Report: Walt Disney Art Classics Mini-Convention
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Alice Davis and X. Atencio
The evening of the first day we boarded buses that took us to the Magic Kingdom via the “back door”. We viewed the Main Street Electrical Parade and then the Fireworks before gathering at the Hall of Presidents for the Welcome Party. As we took our seats, we found black scarves on our seats sporting the event logo. We also had a pen and trivia sheet for the evening’s activity. Walt Disney World Ambassador, Tom Thompson, introduced Paul Phillips, president of Walt Disney Art Classics. Paul said he had only one word for us and before he could continue, someone yelled out from the audience - “giclée”! Everyone burst out laughing because that was the slogan of last year’s event! After a welcome from Paul, the strains of “Dead Men Tell No Tales” were heard. Tim O’Day, director of Synergy and Communications for Walt Disney Art Classics, then appeared to introduce Alice Davis as "the lady who went from dressing little children to dirty old men." Alice received a wonderful standing ovation and became very teary-eyed. Next, X. Atencio was introduced over the song “Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirate’s Life for Me” which he wrote along with George Bruns.

Alice related how she and Marc first heard about a pirate attraction when the New York World’s Fair exhibits were being completed. Marc began doing drawings for a walk-through attraction but Walt Disney then decided he wanted something much larger. We were treated to the film of Walt Disney showing the Disneyland Ambassador the concepts and models for this new pirate ride.

Alice designed the costumes for the attraction based on Marc’s drawings. She would have to fight with the sculptors to get accurate flow for the costumes. She said her training and experience with lingerie came into play for the design of the Redhead’s dress. If you watch the opening day ceremonies episode of The Wonderful World of Color, you will see Wally Boag wearing the Auctioneer’s coat. Alice said she was worried he might damage that beautiful coat!

Another famous story that Alice told was of the fire. The attraction had just opened when there was a fire that did little real damage except that the character costumes had water damage. Unbeknownst to management, Alice had made two complete sets of costumes because it was as easy to make two costumes as one. When she supplied the new costumes for the damaged old ones at a moment’s notice, the person in charge did not know whether to kiss her or hit her. Because of her foresight, the attraction was only closed for one day!

Alice said that the machinists worked very hard to recreate Marc’s drawings in all their glory. Alice stills regrets that the attraction characters have the makeup painted on their faces. At one time, girls would apply real makeup to the faces each day. It just added another dimension to the illusion of reality.

X. Atencio, the voice for the famous Pirates of the Caribbean line “Dead men tell no tales” got into cameo voices playing around at the studio. In the Haunted Mansion, he is the voice heard in the spiel when the ride vehicles are delayed and the voice of the character trying to get out of the coffin. He worked on the script for the pirates attraction with Marc Davis and Claude Coats. He suggested that a song might be nice and recited lyrics that he had worked on to Walt Disney. Walt said that he should get George Bruns to work on the music and thus became have Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirate’s Life for Me. X. said that Pirates of the Caribbean was the first grand scale audio-animatronic show for Disneyland after the New York World’s Fair.

We were then treated to the film of the Pirates' opening day ceremonies in March 1967. Featured were pirates invading the Columbia, carrying women around the decks and a lot of grog. Not exactly politically correct. X. mentioned that the new changes in the attraction make it seem like “Boy Scouts of the Caribbean”!

Tim asked if X. and Alice had any funny stories to relate. Alice said that when Marc was doing his research he discovered that more pirates had died from venereal disease than any battles. This got a huge laugh from the crowd and became the by-line of this year’s convention! X.’s told us that when they were developing the attraction for Tokyo they had some difficulty with translations. The closest thing to “dead men tell no tales” that the translator could come up with was “there is no mouth on a dead person”! X. didn’t think that would work!