Ep. 740: Mary Blair deep dive and D23 event, Star Wars LEGOS
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You're listening to Mousetalgia for the week of June 2, 2025. Hang on to them hats and glasses, cause this here is the wildest podcast in the wilderness. This is Mousetalgia. Carpe Kingdom, seize the magic.

Welcome to Mousetalgia, your podcast about Disneyland, Disney history, and living that Disney life that we all love so much, for better or for worse sometimes. My name is Jeff, and I am your host, along this week with my two great friends, Julia and Tina. Julia and Tina, welcome to Mousetalgia. Hi.

Hello. I was waiting for Julia to go first. I'm sorry, I got distracted. Hello. Hi, Jeff. Hello, my friends. I was just looking at them both kind of staring, staring off into their computer space. So it's good to see you guys again. We've seen each other a bit recently. We've been doing some Disney stuff and I've been missing out on some Disney stuff. So we'll talk all about that in a moment.

First, I want to thank you all for joining us and thank my sponsor, MEI Mouse Fan Travel. Mouse Fan Travel, of course, is a fee-free Disney travel agency. So anything you want to do Disney related, go to Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Disneyland Paris, Tokyo Disneyland, any Disney park, any Disney by Adventure by Disney, any Disney cruise, anything.

There's got to be more Disney stuff. More Disney stuff. Any Disney things. Go to mousefantravel.com. Get yourself a no obligation quote. We are, my wife and I are in the process of looking into a Disney cruise with Mouse Fan Travel. Shocked. I'm shocked. Yeah. It'll be short. Still a cruise. Give it a shot and see what they can do for you. Well, they shouldn't have added a haunted mansion to the Disney cruise line now. I know. Shouldn't they have? I guess. Do you think Julia had something to do with that?

Do you think she influenced them just so she could get on a cruise again? Yeah. It's possible. All right. So check out mousefantravel.com and see what they can do for you. Mousefantravel.com. All right, you guys. Today we're going to just do a couple things. First of all, I'm going to thank my audience for sticking with us. As you've heard, and here's another plug for anyone that might be interested, I've been gathering names of people that might be interested in helping out with Mousetalgia. Maybe some changes in the future. I am a school teacher, so...

As a solo mousetagite, the month of May becomes pretty much inaccessible to me for time other than grading and finishing up end of the year stuff. So I apologize for no mousetagia in May, but we are starting off June with a bang. And we're going to talk a little bit about something that went way back to the beginning of May, which is our... Was that the last time we did a...

We all palled around. I think it was May 4th, Star Wars Day. Actually, we are closer to the real Star Wars Day, which was... Someone on Wikipedia this fast. When was Star Wars released? Was it May 25? It was last week for sure. May 22? May 20-something? Yeah.

I think Star Wars, which they went on to rename Episode 4, A New Hope. But I grew up calling it Star Wars. That came out in May of 1977. So that was, I guess that's more of a real. May 25th. May 25th. I think that's a real Star Wars day. But we celebrated May the 4th be with you. And we'll talk about that in a little bit. But before that, we are going to talk about some Disney history in

involving someone that Nostalgia has discussed on the show a number of times, probably not as many times as we've discussed the Haunted Mansion episode,

Maybe not as many times as we've discussed Hayley Mills, but pretty close, right? And we are talking about Mary Blair because a new exhibition or a small, a mini exhibition just opened at the Walt Disney Family Museum centered on Mary Blair. So in honor of that, here is our Nostalgia Charcuterie for the week. ♪

The Mousetalgia Shark. You dare it? Let's just keep it simple. Let's just go around and share your favorite Mary Blair contribution to the world. I think that's an easy way to put it. Who should we start with? Eeny, meeny, miny, julia. Why do I always know when somebody's going to call on me first? My favorite Mary Blair contribution to the world is her work on The Little Golden Books.

