1929:
Legendary film composer Jerry Goldsmith, whose musical scores can be heard in the Disney film attraction Soarin' Over California, the 1998 animated feature Mulan, and the 1982 live-action Night Crossing, is born in Pasadena, California. While a student at L.A. City
College, he studied under future Disney Legend and composer Buddy Baker! Goldsmith's enormous and diverse body
of work during his 6-decade career includes television - The Twilight Zone and The Waltons, and such feature films
as Air Force One, Star Trek: Voyager, Total Recall, Logan's Run and the original Planet of the Apes.
1935:
Donald Duck makes his first appearance in the Mickey Mouse Sunday edition comic strip (by Ted Osbourne and Floyd Gottfredson).
2005:
Dream On Silly Dreamer, a live action/animated documentary, screens for free in Minneapolis for shareholders one day prior to the Walt Disney Company Annual Meeting. The film, about the creative forces behind the classic hand-drawn animated films of Walt Disney Feature Animation's modern era, is shown at the Crown Theater (about 6 blocks from where Disney will hold its meeting).
1870:
The California city of Anaheim is incorporated. Its name is
a blend of "Ana" (after the Santa Ana River) and "heim"
(which means home in German). First founded in 1857 by grape
farmers and wine makers from Franconia in Bavaria, walnuts, lemons and oranges
became viable crops after the prosperous grape industry was destroyed in the 1880s by an insect pest. Before Disneyland's opening in 1955, Anaheim was a massive rural community with agriculture as its principal industry.
1934:
Disney's Silly Symphony The Grasshopper and the Ants is released.
A lazy grasshopper (voiced by Pinto Colvig; the voice of Goofy) who prefers to sing and dance rather than prepare for
the winter like the ants, he finds himself starving and freezing when winter arrives. Despite his selfish outlook on life, a colony of ants come to the grasshopper's rescue giving him food and a warm place to stay. The short features the song "The World Owes Me a Living" (composed by Larry Morey & Leigh Harline), later used as a theme song for Goofy.
1949:
Disney's Mickey and the Seal, Tea for Two Hundred, and Seal Island are all
nominated for Academy Awards. Oscar night is March 24.
1956:
A memorial service is held for author A.A. Milne (creator of Winnie-the- Pooh) at All
Hallows-by-the-Tower in London. Milne had passed away on January 31. Milne's son Christopher, who
has grown to resent his father and has seldom visited his parents, attends the service. It is the last time Christopher
will ever see his mother.
1958:
The "Annette" serial (starring Annette Funicello) is introduced on ABC-TV's Mickey
Mouse Club. Funicello stars as Annette McCloud, a shy orphan from a small country farm who moves to the upper-
class suburbs so she can live with an aunt and uncle she hasn't seen in years. There will be 19 more episodes of
"Annette" aired over the following month.
1960:
Disneyland's Rainbow Mountain Stagecoach attraction is retired. A guest could ride shotgun
up top or inside the coach to view such Frontierland sights as Elephant Rock, Horse Thief Canyon, Dead Man's
Spring and the Rivers of America. An opening day Frontierland attraction, it had originally been named simply Stagecoach.
1963:
The TV series Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color
airs "Inside Outer Space," featuring Ludwig Von Drake.
1978:
Disney generally releases the live-action Candleshoe, starring
Helen Hayes (in her last big screen appearance), David Niven
and Jodie Foster. Small time crook Harry Bundage (played by Leo McKern)
discovers that the old manor house where Lady St. Edmund (Hayes) resides, with three orphans and her butler Priory (Niven) is the resting place for a hoard of treasure! The film, which first premiered last December 1977, is directed by Norman Tokar.
2000:
Actor Jim Varney, famous for his "Ernest P. Worrell" character, dies
of lung cancer in Tennessee, at age 50. Varney lent his voice to such classic
animated Disney films as Atlantis: The Lost Empire (still in production at the time of his
passing) as Jebidiah Allardyce 'Cookie' Farnsworth, and both Toy Story & Toy Story 2 as
the voice of Slinky Dog. (Varney's good friend/comedian Blake Clark supplied the voice of
Slinky for Toy Story 3.) At one time Epcot's Cranium Command attraction used his Ernest
character in its preshow as an example of a "lovable but not the brightest person on the
planet" type of person. Varney's character Ernest proved so popular in advertisements, that
it was spun off into a TV series and a series of movies distributed by Touchstone Pictures in
the 1980s and 1990s. In 1990 Varney even appeared as Ernest on the Walt Disney's
Wonderful World of Color episode "Disneyland's 35th Anniversary Celebration." Today the
handprints of Varney can be viewed in front of The Great Movie Ride at Walt Disney World's
Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park.
