2005:
A joint statement from The Walt Disney Company and Roy E. Disney & Stanley P.
Gold announces that they have agreed to put aside their differences.
Roy E. Disney rejoins the company as a consultant with the title of Director Emeritus.
Dark Water, a horror drama film directed by Walter Salles, starring Jennifer Connelly and
Tim Roth, is released. Co-produced by Disney's Touchstone Pictures and distributed by Disney's Buena Vista
Pictures, the film is a remake of the 2002 Japanese film of the same name, which is in turn based on the short story
"Floating Water" by Koji Suzuki. A mother and daughter, still wounded from a bitter custody dispute, hole up in a
run-down apartment building. Adding further drama to their plight, they are targeted by the ghost of former resident.
1909:
Publisher and Disney Legend Mario Gentilini is born in Luzzara, Italy. As director of
"Topolino" magazine, he popularized Mickey Mouse throughout his home land. First studying at the Accademia di
Brera in Milan, he became a well-known figurative painter with work featured in exhibitions in Paris and Rome. While teaching high school, Gentilini was offered the opportunity to fill in for an artist on leave from Arnoldo Mondadori
Editore. While at the prestigious publishing firm, he learned of "Topolino" magazine, which the company had recently acquired the rights to publish. Gentilini became enchanted by Disney's mouse and as a result, quit teaching and
began a new career in publishing and retouching drawings for "Topolino." Nine years later, in 1945, he was promoted
to its editor. Under his leadership, "Topolino" was transformed from a monthly into a weekly publication featuring
original Disney stories by classically-trained Italian artists.
1913:
Radio & voice actor Bill Thompson, the voices of Mr. Smee in Peter Pan, King
Hubert in Sleeping Beauty, and Uncle Waldo in The Aristocats, is born in Terre
Haute, Indiana. His Disney credits also include Alice in Wonderland, Melody, Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom, Hooked Bear, The Story of Anyburg U.S.A., and How to Have an Accident in the Home (released on
this day in 1956). Thompson's most famous voice creation is the mush-mouthed cartoon hound, Droopy.
1926:
Disney Legend Horst Koblischek is born in Reichenberg, Czechoslovakia.
Working in character merchandising, he created the Sport Goofy Trophy and negotiate Disney's first
television contract in Germany.
1938:
Disney's Donald Duck cartoon Good Scouts is released. Donald acts as scoutmaster for
his three nephews for a nature hike through the wilderness. The second Disney cartoon released to feature
Donald Duck's three nephews - Huey, Dewey and Louie, it will be nominated for an Academy Award.
1956:
The Disney animated short How to Have an Accident in the Home, featuring Donald Duck and J.J. Fate (an imaginary personification of Donald's bad "luck"), is released.
1958:
Disney's live-action feature The Light in the Forest, starring Fess Parker, James
MacArthur, Carol Lynely, and Jessica Tandy is released. The film centers around the struggles of a boy named John Cameron Butler/True Son, who has been taken from his parents by Indians while young. It is based on a novel first published in 1953 by author Conrad Richter.
Actor Kevin Bacon is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He portrayed Jimmy Dolan in Disney's 1994 Hollywood Pictures film The Air Up There. Bacon is best known for his roles in such feature films
as Diner, Footloose, Tremors, JFK, A Few Good Men, and Apollo 13.
1964:
Disney's live-action feature film The Moon-Spinners, starring Hayley Mills and Eli
Wallach, is generally released. About a jewel thief hiding on the island of Crete, the film first premiered
July 2. The Moon-Spinners is Mills' fifth - of what will be six - films for Disney. The film's theme song is written by
Terry Gilkyson (future composer of "The Bare Necessities").
1977:
The New Mouseketeers appear on CBS-TV's Dinah!
1994:
The premier opening of the Legend of The Lion King in the Fantasyland Theater
(at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom) takes place with a 5-minute ceremony.
A predecessor to the Lion King Broadway show, the Legend of The Lion King will run for nearly 8 years.
1995:
Disney's live stage show Beauty and the Beast first opens
internationally at The Princess Theatre, in Melbourne, Australia.
1997:
Michael Eisner attends the first preview of Disney's new stage musical
The Lion King at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
2002:
Academy Award-winning Disney animator/director Ward Kimball passes
away of natural causes at Arcadia Methodist Hospital in Arcadia,
Disney Studios in 1934.)
Disneyland's Flying Saucers attraction of the early 1960s was not technologically perfect and was constantly breaking down. After
several years it
was closed.
2007:
The Disney Broadway musical Tarzan - based on the animated film of
the same name - plays its final performance at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York City. Running since May 2006, the musical has played 35 previews
and 486 regular performances.
1877:
Actor Nigel De Brulier, the inspiration for the model of the Sorcerer in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" segment of Fantasia, is born in Bristol, England.