Oh, that's good. I'm sure you couldn't have guessed that coming from me, the librarian. Well, I would not have guessed that, although it makes sense in retrospect. Do you have a...

particular one in mind or did i um i think it's called i can fly okay so you're not talking about only disney you're talking about mary blair the artist mary blair the artist yeah nice yeah i can fly all right that's good uh tina how about you sure mine is going to be her contribution to cinderella because cinderella is my favorite animated movie nice and it just so happens this

year 75 75 75 looking good um and speaking of golden books the cinderella version is one of my favorites so um i ended up buying that at the walt disney family museum a few years back so i

There you go. Synergy. Synergy. That's good. I'm trying to remember if this is where the animators finally came together. I don't know if writ large is the way to put it, but they were upset about Mary Blair's influence. And I mean, it's easy to say, oh, they didn't get it. But there were some very distinguished and

accomplished artists as part of the Disney animation studio at the time. I don't think it's so easy to say, oh, they didn't get it. I think they just, it was a difference and it was a change. And Walt was springing it on them. Like, Hey, I really like what Mary here is, is thinking and the lines she's following, like let's pursue that. And there was a little bit of pushback. I don't know exactly when that became a strong, strong,

But I would say Cinderella is at least an obvious example of Mary Blair's interesting perspective on how color palettes can change emotion of a whole scene. Right. So you would have Cinderella wasn't really interested in the sky is blue. The grass is green. You know, the stones are gray. There were pink scenes and orange scenes. You know what I mean? It was just kind of a color thing.

was more about what mood is this scene? Well, let's see if we can represent it or change it or make it surprising by the way that we change the color palette. And of course, you know, Mary Blair is kind of known for that in general. You know, I'm going to say, you know, I don't know. I...

Kristen and I, and we've told this story also on Mousetage a few times. There was a Mary Blair painting on eBay once, and we both were looking at it and like, we want that painting. It was a little, a little...

a little piece of work she did on the friendship tour to South America. So it was a little bird or something like that. I don't even remember exactly what it was, but we looked at it and it's one of those things where, you know, it was just someone selling it. Who knows where they got it. You had to kind of,

believe it was real but it was clearly obviously real it had her little signature and a flap under like she had ripped the paper off the top a little bit and folded it up and signed it secretly which is something she I think was kind of known to do so at any rate we knew this was real we didn't have any money Kristen was just out of I think just out of college as a

And I was just married. And, you know, I mean, we were just kind of, how are we going to get $100 to bid on this thing? So we didn't get it. I think it's sold for $150 or I don't know. I would even buy it for $150. Well, anyone would. Of course, this was, I don't know, 15 years ago or maybe more. So at any rate.

I did. So that the point of it is that I really like going all the way back. Like what she was doing on the Goodwill tour was interesting. And some of the Posada artwork and kind of the charm like she brought. And a lot of that turned into Christmas cards and things later on. But just a lot of the and then also I'm kind of mixing things and also the work she did on the South America tour. She had a way of.

Not just color, but also a very commercial vision of turning characters into emotive. She predated the sticky sweetness of precious moments, but her characters, even though they were kind of charming, they never got... You know how precious moments are kind of teardrop eyes and gooey and just a little much? It never crossed that line. She had a way of making things that were sweet and cute, but still...

communicative right so i don't know as a graphic designer mary blair's work kind of crosses a lot of boundaries of commercialism um you know express express not expressionism but expressive emotive types of things and then of course uh

You know, all the different films she worked on for Walt Disney, doing color studies and that kind of thing. So Mary Blair, of course, a strong voice, female voice from the Walt Disney Studio. And then further on in her career after she was done with Walt Disney and was a commercial artist. So let's talk about Mary Blair. Here you leave today to hear a podcast from the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy. Nostalgia.

All right. So you guys were lucky enough. And I will tell you, I had a ticket to this. And I unfortunately just couldn't attend. Like I was ambitious to think in the middle of May, I'm just going to make it to this thing.

It did not work out. I tried my best to get out, you know, break that week up, but I just couldn't do it. So luckily, Tina could go along in my stead. So, Julie and Tina, tell us all about the new exhibit at the Walt Disney Family Museum. The exhibit is called Mary Blair Mid-Century Magic.

And it opened the last week of May, middle of May. And it's a much more concise exhibit than the magic color flair. Yeah, the art of Mary Blair that they had in the Diane Disney Miller special exhibit hall. No less beautiful, but much smaller.

