2004:
Epcot's newest gallery exhibit, Echoes of Africa, opens in the American Adventure.
Walt Disney World announces that its theme and water parks will operate on an
abbreviated schedule on Friday September 3, due to the threat of Hurricane Frances.
Downtown Disney will close at 6 p.m. and Pleasure Island will not open for the evening. On this day, Frances will
strike the Bahamas directly, pass directly over San Salvador Island and very near to Cat Island. The storm will move west northwest and weaken through the day ... eventually dropping down to a Category 3 by 2:00 p.m.
1906:
Comedienne, writer & actress Barbara Jo Allen, the voice of Fauna
(the green good fairy) in Disney's 1959 classic Sleeping Beauty, is
born in New York City. Barbara is also the voice of Scullery Maid in Disney's 1963
The Sword in the Stone. In the 1960s, she did a recording for the character of Madame Leota
for Disneyland's Haunted Mansion ... but she was later replaced by Eleanor Audley (whose
voice can also be heard in Sleeping Beauty).
1928:
Paul Terry premieres his sound cartoon RCA Photophone system in New York
City for a short called Dinner Time. As Walt Disney is working on his own cartoon with sound,
he will later attend a showing of Dinner Time ... only to be disappointed by the quality of the audio.
1933:
Disney's Mickey Mouse cartoon Puppy Love - featuring the voices of Walt Disney
as Mickey and Marcellite Garner as Minnie - is released.
In this short directed by Wilfred Jackson, Mickey and Pluto come to call on Minnie and Fifi. But trouble starts
when Pluto exchanges the chocolates Mickey was going to give to Minnie with the bone he has for Fifi!
1950:
Children's Fairyland, USA (the first theme park created to cater to families with
young children) opens on the shore of Lake Merritt in Oakland, California. The park
will be nationally recognized for its unique value and even Walt Disney will visit often to gather ideas. He will
later hire Fairyland's first director, Dorothy Manes, to work at his park! (Today known as simply Children's
Fairyland, the park continues to delight children and their parents with whimsical storybook sets, gentle rides,
friendly animals, wonder-filled puppet shows, and inspired live entertainment.)
1977:
The New Mouseketeers perform at the Magic Kingdom and appear in
a Main Street parade at Walt Disney World. (They will appear 3 times a day through the 5th.)
1979:
The Big Thunder Mountain Railroad attraction opens in Disneyland's Frontierland.
The "wildest ride in the wilderness" takes guests careening through dark caverns and abandoned mines. Imagineer
Tony Baxter modeled the attraction after the scenery of Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. The exciting Big
Thunder Mountain replaces the more sedate Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland.
(A second Big Thunder will open at Disney World in November 1980.)
Disney's long-running television series airs for the last time on NBC under the name
The Wonderful World of Disney. Seven days later it will debut as Disney's Wonderful World.
(It is the 5th title since the show's 1954 debut.)
1985:
Disneyland's Adventure Thru Inner Space attraction closes in
Tomorrowland. It had first opened in August 1967. (The attraction will later be replaced with Star Tours.)
Actress Allison Miller is born to American parents in Rome, Italy. Her many television credits include the ABC series A Million Little Things as Maggie Bloom.
1997:
The Disneyana Convention 1997 kicks off for 5 days at Walt Disney World.
Tropical Serenade - also called The Enchanted Tiki Birds - at Walt Disney World
closes for extensive renovations. (It will reopen in April of 1998 as The Enchanted Tiki Room-Under
New Management.)
2003:
Kim Possible: The Secret Files is released direct-to-video and
The Brave Little Toaster (first released in1987) is released to DVD.
2006:
This day's broadcast of the Today show features Josh Strickland
and Jenn Gambatese, who portray Tarzan and Jane in the new
Disney musical Tarzan. They are joined by composer Phil Collins for a behind-the-scenes look at the
Broadway production.
1980:
Legendary drummer Buddy Rich and his band perform at Disneyland
for the first of a seven-day engagement.
1949:
Disney's animated short "All in a Nutshell" featuring Donald Duck and Chip 'n' Dale is
released. Directed by Jack Hannah and featuring the music of Oliver Wallace, Donald steals Chip and Dale's nuts for his nut-butter shop, which is shaped like a giant walnut! The voice cast includes Clarence Nash, Jimmy Macdonald, and Dessie Flynn.
Disneyland's
Adventure Thru Inner Space was the first to use the OminMover system to transport guests through
an attraction.