"We thought we were always going to be 21 years old. We thought we would always be putting goldfish in the
bottled drinking water, balancing cups of water on the light fixtures, changing the labels on cans of sauerkraut
juice. We were 21 years old, Walt was 30, leading the pack. Working there was more fun than any job I could
ever imagine." -Ward Kimball
1776:
According to tradition, the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia
Pennsylvania is one of many bells rung to summon citizens
for the reading of the Declaration of Independence (which
had been adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4).
Today a replica of the Liberty Bell sits on display in Walt Disney World's Liberty
Square. The replica was cast for Walt Disney World in Annecy-le Vieux, France
by Fonderie Paccard, using the exact same mold as the original Liberty Bell.
(Paccard is best known in the U.S. for its participation in the Liberty Bell Savings
Bond Project. As part of the Marshall Plan of industrial assistance to create and maintain jobs in war-torn Europe,
the foundry cast 57 replicas of the Liberty Bell in 1950-51. Most of the bells were distributed, one each, to the then-48 U.S. states as tributes to their citizens' respective services in World War II.)
2008:
Tokyo Disneyland Hotel has its grand opening. The new Victorian-style hotel stands
in front of the main entrance of Tokyo Disneyland Park. The third Disney-brand hotel of the Tokyo Disney Resort, Tokyo Disneyland Hotel offers 700 guestrooms along with dining and shopping facilities.
Walt Disney Records releases "Country Sings Disney" featuring such artist as Billy
Ray Cyrus, Rascal Flatts, Martina McBride, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, SHeDAISY,
and Brad Paisley.
JULY
JULY 8
JULY 8
THIS SITE MADE
IN THE
USA
 | ||||
| ||||
Ward Kimball (1914-2002)
| ||||
| ||||
1944:
Actor Jeffrey Tambor, the voice of Big Nose Thug in Disney's 2010 animated "Tangled,"
is born in San Francisco, California. He also voiced Big Nose for the television film "Tangled: Before Ever After" and nine episodes of "Tangled: The Series." Tambor's Disney voice credits include Santa Claus in the 2007 direct-to-DVD film "Pooh's Super Sleuth Christmas Movie," King Salmoneus in an episode of "Hercules: The Animated Series," and 21 episodes of the series "Star vs the Forces of Evil" as Glossaryck. Fans of the HBO satirical sitcom "The Larry Sanders Show" will remember Tambor for his role of Hank Kingsley. He is also well known for hs role in the television sitcom "Arrested Development."
2009:
A groundbreaking ceremony takes place at Disney California Adventure park.
John Lasseter, Chief Creative Officer, Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios and Principal Creative Advisor, Walt
Disney Imagineering, digs up the first bit of ground that will become Cars Land. During the ceremony, Lasseter even
spray-paints an impromptu Lightning McQueen on the pavement!
2012:
Ernest Borgnine, an actor of television and film with a career
spanning more than six decades, passes away at age 95 in
California. He played the role of journalist Harry Booth in Disney's 1979 science
fiction film "The Black Hole." In 1974 he appeared on the television special "Sandy
in Disneyland" (starring Sandy Duncan). The voice of Mermaid Man on the
animated series "SpongeBob SquarePants" for 17 episodes, Borgnine's film credits
included "The Poseidon Adventure," "Ice Station Zebra," "The Dirty Dozen," and "Marty" - for which he won an Academy Award. Fans of classic TV will remember him as the star of "McHale's Navy" - a 1960s sitcom which co-starred Joe Flynn and future Disney Legend Tim Conway. Borgnine's hometown of Hamden, Connecticut, where he enjoyed a large and vocal following, will name a park and a small road in his honor.
July 08
In Memory Of
"Look, Simba, everything the light touches is our kingdom."
2013:
Old Navy launches a new clothing line featuring one of Disney's most iconic characters - Mickey Mouse. Available in-store and online, the "Mickey Through the Decades" collection includes Mickey
Mouse and his friends in rarely seen art on vintage-style tees.
2019:
The longtime Epcot restaurant Liberty Inn, a staple of the American Adventure pavilion in the theme park's World Showcase, closes. Part of the opening day lineup for Epcot in 1982, Liberty Inn was attached to the main building that features the American Adventure attraction and the Voices of Liberty singing
group. It will be replaced with a new eatery that serves barbecue and craft beers.
2022:
"Thor: Love and Thunder," produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, is released to U.S. theaters. The sequel to "Thor: Ragnarok" (2017), it is directed by Taika Waititi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jennifer Kaytin Robinson. Thor embarks on a journey unlike anything he's ever faced -- a quest for inner peace. However, his retirement gets interrupted by Gorr the God Butcher, a galactic killer who seeks the extinction of the gods. To combat the threat, Thor enlists the help of King Valkyrie, Korg, and ex-girlfriend Jane Foster. The film stars Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher, Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie, Jaimie Alexander as Sif, Taika Waititi as Korg, Russell Crowe as Zeus, and Natalie Portman as Jane. Additionally, the Guardians of the Galaxy are featured in the film, with Chris Pratt, Karen Gillan, Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, Sean Gunn, Vin Diesel, and Bradley Cooper reprising their roles.
