it gets really interesting walking out there with him, because he’s showing you every plant and tree, whatever. He remembers exactly where he got it, he remembers exactly what it was like, when he planted it, and it’s been really neat for us, because as we’re trying to go back in, and since we are cutting this new channel right here, we’re working with him to get plants and specimens that blend in so they don’t look like they’re brand new and the rest of the jungle’s 35 years old. So they blend in and they have the same history as he originally set up the jungles of the world.

And it was really neat, [Director] Skip [Lange] and I can tell a funny story when we were down here looking at where the baboons are on the rocks. Bill pointed out this tree, I can’t remember the Latin name that he said for it, but he said “You know, if you break the leaves on that tree and rub them in your eyes, you’ll go blind.�?

Okay, that’s a good thing to know!

I was in Publix shopping, and there was this young lady coming out, and she had a Goofy sweatshirt shirt that I had just designed. So I said “That’s my shirt.�?

And she said “No it’s not! That’s my shirt!�?

“No, you don’t understand. I designed that shirt.�?

And she said “Sure you did!�?

I showed her my ring, I bring out my ID, I showed her my watch. And she never believed that I designed that shirt!

A personal note: after this seminar, Ralph Kent gave me one of my most endearing Convention memories by coming up and asking (in a tone I thought was suprisingly deferential), “Can I have lunch with you?�?

My first instinct was to look around to see who he was really talking to.

“Me? Oh, uh, sure, Ralph!�?

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— Bob Welbaum

-- August 24, 2004