1955:
The Disney short Beezy Bear, featuring Donald Duck and Humphrey the
Bear, is released. Directed by Jack Hannah, the cartoon features the voices of James Macdonald (as
Humphrey), Clarence Nash (as Donald), and Bill Thompson (as Ranger J. Audubon Woodlore).
Donald's bee-keeping is threatened by Humphrey's honey stealing!
2002:
The Power of BLAST! gives its final performance in the Hyperion
Theater at Disney's California Adventure. Running since November 2001, the
show featured a 40-member cast performing five musical numbers in a single, half-hour act.
Season 3 of House of Mouse debuts with the episode "Suddenly Hades".
1902:
William Norman "Norm" Ferguson, an animator for the the
Walt Disney Studios and a central contributor to the studio's
stylistic development in the 1930s, is born in New York City.
After starting at the studio in August 1929 as a cameraman, "Fergy" switched to the animation department and rose
rapidly - despite a lack of formal art training. He is noted for his contribution to the creation of Pluto and the witch in
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. His credits also include Pinocchio, Fantasia, Cinderella, and Alice in Wonderland. Ferguson was posthumously inducted a Disney Legend in 1999.
2008:
"HSM3 School Spirit Contest," presented by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures and
MySpace, kicks off. Gearing up for the highly anticipated theatrical release of High School Musical 3: Senior
Year (on October 24th), the contest encourages students to show their best school spirit. One U.S. high school
whose students best showcase their inner Wildcat could win a magical Disney Grad Nite celebration at Walt Disney
World or Disneyland Resort. The contest runs through November 3, 2008.
Emmy Award-winning animator Bill Melendez who transformed the two-dimensional
drawings of the "Peanuts" comic strip into some of the most beloved cartoon
characters on television and film, dies at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica,
California at age 91. He began his career at the Hollywood animation studios of Disney and Warner Brothers.
At Disney, Melendez worked on such classics as Fantasia, Pinocchio, Bambi, and Dumbo.
"I started at Walt Disney Productions in January of 1937, where I learned the trade of animating. I spent a
happy four years at Disney." -Bill Melendez
SEPTEMBER 2
THIS DAY MADE
IN THE
USA
SEPTEMBER 2
 | ||||
| ||||
Adventure Thru Inner Space closes
"Hang on to them hats and glasses cuz this here’s the wildest ride in the wilderness!" -Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
1986:
Buddy Rich
"the world's
greatest drummer"
and
his band
return to
Disneyland.
(Sadly he will pass
away exactly
7 months later.
at the age of 69.)
Video courtesy of http://www.youtube.com/user/allthatjazzsamples
1919:
Disney Legend Marge Champion is born Marjorie Celeste Belcher in
Los Angeles, California. As a teen she was the live-action reference model for the
heroine of Disney’s 1937 feature-length cartoon Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Champion performed dances and scenes as Snow White so the animators could caricature
her actions and make their princess as human as possible. She later was asked to appear at the premiere of Snow White
at the Carthay Circle Theater in December 1937. Champion was also the model for the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio
and Hyacinth Hippo in the "Dance of the Hours" segment of Fantasia - a ballet parody that she also helped choreograph.
| ||||
1935:
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of Marceline, Missouri, the Marceline News runs the article "The Marceline I Knew," by Walt Disney.
Walt's written words include:
I was extremely glad to receive your letter asking me to write some impressions of Marceline as I remember it
from my childhood days.
To tell the truth more things of importance happened to me in Marceline than have happened since—or are
likely to in the future. Things I mean, like seeing my first circus parade, attending my first school, seeing my
first motion picture. I know you’ll agree with me that such childhood “first” as those are of utmost importance in
any human being’s life. I went with my family to live in Marceline when I was five years old and I stayed there
until I was nine. I clearly remember the day we arrived there on the train. A Mr. Coffman met us in his wagon
and we rode out to our house in the country just outside the city limits. I believe it was called the Crane Farm.
My first impression of it was that it had a beautiful front yard with lots of weeping willow trees.
1951:
The first color comic strip of "Alice in Wonderland" is published in Sunday editions of
newspapers. The animated film has been in release since July.
1959:
The Donald Duck short How to Have an Accident at Work is released. J.J. Fate (Donald's
alter ego) shows us how accidents aren't his fault, but instead are the result of carelessness. Donald is Mr. Careful
at home, but at work, he starts right off by falling down the stairs. He has run-ins with a punch press, flammable
paint, a conveyor belt, loose clothing, a monkey wrench, and other problems.