So is it a coda to that exhibition? Is it related? It sounded from the press information that it's really taken from that exhibition, but they kind of repurposed it a little bit. That was the impression I got. Just to confirm. So this exhibit is at the Walt Disney Family Museum from May 22nd. It officially opened on May 22nd. And it goes through September 7th of this year. So you have a little bit of time to go see it. Okay. Through the summer. Okay.

Yeah, through the summer, definitely. All right. And this event that we went on was the D23 preview event. So it was specific for D23 members. And it was held on May 21st on a lovely weekend evening from 4 to 8 p.m. Yes. Excellent. So Tina and I met. Tina was Jeff for the day. We were all a little antsy.

Yeah, because they're very, very clear about you may not transfer these tickets to anyone else. And I even, maybe I shouldn't have done this because we all have been to plenty of these things. They just scan you in and there you are. But I still got a little nervous. So I wrote to D23 and I said, can I please, please, please let my good friend use my ticket? And they wrote back and said, absolutely not. Yeah.

We're going to try it anyway. Well, good news, they didn't even bat an eye. Yeah, but we kind of knew, eh, they're not going to care. So Tina went as myself, and she used my ticket. That's not to say that it would work with every D23 event, but this one was pretty. I have a feeling like the membership lady, Paige. I think Paige would have been like, no, just let them in. Oh, yeah, the museum, yes.

Well, I'm not trying to tell you D23 doesn't care about these things because they did write back to me, in fact, and say we do and no. We're just trying to say it worked for us. And, you know, it could be. I don't know. Did you recognize Paige? Yes. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So it could have been, you know.

They recognized. So at any rate, here we go. We are in business. You guys are at the Walt Disney Family Museum. Now, when I bought the ticket, I understood it to be a T and then a ability to preview the exhibition. And then they said there would be Mary Blair shorts looping through the theater that you could walk in on. And then they said you would get a little gift as a parting token. So tell us all about the event.

So we checked in and that is when they gave us our gift, which was just a standard D23 pennant.

It didn't say Mary Blair or anything. It was just like D23. I guess it was kind of mid-century. And stickers. And stickers. Sticker sheets. Yeah. And then the gentleman that checked us in told us to take a picture of the schedule, which Tina did. And that even though we had a tea time set for, I think, 6 o'clock...

He said we could just go in and do it when we got there. So we went and had a little snack. They had different varieties of tea. I think I ended up with a vanilla flavored one. I don't remember. And they had the tea time set up in the awards lobby.

And then you just got a little box and they offered a vegan option or just a regular. And gluten free. So they had options for dietary needs. But yeah, you didn't just walk around and pick what you wanted. You just got a little box. So you picked the box that you wanted and that was it. And it had a little sandwich. I think it was like a chicken salad sandwich. Yeah.

With all the corners, all the crusts cut off in little triangle shapes. And then two little desserts. One was like a cookie. Like a pedophore? Yeah. A little cake type thing. It was fine. Yeah.

Okay. Like I wasn't expecting much because I've been to other events there when they say there's going to be refreshments and all that. And it's usually just very light. So I wasn't expecting to like have a full meal or anything. Yeah.

So we got our tea in. We could have gone throughout the museum if we wanted to, but because we are lucky enough to be members and lucky enough to live close enough, we didn't feel the need to do that. So we just focused on the other D23 aspects. So we went in and visited the gift shop. They have a few things for the exhibit. They have a sweatshirt that has the...

Small world facade on it with the name of the exhibit down one of the arms, a hooded sweatshirt. And then the t-shirts, Tina, I don't remember. Were they adult sizes or were they more kids sizes? The one I picked up looked small. I didn't check too closely. They were very nice. I can tell you the design on it was very nice. So they have a little bit of merch. And then we found out that Becky Klein from the Walt Disney Archives was down in the lower lobby of

signing basically anything that you wanted her to sign so even if she didn't write whatever book you had she said she would sign it so she wasn't being picky um she was just there having a good time talking to all the people um so she was in the midst of her book signing when we made our way down to look at the exhibit um

So we walked around it. So it's just like the last few exhibits they've had. It's in that lobby area that is by the bathroom and then in the theater lobby. And the area kind of outside by the stairs is more information about like her early life and like where she grew up and like where she went to school and then kind of moves into the

her El Grupo tour that you were mentioning and all of the package films that came out of there. And then it moves into Small World and her Disney animation career. And then...

a few of the murals that she did after working for Disney. So it hits all the high points of her career. Is it super comprehensive for somebody who maybe has been a fan of Mousetalgia and hearing a lot about Mary Blair? Probably not. But I just learned one thing and I didn't write it down, but she was born in...

