2005:
Composer-contemporary pianist Jim Brickman releases
his album "The Disney Songbook" on Walt Disney Records.
Walt Disney's classic Cinderella is released on DVD for the first time ever on a 2-disc special edition. Also released is the Cinderella
Special Edition Soundtrack featuring original classics from the film
plus 2 new artist tracks (by Kimberley Locke and Wayne Brady).
1926:
The Alice Comedy Alice in the Wooly West is released.
1945:
Actor-songwriter Clifton Davis is born in Chicago, Illinois. His Disney credits include the 2001
feature Max Keeble's Big Move, the 1988 television special Walt Disney World 4th of July Spectacular and the 2004 Disney Channel movie Halloweentown High. In 2014, he played the role of Sultan in Disney's Broadway musical Aladdin. (Clifton wrote the hit "Never Can Say Goodbye" - recorded and made famous by The Jackson 5!)
1946:
Actress Susan Sarandon, the voice of Miss Spider in the 1996 James and the Giant Peach,
is born in New York City. She also portrayed Queen Narissa in the 2007 Disney live-action feature Enchanted, Beverly Clark in the 2004 Miramax film Shall We Dance?, and Margherita Sarfatti in the 1999 Touchstone Pictures film Cradle Will Rock.
1955:
The second episode of the Mickey Mouse Club airs on ABC-TV. Comedian Wally Boag (from Disneyland's Golden Horseshoe Revue) appears on Guest Star Day. The 1953 cartoon Mickey's Kangaroo is also shown.
1957:
Actor Bill Fagerbakke, the voice of Sven in the 2003 Atlantis: Milo's Return, and
the voice of Mooch in the 2001 Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure, is born in Fontana, California. His Disney credits also include The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Kim Possible, Phineas and Ferb, DuckTales, and the Disney Channel Original Movie The Ultimate Christmas Present. (Best known as the voice of Patrick on SpongeBob SquarePants, Fagerbakke was part of the cast of the hit comedy series Coach.)
1987:
The Wonderful World of Disney airs part 1 of "The Journey of Natty Gann."
1993:
Disney World's Mission to Mars attraction, running since June 1975, closes
in Tomorrowland. (It will be replaced in 1995 with ExtraTERRORestrial
Alien Encounter ... and ultimately with Stitch's Great Escape!)
1998:
The animated series Rolie Polie Olie debuts on Disney Channel.
2000:
A new Disney Store (and the first of the new generation Disney Stores) is unveiled at the South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, California. Mickey and Minnie are on hand for the grand opening celebration.
2002:
The Disney Channel original movie The Scream Team airs for the first time. Young Ian Carlyle, played by Mark Rendall, and his sister Claire, played by Kat Dennings,
discover their eccentric great-grandpa's house is haunted! Kathy Najimy, Eric Idle, and Tommy Davidson play a trio of humorous
ghosts named Mariah, Coffin Ed, and Jumper. Rounding out the
cast is Kim Coates, Nigel Bennett, Edie Inksetter, and Zoie Palmer. Originally titled The Soul Patrol, the made-for-cable The Scream Team is loosely based on a Disney internet game.
2004:
Aeronautical engineer, test pilot and NASA astronaut
Gordon Cooper (one of the original Mercury space
travelers) passes away at age 77. He contributed as a
consultant to the Imagineers creating Space Mountain back in the 1970s
and attended its opening at Disneyland in 1977. As a vice president of
research and development for WED, Cooper helped in the planning of
EPCOT Center. (He was the first American to sleep in orbit, flew the
longest spaceflight of the Mercury project, and was the last American to be launched alone into Earth orbit and conduct an entire solo orbital mission.)
1975:
Imagineer Yale Gracey - who devised many of the illusions for the Haunted Mansion - retires after 36 years at Disney. He will continue to consult on special effects and lighting for attractions at Walt Disney World and EPCOT Center in Florida & later
be named a Disney Legend.
1996:
That Thing You Do! starring, written and directed by Tom Hanks is released through
20th Century Fox. The story of a fictional one-hit wonder 1960s rock band from
Pennsylvania - the movie features scenes shot at Disneyland.