Actress Yara Shahidi is born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She gained recognition for her starring role as the oldest daughter Zoey Johnson on the ABC sitcom Black-ish and its spin-off series Grown-ish. In 2009, she appeared in an episode of Wizards of Waverly Place.
2001:
Disney's House of Mouse airs episode 4 "Goofy's Valentine Date." Minnie
Mouse and Daisy Duck feel sorry for Goofy because he doesn't have a date for Valentine's date so
they plan a "blind date" for him that ends with unexpected results!
1951:
Robert A. Iger is born on Long Island, New York. After finishing
his undergraduate studies at Ithaca College, Iger began his career in
entertainment media at the American Broadcasting Company, where he worked
from 1974 to 1999. On February 25, 1999, Disney named Iger president of Walt
Disney International. In 2005 he was named President and Chief Executive
Officer of The Walt Disney Company (the sixth CEO in Disney history).
1998:
Walt Disney Records releases Archive Collection, Vol. 1: Burl Ives: Chim Chim Cheree, Archive Collection, Vol. 2: Hayley Mills: Let's Get Together, Archive
Collection, Vol. 3: Louis Prima With Gia Maione: Let's Fly With Mary Poppins,
Archive Collection, Vol. 4: Rex Allen: 16 Golden Hits, Archive Collection, and
Vol. 5: Cliff Edwards: Ukulele Ike Sings Again.
Nominations for the 70th Academy Awards are announced.
Disney's Miramax Pictures release Good Will Hunting is nominated in 9 categories:
Best Picture (Lawrence Bender, producer), Best Director (Gus Van Sant), Best Actor (Matt Damon), Best Supporting Actor (Robin Williams), Best Supporting Actress (Minnie Driver), Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck), Best Original Dramatic Score (Danny Elfman), Best Original Song ("Miss Misery"), and Best Film Editing (Pietro Scalia).
"Go the Distance" from Hercules (Alan Menken & David Zippel) is also nominated for Best Original Song.
Oscar night is March 23.
2007:
Kim Possible, the hit animated comedy/action/adventure
series from Walt Disney Television Animation, premieres its
fourth season with four new episodes on Disney Channel.
An average of 100 pairs of
sunglasses are turned in to
the Walt Disney World Lost
and Found Department at the
Magic Kingdom Park, each
day. On a winter day at Disney,
the lost-and-found departments
receives about 400 to 500 items
a day. But in summer, when
tourists pack the theme parks,
the staff wades through
a jumble of more than 1,000
articles daily.
1962:
The DGA Awards (given by Directors Guild of America) are presented at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City and the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles. Although nominated for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures, Disney's The Absent-Minded Professor (directed by Robert Stevenson) is edged out by the hit musical West Side Story.
2008:
The 61st British Academy Film Awards are presented at the Royal Opera House in
London, England. Ratatouille wins Best Animated Film, beating out Shrek the Third
and The Simpsons Movie.
At the 50th annual Grammy Awards, composer Michael Giacchino is awarded Best
Score Soundtrack Album for Ratatouille.
FEBRUARY 10
In Memory of Bill Justice (1914-2011)
FEBRUARY 10
THIS
SITE MADE
IN THE USA
In Memory of Jim Varney (1949-2000)
"The function of a score is to enlarge the scope of a film. I try for emotional penetration - not for complementing the action. For me, the important thing about music is statement. I can't describe how
I arrive at the decision to make a statement, I simply feel it and react to it."
-Jerry Goldsmith (born This Day in Disney History 1929)
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2010:
To honor the 10th anniversary of Travel Channel host Samantha Brown, the network
airs Samantha Brown Fan-a-thon in which she celebrates ten years of travel at the
Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida - with her fans. (In her 10 years at Travel
Channel, Brown has visited dozens of countries, hundreds of cities and countless hotels around the world!)