Was she born? Maybe not born, but she grew up in the Bay Area. How is it that you did not hear this on Mousetalgia? We've talked many times about how she went to San Jose City College. I don't remember either. It really could have been 15 years ago at this point. Yes, Mary Blair and I both went to the same art school, although it was changed to a university and named San Jose State University School of Art. Hey, I went there too. I went.

You did also go to Mary Blair's alma mater. There you go. Not in art, but you did. We're basically the same. Basically. I did not. But that is a good point to reiterate. So I'm sorry I walked on your little discovery. So say it in your own words. I'm sure I knew it at one point, but I forgot. There's a lot. We have said a lot of things on this show.

It is exciting that Mary Blair is at least a Bay Area student. Basically a neighbor. Yeah, yeah. So, okay. So that's cool. How was the digital part of this? And I'll put a spoiler in here. Kristen, who many of you who have listened to Mousetalgia for more than the past two years will recognize as one of the founding members of Mousetalgia, her husband, Kurt,

actually worked extensively with the Walt Disney Family Museum on this exhibition. So he was a big part of it. Yeah. Why don't you have Kurt here talking to you? Well, I am going to have Kurt here. Oh, good. But this is the overview of the fan event, and then I'll dig into it a little deeper with Kurt another next week or whenever I record with Kurt. So,

So you guys were at the preview, right? So you maybe were, of course, it's brand new. I imagine you're captivated by the artwork there. The part of it that I'm talking about, it says, at least in the press release, it says, guests will have the opportunity to dive deeper into the exhibition experience with hands-on Mary Blair themed art activities or using their phones to unlock augmented reality interactives, which is, I think, interesting.

And I don't want to put words into Kurt's mouth either, but I think that's kind of the part of things that Kurt was involved with. So we'll have to check that out a little bit deeper when we go to see it again in a few weeks at one of these events that we'll be attending. So, okay. So let's move on. So, Julie, I'll go back to you. So what do you...

Like in terms of comparing, not comparing, but you went to see Mary Blair some years ago, you know, a decade ago with the original presentation. And now we're here with this newer exhibition. Can you kind of describe, did it seem to have a different...

Focus or a different perspective at all? I would say yes. The previous exhibit had a lot more of her personal art. And this really focused on the Disney stuff of her career. So I would say that's...

a big factor as to why it's smaller. Okay. Okay. So, of course, the original exhibition was, when was that? 20, about 10 years ago, right? A long time ago, yeah. 11 years ago. 2014. So, ooh, 11 years ago. Which Nostalgia had a part in that one, too. We did. They used some of our interview with Alice Davis about Mary Blair. They used some of that in that exhibition.

exhibitions interactive portion so John Canemaker curated that first exhibition and so just we should mention that John Canemaker is going to be coming back to the Maltese Family Museum to talk about this exhibition

On when is it? July 12th. Right. So if you're anyone's interest out there and you want to come check out, it's called Memories of Mary Blair with historian John Canemaker and Mary's niece, Maggie Richardson, who we've had on Nostalgia once or twice before. And Kristen, I think she already told the story. I think she did. We bought Kristen bought some artwork from.

Anyway, at the Alice Davis exhibition that was special to Maggie. So at any rate, they will be there at the Walt Disney Family Museum on July 12th. So go to WaltDisney.org if you want to learn more about that.

All right. So any other any last thoughts about this exhibition? Do either of you have anything else? All right. Let's keep talking. Well, maybe not the exhibition. The event itself had a few theater presentations. The first thing we watched was a little talk with Becky Klein. So they probably spent.