2012:
Jimmy Grabow, 27, of Running Springs, California, wins the Seventh Annual
Disneyland Half Marathon with a time of 1:05:29. His finish is nearly two minutes
faster than that of the previous Disneyland Half Marathon record, set by Paul Ngeny in 2010. Brea, California
resident Kevin Broady, 50, finishes second with a time of 1:14:05 with Sam Williams, 31, of Los Osos, California,
coming in third at 1:17:04.
Cindy Lynch, 41 of Cardiff, California, wins the women's division in 1:24:45.
Walt Disney Animation Studios debut a newly restored digital print of the once-
thought-lost 1928 Oswald the Lucky Rabbit animated short Hungry Hobos at the
39th Telluride Film Festival.
1934:
Chuck McCann, a film, television, stage and voice actor,
is born in Brooklyn, New York. A comedy giant to a generation
of kids who grew up watching his children's shows in the New York
metropolitan area during the 1960s, he relocated to Los Angeles in the
1970s where he began getting voice work for cartoons. McCann's
Disney credits included DuckTales, The New Adventures of Winnie the
Pooh and TaleSpin. He also appeared in the 1974 feature film
Herbie Rides Again. Originally hired by WED as the voice of Dreamfinder
(for Epcot's Journey into Imagination), McCann left the project before it
was completed. (He was replaced with Ron Schneider.)
September 02
"But, when you have to resort to turntables, trick lights, flashing lights, fire and all that, you're
actually saying, I need this because what I do is not all that together." -drummer Buddy Rich
"In the case of Pluto, the man most responsible for defining the character, giving
him the personality we know and love, was animator Norm Ferguson, known to
his friends and colleagues as Fergy." -Film Critic Leonard Maltin
2014:
The television special The Story of Frozen: Making a Disney Animated Classic airs
on ABC. Narrated by Josh Gad (the voice of Olaf the snowman), the program tells the story of how Walt Disney
Animation Studios' 2013 3D computer-animated film Frozen was created, and the unique impact it has on worldwide
culture.
2016:
The seasonal Disney World event Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party kicks off
for the first time this year. The annual Magic Kingdom tradition will continue
on select evenings through October 31.
The Light Between Oceans, a Touchstone/DreamWorks film, is released. A lighthouse keeper and his wife living off the coast of Western Australia raise a baby they rescue from a drifting rowing boat. But when the couple meet the child's biological mother, they must make a decision that will forever affect the lives of four people.
Directed by Derek Cianfrance, the film stars Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander. It is the final motion picture
to be released by Touchstone.
1994:
Touchstone Pictures releases the comedy-drama A Simple Twist of Fate, written by
and starring Steve Martin. Martin plays music teacher Michael McCann, whose life is emotionally closed off
from the world, until an orphaned baby shows up at his house. The cast includes Alana Austin, Gabriel Byrne, Laura
Linney, Catherine O'Hara, Stephen Baldwin, and Michael Des Barres.
1964:
Actor Keanu Reeves is born in Beirut, Lebanon. Best known for his starring roles in such blockbuster films as The Matrix and The Day the Earth Stood Still, he voiced Duke Caboom (a daredevil toy) in Pixar's Toy Story 4.
2019:
Threatening weather conditions from Hurricane Dorian prompts Walt Disney World to rearrange — and sometimes curtail —the next day's operating hours for its theme parks.
Disneyland Forever, a nighttime spectacular that used fireworks, projection mapping, fire, lasers, and searchlights to depict scenes from Disney films, runs for the last time
at the Anaheim park. Originally premiering in May 2015, the show had closed in September 2016 and then reopened last June.
1961:
Actor, comedian and filmmaker Eugenio Derbez is born Eugenio Alexandrino González Derbez in Mexico City, Mexico. He has supplied voices for the Spanish Latin American versions of many animated features, including Disney's Mulan and Mulan 2. Derbez also portrayed Hawthorne in Disney's 2018 live-action feature The Nutcracker and the Four Realms.
1940:
Comedian, actor and singer Eddie Collins passes at age 57 in California. Best known for voicing Dopey in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), he also appeared in such films as The Bluebird (1940) with Shirley Temple, and The Return of Frank James (1940).
2018:
Disney Junior – Live on Stage! (originally Playhouse Disney – Live on Stage! until 2011), a live show attraction featuring puppets of characters from Disney Junior's popular television programs, closes at Disney's Hollywood Studios.
