1964:
The Astro Jets at Disneyland become known as the Tomorrowland Jets.
Opened since 1956, the Astro Jets was the first rocket-spinner attraction at the park. Supposedly the
attraction's name has been changed to appease United Airlines, who has just taken over sponsorship of The
Enchanted Tiki Room. Seems United contended the Astro Jets name was free advertising for American Airlines'
coast-to-coast "Astrojet" service. (The Tomorrowland Jets name will last until September of 1966, when the
attraction is closed to make room for a new Tomorrowland - featuring a similar attraction called Rocket Jets.)
2005:
SaveDisney.com permanently closes down. The website was devoted to those concerned about the welfare of The Walt Disney Company and its future direction. SaveDisney.com was used by Roy E. Disney and Stanley Gold as a central information location. In early July, Disney and Gold came to an agreement with the new management at the Walt Disney Company regarding their mutual relationship.
Journalist Peter Jennings passes away from lung cancer at age 67 in New York City.
He served as the sole anchor of ABC World News Tonight from 1983 until his death. Despite dropping out of high school in the 10th grade, Jennings transformed himself into one of American television's most prominent journalists. In October 2006, The Walt Disney Company will posthumously name Jennings a Disney Legend, the company's highest honor. He will be the first ABC News employee so honored.
1861:
Robert Samuel Disney, Walt's uncle, is born in
Bluevale, Huron, Ontario, Canada. As a young man, Walt lived with his Uncle Robert at 4406 Kingswell Avenue in Hollywood, upon his arrival in California from Kansas City. Walt used Uncle Robert's garage as his first studio. (Today the garage is on display at the Stanley Ranch Museum in Garden Grove, California.)
1926:
Comedian, author, radio personality & actor Stan Freberg, the voice of many Warner
Brothers animated characters as well as the Beaver in Disney's 1955 classic Lady
and the Tramp, is born in Los Angeles, California. Freberg is known for the role of the Deputy
Sheriff in the 1963 comedy film It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and for his satirical recordings for Capitol Records.
1955:
Comedic actor Wayne Knight, the voice behind many of Disney's animated characters including Al McWhiggin (the toy collector) in both Toy Story & Toy Story 2, adult Tantor in Tarzan, and Demetrius the Pot Maker in Hercules, is born in New York City. He was also the voice of Emperor Zurg in TV episodes of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and Microwave in The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars. In 1999 he supplied the voice of Zoot, a wise-cracking metallic suit, in the live-action My Favorite Martian.
TV viewers will know Knight for his comedic role of Newman the frenetic mailman on Seinfeld and Police Sergeant Don Orville on the sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun.
1969:
The new Haunted Mansion in Disneyland opens to Cast Members only, from 7:00 PM to midnight. The attraction will open to the public 2 days later, but a press event will take place on August 11 and an official grand opening will take place on August 12. (Confused? Read all about it HERE.) The Mansion's beginnings can be traced back to to the mid-1950s when Walt Disney had artist Ken Anderson work on a walk-through "ghost house."
1992:
Disney's 8-minute cartoon Petal to the Metal is released along with Touchstone
Pictures' martial arts comedy feature 3 Ninjas. Petal to the Metal features a slapstick cartoon cat
named Bonkers D. Bobcat - whose simple task of delivering flowers turns into a string of catastrophes. The live-action 3 Ninjas tells the story of three young brothers who learn martial arts from their Japanese grandfather.
2004:
Walt Disney Pictures' "The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement" has its World Premiere at the AMC Downtown Disney Theaters in Anaheim, California. Now settled in Genovia, Princess Mia (played by Anne Hathaway) faces a new revelation: she's being primed for an arranged marriage to a English suitor. Among those in attendance are director by Garry Marshall, executive producer Whitney Houston, Julie Andrews, Anne Hathaway, Callum Blue, and American Idol Winner Kelly Clarkson, whose single "Breakaway" is featured in the film. ("The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement" will generally open in theaters 4 days later.)
Writer and producer Arthur Alsberg passes away in Los Angeles, California. Originally a radio comedy writer, Alsberg went on to co-write such Disney live-action films as Hot Lead & Cold Feet, Gus, Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, and No Deposit, No Return. (His television credits include such sitcoms as Nanny and the Professor, The Ghost & Mrs. Muir, and Bewitched.)
In Disneyland's Haunted Mansion you descend in the stretch room. But in Walt Disney World's Mansion, you remain still while the
ceiling rises
above you!
2007:
The Jonas Brothers' self-titled second album, Jonas Brothers is released on Disney's
Hollywood Records. It will reach the number five spot on the Billboard Hot 200 chart in its first week.
This Is Somewhere, the second studio album (and the first on a major record label)
by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, is released on Hollywood Records.
1988:
Academy Award-winning director and Disney veteran Wilfred Jackson passes away in Balboa Island, California. He first started his career in April 1928 as an unpaid helper at the Walt Disney Studios. During his 33-year career, Jackson worked on early Mickey shorts, the Silly Symphony cartoons, and features such as Snow White, Song of the South, and Peter Pan. Retired since October 1961,
he was honored in 1983 by Hollywood's International Animated Film Society with its Winsor McCay Lifetime Achievement Award. Jackson will be named a Disney Legend in 1998.