25 minutes maybe oh yeah about that yeah so it wasn't it wasn't like a full length it wasn't but there was no question there weren't questions and answers were there no um so yeah they just they just talked a little bit about her life and her um career um so let me just talk about a few things that stuck out to me and then i'll let tina jump in okay um

So the first thing that she started working on for Disney was a sequel to Fantasia.

Okay. But that movie idea was abandoned because Fantasia did not do well at the theater. She worked on two pieces for that, the Baby Ballet and Penelope. And then, Jeff, you already talked about the South America trip a lot, but that was when Walt Disney started noticing her and really her artwork and her flair for color, if you will, really kind of blossomed during that trip.

Um, and then after that trip is when her husband joined the military. Um, but Mary stayed at the studio and worked on many of the package films. And then Cinderella came along. Um, and Reda Scott was really the only other female animator working at the studio at the time.

But Mary was one of the important Disney artists at the time. So she worked on Cinderella, Peter Pan, and Alice in Wonderland. Becky Klein spoke about, I think we've all seen a lot of her inspiration pieces for the films. But the way that her style was, while it's very visually striking, it's also very flat.

So the animators had a really hard time trying to translate that into the animated films. So Walt kind of lamented that he couldn't figure out how to get the artists to make a movie to look like in the style of Mary Blair. Um, but even still her, um, her artwork inspired those films. Um,

even if it didn't necessarily look like it outside of maybe the backgrounds. And you were talking a little bit about her color choices, and Becky Klein talked about that as well. And she really likes a lot of the concept art from Peter Pan, and she was like, there's one with a mermaid in it, and the sky is green, and somehow it works. So...

And she also mentioned that Mary's favorite color was white, even though she knew what to do with color. Her favorite color was white.

Interesting. And then they talked a little bit, the mural that's in one of the resorts at Disney World. Talking about at the Contemporary? I think so. Yeah. So there's a five-legged goat in that mural. And they believe that she did this on purpose. She never actually said this, but I think John Kanemaker kind of said it.

sussed this out and believed this to be true that she did it on purpose because she was a very spiritual woman and she was influenced by a native american belief um that women who would make these really intricate beaded pieces would put one wrong bead to show the humility of the artist um so that so she made a mistake like a mistake she made a mistake on purpose yeah

To show her humility, which is kind of nice. Yeah, it's interesting. One thing I didn't know about along, or don't recall, along with the San Jose State. Maybe you talked about it on Nostalgia, we'll find out. Was that I didn't realize that three Blairs were actually working at the studio. So not only did her husband, Lee Blair, work there, she worked there, but Lee Blair's brother.

brother Preston I think his name was was also an artist and I don't remember that whatsoever so there was some great things I mean a couple of great things that I didn't remember about her life in here and then there's also you're talking about a mural but there was another mural that she mural that she did before um the contemporary and this was one that um

Walt Disney actually commissioned her to do for the Jill Stein Eye Institute in UCLA. So this is a mural that was made out of tiles. And it was 220 feet tall. And I believe it still existed because they were talking about just refurbishing it in 2021. So this was kind of a...

A tile with texture so that the children, because it was at the Eye Institute for the children, was that it was in the waiting room. So they would have something happy to look at before they go in for a procedure or whatever. And because it was tile, they were actually able to feel the different textures instead of just being a visual thing. So I thought that was kind of cool, which then led into...

into the mural in contemporary you can also see the educational film about that mural on youtube it's called the ceramic mural modern use of ancient art so you can find that on youtube usually i begin work by making little doodle sketches to plan the overall design and pattern many of these end up in the wastebasket but the successful ones are kept to enlarge and refine in a scale rendition

Almost all artwork, no matter what the final form, begins with drawing because drawing is the artist's fundamental tool. The subject here offered great design potential and I chose characters and costumes that would be easily recognized by our audience, the children. It premiered in November of 1966, which was just a month before Walt Disney passing, which, um,

Walt. Mary was very close to Walt. So that obviously devastated her, which I know we've heard the stories of before. But that was very touching. So, yeah. Yeah. All right. It was a good event. So they presented Betsy Cline twice for a talk, kind of like in the first episode.