Walt Disney Pictures releases the sports comedy-drama D3: The Mighty Ducks.
Having achieved a modicum of fame from their earlier adventures, all the members of the Mighty Ducks hockey team
are awarded scholarships to a prestigious prep school. But they must now play in the school's uniforms and renounce
their freewheeling style for the more disciplined approach of their new coach, Ted Orion. After star player Charlie quits
the team, their old coach, Gordon Bombay, must return to reinvigorate the Ducks' spirit. The third and final installment
in The Mighty Ducks trilogy, the film stars Emilio Estevez, Joshua Jackson, Jeffrey Nordling, and David Selby.
2006:
The Spangler family from Randolph, Ohio spend the morning at Disney
World as the Magic Kingdom's only guests! The family of four are the
first big winners of Disney's "Year of a Million Dreams" celebration.
Season 3 of ABC-TV's Lost debuts with the episode "A Tale of Two Cities."
A majority of the plants used in
Disney World Resort landscapes
are native species. They consult regularly with horticulturists
& botanists from several
universities and other
institutions to select
appropriate species.
1982:
Fortune magazine features a cover story on Florida's newest theme park -
EPCOT Center. An article entitled Disney Gambles on Tomorrow, explains that
"The success of Epcot is critical to Disney's future prosperity, for the fabled
entertainment company has recently suffered unaccustomed reverses."
2007:
Disney's stage production The Lion King opens in France as Le Roi Lion, its first French-language production at Le Mogador Theatre in Paris.
1822:
Rutherford B. Hayes, the nineteenth United States President, is born
in Delaware, Ohio. A soldier during the American Civil War, Hayes regularly hosted
reunions of his Civil War regiment, the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, at his Spiegel Grove
estate. Visit him and all the U.S. Chief Executives at Disney World's The Hall of Presidents.
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1924:
Actor Charlton Heston, the narrator of Disney's 1997 animated feature Hercules, is born in Evanston, Illinois. He also co-starred in the 1990 Disney Channel film The Little Kidnappers and appeared as himself on the 1986 TV special Walt Disney World's 15th Anniversary Celebration. In 1971 he took part in Disneyland's Candlelight Processional. (Renowned for playing historical figures, Heston's long list of
credits include The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, and The Greatest Story Ever Told.)
ALICE
2008:
Radio Disney launches a new feature - Next Big Thing - that lets young unsigned artists be heard on the network and have their songs voted on by listeners. Next Big Thing will feature new artists every two weeks over 22 weeks, with the winner announced in March 2009.
1988:
Cinderella becomes the eighth "Walt Disney Classic" to be released on video.
OCTOBER 4
THIS DAY MADE IN THE USA
OCTOBER 04
WDW's Mission to Mars closes
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1941:
Walt and Lillian Disney and eight of his employees leave Valparaiso, Chile aboard
the ship the Santa Clara. They've been on a two-month visit to South America. The ship will take
them through the Panama Canal and up north to New York City - for the world premiere of Dumbo.
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"I believe that these extra-terrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets.
Most astronauts were reluctant to discuss UFOs." -Gordon Cooper (1927-2004)
Imaginner Yale Gracey retires
1956:
Disneyland welcomes 4-year-old Debra Rutherford of Quincy, Washington ...
the 5 millionth guest through the main gate!
1939:
Walt Disney and his family – wife Lillian, daughter Diane, brother Roy, sister-in-
law Edna, and nephew Roy – arrive at the Port of Los Angeles Harbor, aboard
the S.S. Matsonia. They have been on vacation in Hawaii.
1997:
The fourth episode of Disney's Recess, "First Name Ashley/To Finster with Love"
premieres on ABC-TV.
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October 04
2018:
Screenwriter, film director, and producer Audrey Wells passes away at age 58 in California. Her Disney writing credits included George of the Jungle, Disney's The Kid, and The Game Plan.
1958:
Animator Jack King passes away in Los Angeles, California. First starting at Disney in June 1929, he worked on many Silly Symphony and Donald Duck shorts.