"What makes my job so incredible is that I literally get to have a fantasy life. I get to go to these different places and kind of take on an entirely different persona." -Samantha Brown
1941:
Academy Award nominations are announced with Disney's Pinocchio receiving two;
Music, Best Score and Music, Best Song (for "When You Wish Upon a Star").
Winners will be announced February 27.
1977:
It's Discovery Day on episode 19 of The New Mickey Mouse Club. Mouseketeers Allison,
Mindy, Nita, Shawnte, and Kelly star in the Mouseketeer Talent Showcase production number, "Twinkle,
Twinkle." Scenes from the animated classic, Bambi are shown in the Mouseka-movie special, and in episode
four, "Badman's Code," of "The Mystery of Rustler's Cave," Patty Bell, Chris and Stewie sneak back to the
abandoned line shack after everyone is asleep and find a CB radio and code book.
2011:
Disney Legend Bill Justice passes away of natural causes, the
day after his 97th birthday, in Santa Monica, California. Starting
out as an animator for Walt Disney Studios in 1937, he worked on such classics as
Fantasia, Bambi and Alice in Wonderland. In 1965, Justice became one of Disney's
early Imagineers; programming Audio-Animatronic figures for theme park attractions.
He also directed the animated Mickey Mouse March opening for the popular 1950s
TV series Mickey Mouse Club. He retired in 1979 and later chronicled his 42 years at Disney in the book Justice for Disney (which featured a foreward by Leonard Maltin).
"If he'd done nothing else but direct that unforgettable Mickey Mouse Club
opening, he'd have a place in the hearts of baby-boomer Disney fans everywhere." -film critic and historian Leonard Maltin
FEB
FEB
2012:
Gordon Randall Buss, whose 26 years at Walt Disney World started a year before the
resort's 1971 opening, passes at the age of 76 in Florida. "Randy" could build just about
anything, and proved it virtually every day, whether it was constructing a wondrous tree house for his children or the huge
fiberglass boulders that adorn the Thunder Mountain ride at Disney's Magic Kingdom. Raised in Larchmont, New York,
and on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, the majority of his years with Disney were spent fixing and creating the unusual.
When you saw a "Closed" sign on a ride ... Buss was putting his amazing dexterity and imagination to work.
1932:
English actor of stage, television and film, Barrie Ingham is born in in Halifax, West
Yorkshire. He provided the voice for Basil the detective (based on the fictional sleuth Sherlock Holmes) for Disney's
1986 animated The Great Mouse Detective.
February 10
1950:
Disney' short Pluto and the Gopher is released. Directed by Charles Nichols, Pluto
attempts to rid Minnie's garden of a pesky gopher ... but pretty much destroys the garden in the process.
2014:
"Blank: A Vinylmation Love Story," an original stop-motion animated film by Disney is
released exclusively through Google Play's platforms. The Disney Interactive production is a
38-minute film that follows Blank, an unpainted Vinylmation figure, who goes on a journey to find his lost soul mate, Bow.
Available for free through Google Play until February 23, the short is also being screened inside Hollywood's El Capitan Theatre and at Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park in Florida.
Shirley Temple, the popular child star who presented Walt Disney with special Oscars for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in February 1939, passes away at age 85 in California. First skyrocketing to fame in the 1934 film Bright Eyes, Temple attended the 1937 premiere of "Snow White" and was caricatured in both Disney's 1936 "Mickey's Polo Team" and the 1939 "Autograph Hound." As an adult, she took part in a 1957 Disneyland dedication and later served on the board of directors for The Walt Disney Company. Temple was also instrumental in securing Del Monte as the sponsor of the Diamond Horseshoe Revue at Disney World's Magic Kingdom. "Child Star: The Shirley Temple Story," a television movie aired in 2001 on ABC's "The Wonderful World of Disney." An actress, singer, dancer, radio performer, and diplomat who was Hollywood's number one box-office draw
as a child actress from 1934 to 1938, Shirley Temple was the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Kennedy Center Honors and a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.
FEBRUARY IS DCA MONTH
1906:
Elias Disney sells his Chicago house on Tripp Avenue to Walter Chamberlain.
Elias, his wife Flora, and five children (Herbert, Raymond, Roy, Walter and Ruth)
are moving to Marceline, Missouri.