Part of it. And then they repeated as she came down again. And then they also repeated the short film that they had being premiered, which was they called it Mary Blair Gallery to Screen Collection. So it was just a various insert of films that she worked on and some interviews and stuff like that. So I appreciate that they kind of broke this into two different groups so that the early group could.

Could be there as well as the later group could see the same things and we didn't miss out on anything. That was a cool little video that they showed because it took all of her concept art and kind of showed like the end result and how it inspired what you see in the movies.

They have also premiered a kind of a documentary in their theater, which is running on certain days at certain times called Mary Blair's Pigments of Imagination to go along with the exhibit. And it's a new featurette produced and edited in-house at the Walt Disney Family Museum showcases works from the special exhibition paired with corresponding iconic Disney scenes.

narrated by animation historian Mindy Johnson and includes interviews with Disney artists and experts along with home video footage of Mary never previously shared with the public. So that is probably worth catching as well the next time you're at the museum. All right. Well, it sounds...

Like they made the best use of that space that they could. And it sounds like despite having known all about Mary Blair and heard all the stories about Mary Blair and seeing all the artwork of Mary Blair, you two both are coming away with insight and things to share. So that's kind of awesome. So the exhibit, one more time, is called Mary Blair Mid-Century Magic.

And it is on display at the Walt Disney Family Museum through the beginning of September, right? September. September 7th or something. Yeah. So don't miss this if you're in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Presidio National Park is where the Walt Disney Family Museum is. Beautiful part of San Francisco. Cheap parking. So what else can we say? New restaurants. It's pretty. There's a lot going on over there. So check it out.

Who's the team behind the show you're listening to today? M-O-U-S-E-G-A-L-G-I-A You're listening to Nostalgia. Hashtag Carpe Kingdom. Hashtag Seize the Magic. Yeah, yeah. Game Star Wars.

All right, this is a Mousetalgia Special Report with my good friends Tina and Julia. Thank you for joining me for a moment to talk Star Wars. Okay, so it is May the 4th, 2025, and you know, any May the 4th is a good time to celebrate Star Wars. And I would even say, so do you celebrate return of the 5th or return of the 6th? Either of you.

No, I do not. Neither? How about you, Julia? If I were to celebrate, I would do the fifth. The fifth, right? That's always what I thought. First, there was Star Wars Day, May the 4th. And then I feel like someone was really clever and came up with, well, the fifth, Revenge of the Fifth, right? But then I've seen a lot of Revenge of the Sixth, which is a lot closer, well... Makes sense. Fifth sounds a little bit more like Sith, right? Sixth.

It kind of does, too. Everybody's just trying to extend the Star Wars. Why not both?

Why not? So we decided to celebrate May the 4th. Now, Tina has a little bit of experience with this. So I think it's a regular thing now. And it has been at least five years, I think, that the LEGO store will celebrate May the 4th in a big way with new releases and Star Wars activities and Star Wars giveaways, right? So you have done this before, Tina? Yeah, I did it before for the Formula One steering wheel. So this is only my second time doing it.

So we decided to hit up one of the fancier malls here in San Jose and find a Lego store and try to get the free build. So what Lego does is they make it so that if you come and are there in time, because they usually have a two or three hour window for this, you can get the pieces you need to build a special piece.

like a special little toy. That's not something they sell or anything like that. It's just, they make it up for this day. They give you the pieces. Literally, they dump them in a box in front of you. Here's your pieces. And you can look at the sheet on the table, like how to make it. And then you sit there and build in the Lego store, right? So today it was Grogu in his little pod, right? In the little Mandalorian pod. So yeah, you know, and I have never been lucky enough. This is always that kind of thing that I...

kind of know about, but walk by like after it's long over or see once. The thing about this Lego thing is once you see the long line, it's probably too late to get in it for the most part. Right. So we so Tina was our point person here because she'd done it before. So you recommended a good two hour walk.

early start right yeah yeah so the one day before i was only there honestly like 30 minutes or 45 minutes and they were already done so they did have a substitute for us that wasn't formula one related but at least you got a free something yeah yeah so we didn't obviously stay for the whole day to see what happened to the people at the end of the line but let's hope that they got something more than paper yoda here which we'll probably talk about in a minute but so um but we were number

I think, what did you say, 17, 18, 19, and 20? Something like that? Yeah, in the first 20. So that was obvious that we were going to make it in. We got there two hours early. And there were people there before us, but not very many. Well, obviously, 16 people before us, right? So I would say May the 4th is a good time to visit your LEGO store. Now, LEGO has started expanding May the 4th to be May the 1st through 5th or whatever the weekend is, I bet. It probably is.