1991:
Touchstone releases the drama Paradise starring Melanie Griffith, Don Johnson,
Elijah Wood, and Thora Birch. A troubled 10-year-old boy, Willard Young, who wonders why his father
hasn’t come home for about three months, is packed off by his mother to stay with friends in a rural town called
Paradise. Painfully shy, Willard discovers that his new guardians, Ben and Lily Reed, are having deep problems too.
The couple is still grieving over the accidental death of their son, and it is tearing them apart. Willard’s presence
eventually becomes a healing catalyst for the troubled pair, and they, in turn, along with a sensitive little girl named
Billie, help Willard prevail over his greatest fears.
2019:
Lucy in the Sky, a science fiction drama film produced by Fox Searchlight Pictures, is released to U.S. theaters by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. Co-written and directed by Noah Hawley (in his feature directorial debut), the films stars Natalie Portman, Jon Hamm, Zazie Beetz, Dan Stevens, Colman Domingo, and Ellen Burstyn. Astronaut Lucy Cola returns to Earth after a lengthy space mission where she begins an affair with fellow astronaut Mark Goodwin. Due to her experience far from home, Lucy heads into a downward spiral as she loses connection to her family, and when her lover begins another affair with an astronaut trainee, the bottom drops out.
Actress and singer Diahann Carroll passes away at age 84 in Los Angeles, California. First rising to prominence in some of the earliest major studio films to feature black casts, including Carmen Jones (1954) and Porgy and Bess (1959), in 1962 Carroll won a Tony Award for best actress, a first for a black woman, for her role in the Broadway musical No Strings. She was also known for her titular role in the television series Julia (1968), which made her the first African-American actress to star in her own television series where she did not play a domestic worker. Carroll's Disney credits include the voice of Queen La in the 2001 animated series The Legend of Tarzan, and a role for one season on ABC's Grey's Anatomy (2006-2007) as Jane Burke.
Season 2 of the animated series Fancy Nancy (produced by Disney Television Animation for Disney Junior, and based on the books of the same name by Jane O'Connor with illustrations by Robin Preiss Glasser) kicks off with the episodes "The Return of Dudley" & "Nancy Quits the Clancy's."
1995:
Disney's 1950 animated classic Cinderella is released on VHS and LaserDisc.
1961:
Singer-songwriter Jon Secada is born in Havana, Cuba. The song "If I Ever Knew You," from Pocahontas, was recorded as a duet by Secada and Shanice. Written by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz, Shanice and Secada's version is heard during the film's end credits. Secada has performed numerous times at Epcot as part of International Flower & Garden Festival and the Food & Wine Festival. (One of the first Latin crossover stars, he is a Grammy winner who has sold over 20 million records.)
1895:
Actor, comedian, film director, producer, screenwriter, and stunt performer Buster Keaton is born Joseph Frank Keaton in Piqua, Kansas. Best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression (that earned him the nickname "The Great Stone Face"), Keaton's work influenced many... including a young Walt Disney. Mickey Mouse's classic release Steamboat Willie (November 18, 1928), was a clear pun on Keaton's successful Steamboat Bill Jr. (May 12, 1928). Keaton referenced the song "Steamboat Bill" in his picture Steamboat Bill Jr. Disney drew inspiration from both the song and the Keaton picture, as he sang - as Mickey Mouse - the song in the opening scene of the cartoon. Buster's films were screened regularly to "inspire" the Disney animators and gag men. Disney's animators included Keaton in the 1933 short Mickey's Gala Premier (along with other famous Hollywood stars).
2015:
"Frozen" Festival Show closes at Honk Kong Disneyland. An almost identical version of "For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration" (which has played in other Disney theme parks around the world), it was a musical show based on Frozen, running since June.
2011:
Disney releases Diamond Editions of Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. The packages features Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray + DVD.
1986:
As part of Disney World's 15th anniversary, EPCOT Extravaganza takes place from 6:00 p.m. to midnight. Each of the ten countries of World Showcase celebrate with a lavish presentation of music, entertainment. and cuisine.