2018:
D23 Expo Japan kicks off for three days at Tokyo Disney Resort.
2015:
One Hundred and One Dalmatians Diamond Edition is released. Included is the brand new short 101 Dalmatians: The Further Adventures of Thunderbolt. In Disney's 1961 One Hundred and One Dalmatians,
the puppies watch a black and white serial western TV show about Thunderbolt the Wonder Dog. That episode ends
in a cliff hanger as Thunderbolt, in hot pursuit of Dirty Dawson, plunges into a river towards a treacherous waterfall.
In this short episode that ties to the original, Thunderbolt escapes the fall down the waterfall with the help of the
Sheriff, avoids an explosion triggered rock slide, and ultimately captures the horse thief, Dirty Dawson.
The Legacy Collection: Pinocchio is released as a two-disc album on Walt Disney Records, to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the 1940 Pinocchio. The album includes
the film's complete soundtrack, three "Lost Chords" recordings, and five bonus tracks from The Mickey Mouse Club.
Walt Disney Records the Legacy Collection is a compilation album series produced and released by Walt
Disney Records. Pinocchio is the 6th (of what will be 14) in the series.
2019:
At the 61st Grammy Awards, composer Ludwig Göransson wins Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media for his contribution to Black Panther.
Actor Jan-Michael Vincent passes away at age 74 in Asheville, North Carolina.
In 1973 he starred in the Disney comedy The World's Greatest Athlete (with Tim Conway and John Amos) playing the role of Nanu. (Vincent appeared in dozens of television shows and movies since the 1960s, but
will probably be best remembered for his role of Stringfellow Hawke in the Airwolf TV movie and series.)
The 72nd British Academy Film Awards (more commonly known as the BAFTAs) are held in London, England. Among the winners:
-Best Sound: Bohemian Rhapsody – John Casali, Tim Cavagin, Nina Hartstone, Paul Massey, and John Warhurst
-Best Special Visual Effects: Black Panther – Geoffrey Baumann, Jesse James Chisholm, Craig Hammack, & Dan Sudick
1999:
Actress Tiffany Espensen is born in China (and adopted by American parents).
She began her career as a child actress making guest appearances on television series such as Hannah
Montana, Zeke and Luther, and Good Luck Charlie. Espensen later played the role of Belinda in the 2014 Disney XD series Kirby Buckets. In 2018 she appeared in the live-action feature Avengers: Infinity War.
1997:
Actress Chloë Grace Moretz is born in Atlanta, Georgia. Her Disney credits include the
direct-to-DVD Tigger & Pooh and a Musical Too, Muppets Most Wanted, The Emperor's New School,
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Bolt.
1981:
Actress Stephanie Beatriz is born in Argentina. She appeared in 4 episodes of ABC-TV's Modern Family as Sonia.
1974:
Actress, director, writer, and producer Elizabeth Banks is born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
She appeared in Disney's 2006 sports film Invincible, six episodes of ABC's Modern Family, and can be heard in a 2014 episode of the animated Phineas and Ferb. (Banks is best known for starring as Effie Trinket in The Hunger Games film series and as Gail Abernathy-McKadden in the Pitch Perfect film series.)
2002:
Return to Never Land, an animated fantasy-adventure drama film produced by Disney MovieToons & Walt Disney Television Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures, has its premiere in New York City. A sequel to the 1953 film Peter Pan, the film follows Wendy's daughter who refuses to believe in her mother's story during the Blitz in London, only to be mistakenly brought to Neverland by the pirates! Can Peter Pan, Tinker Bell and the Lost Boys help her return home? The film stars the voices of Blayne Weaver, Harriet Owen, Corey Burton, Jeff Bennett, Kath Soucie, Spencer Breslin, and Bradley Pierce. Return to Never Land will be generally released February 15 in the U.S.
2013:
The 66th British Academy Film Awards takes place. Best Actor in a Leading Role goes to Daniel Day-Lewis for Lincoln as Abraham Lincoln. Best Animated Film is awarded to Brave (Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman).
1970:
Puppeteer, puppet designer, director, and actor Tyler Bunch is born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. His work for the Jim Henson Company includes Bear in the Big Blue House
as Treelo, Pop, Doc Hogg, and Rocko.