2008:
At Disneyland Resort, in Anaheim, California, the U.S. Postal Service issues
42-cent The Art of Disney: Imagination commemorative stamps in four designs.
Illustrating the theme of imagination, the stamps feature Mickey Mouse as Steamboat Willie; Princess Aurora and her helpers Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather from Sleeping Beauty; Pongo and one of his pups from 101 Dalmatians; and Mowgli and Baloo from The Jungle Book.
AUGUST 7
THIS DAY
MADE IN
THE USA
AUGUST 7
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1981:
Disney releases the live-action comedy-adventure Condorman to U.S. theaters. Starring Michael Crawford as a cartoonist who becomes the superhero he draws, the film had first been released in England on July 2.
Wayne Knight born
Haunted Mansion opens to Cast Members
"What happens, I think, is especially for comic effect you find something about yourself that you don't like. You exaggerate it, and it's funny." -Wayne Knight (born This Day 1955)
"Walt's animation business had sort of gone under in Kansas City, and he needed to make a fresh start. He figured his best
chance was out in California. His Uncle Robert lived in a little house on Kingswell Avenue, and Walt figured he could
mooch off him for a little while." -Disney archivist Dave Smith
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"We’re the oddity at the label, the exception to all the rules, because I wasn’t brought up through the Disney community. Normally, you’d be on the Disney music label and as you grow up you’d sign to Hollywood and develop your adult career like that." -Grace Potter
2012:
The Walt Disney Co. reports the largest quarterly earnings in its history. Disney has
turned a profit of more than $1.8 billion during its fiscal third quarter, up 24 percent from the same period a
year ago. (The following day Disney President and Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger will call for corporate
tax changes.)
August 07
This Day in Disney History - THE FIRST - THE ORIGINAL
Traveling in time since 1999!
2015:
The Legacy Collection: Pocahontas is released as a two-disc album on Walt Disney Records, to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Pocahontas. The collection features the film's complete original soundtrack and five demo recordings. Walt Disney Records the Legacy Collection is a compilation album series that commemorates distinct anniversaries of Disney films and the 60th anniversary of Disneyland. The Legacy Collection: Pocaohontas is the 11th (of what will be 14) in the series.
1998:
The conspiracy thriller Snake Eyes is released by Paramount & Touchstone Pictures.
Directed by Brian De Palma, it stars Nicholas Cage as a shady police detective who finds himself in the middle of a murder conspiracy at an important boxing match in Atlantic City. The cast includes Gary Sinise, Carla Gugino,
Joel Fabiani, and John Heard.
1903:
Rudolf Ising, known for founding the Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation studios along with Hugh Harman, is born in Kansas City, Missouri. Harman and Ising first worked in animation in the early 1920s at Walt Disney's studio in Kansas City. When Disney moved operations to California, Harman, Ising, and fellow animator Carman Maxwell stayed behind to try to start their own studio. Their plans went nowhere, however, and the men soon rejoined Disney to work on his Alice Comedies and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit films. Harman and Ising had long aspired to start their own studio and in 1937 established the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio (the in-house division of MGM).
1979:
Actor, film director, producer and screenwriter Simon Kassianides is born in London, England. He played the role of Sunil Bakshi in ABC's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2014–2015, 2017).
2020:
Howard, directed by Don Hahn, the untold story of Howard Ashman, the brilliant lyricist behind Disney classics like Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid and creator of musicals including Little Shop of Horrors, is released through Disney+. Having had a limited theatrical run last December 2018, the documentary features never-before-seen archival footage, personal films and photographs, as well as interviews with Howard’s friends and family, the film is an intimate look at the Disney Legend’s life.
2011:
The 2011 Teen Choice Awards take place in California. Among the winners:
-Choice TV Actress: Comedy: Selena Gomez – Wizards of Waverly Place
-Choice Music: Group: Selena Gomez & the Scene
-Choice Music: Single: "Who Says" – Selena Gomez & the Scene
-Choice Music: Love Song: "Love You Like a Love Song" – Selena Gomez & the Scene
-Choice Hottie: Female: Selena Gomez
1966:
Political cartoonist, character designer, children's book author and illustrator Charles Gustav Thorson passes away at age 75 in Vancouver, Canada. Best known as the man who designed and named Bugs Bunny, he got his start in animation at Disney. First hired in 1935,he became an expert at designing cute, anthropomorphized animals. After 2 years, during which he provided story elements and character designs for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and over a dozen short films, he moved to Harman-Ising, MGM, and then Warner Bros. studios, where he was the first person ever hired just for his specialty - character design.
2021:
Actress Jane Withers, best known for being the most popular child film star of the 1930s and early 1940s, passes away at age 95 in California. She was one of the voices of Laverne the gargoyle in Disney's 1996 The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Actress Mary Wickes was also the voice of
Laverne, but sadly passed away during production. Withers provided the remaining dialogue, and later revived the
voice of Laverne for The Hunchback of Notre Dame II. (From 1963 to 1974, she portrayed the character Josephine the Plumber in a series of television commercials for Comet cleanser.)