May the 4th plus whatever weekend is closest, you know, something like that, I would guess. So at least for me, the big new item this year was the, uh,

It's not called the Slave 1 anymore. Boba Fett's ship. Beautiful build-up Lego kit. $300. There's also a really impressive Jabba the Hutt's sail barge, tattooing barge that was on, I think that was, what was it? $500 or so? Something like that. But that wasn't a May the 4th release. Oh, that wasn't? That had already been out? Oh, okay. That was just a Star Wars release.

So the Boba Fett ship was May the 4th. And also the Star Wars logo was released today, right? Yes. The Star Wars logo was May the 4th too. So that was $59. $49. $49. So we did. We made it in. We got our box of Legos. We each built a little Yoda and his... Or not Yoda. Baby Yoda. Rogu and his egg. And I bought... Actually, so the...

The Boba Fett ship was long sold out. And what I was getting at is since LEGO has expanded the timeframe, I think the first day is kind of exclusive to

Lego members, right? Lego insiders, yeah. Which is free. Yeah, so Lego insiders, you can join, and then you can buy stuff at the Lego store, special cases, a few days early. So the Boba Fett ships were long gone. Even on lego.com today, they were six weeks out, backordered. So I did not get that. I kind of wanted it, but instead I got the Dark Falcon, uh...

Little FOMO there, because there was one left on the shelf. So I wanted to get... And also, okay, I'll tell you. Also, I wanted to get enough, spend enough to get all the free stuff. So I think it was, you had to spend $150. I think it was $160. $160, yeah. And I think it was $170 or $80 or something like that. But your Star Wars line was... So, Julia, the Dark Falcon is actually in the Star Wars imaginary universe. So Lego has this, like...

reconstructing Star Wars idea where things are not like they seem. So Luke comes in a kind of a beach bum outfit. Like he's going out to hang out on the beach. Rey is Dark Rey with her double lightsabers and her...

the minifigs in Black and White. And there's a couple other, so it came with four or five minifigs in weird situations that are not normal Star Wars, from the Star Wars movies. I guess dark gray kind of is. And it's called the Dark Falcon, so it's mostly charcoals and blacks instead of charcoals and light grays. Different, slightly different, but it's basically a Millennium Falcon model. It's really nice. And yeah, it's cool, and it's not from any particular...

It's just from the Star Wars Lego universe. Like a reimagined. Yes. Yes. From the Lego Star Wars universe. But it's pretty and it's cool. So I got that. So what did you guys buy? You just came for the Grogu. I really came for the Grogu.

But I walked away with the Star Wars sign because that was super cool. I know there's a little hidden feature in it. So then you got a free, if you spent over $40 in certain Star Wars stuff, you got a free mini Millennium Falcon mini build, which I know is also offered on the DisneyStore.com too. And then I bought Eeyore. Oh, okay. So of course. Yeah, a little break in. And then what did you get? I also got the Star Wars sign and I got the...

the Revenge of the Sith Brickhead. Okay. So it's a set. Okay. So, you know, we all did a little Lego shopping. Mostly we were there, of course, to get the free Grogu thing, which is fun. Because we just wanted to celebrate May the 4th. So I just kind of want to ask you guys a quick question. So Tina and I are both solidly Generation X fans.

Julia is a child of the 90s and 2000s. Would you consider yourself a millennial? Yes. Yeah, okay. Julia's a millennial. So Tina and I are in the core... I'm just kidding. You're a millennial. Yeah, so Tina and I are in the generation that grew up with old school Star Wars. Like we were there, childhood memories of Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi.

Did you watch those as a child in the movie theater? Like, were you a Star Wars person at all? Yeah, I remember specifically, well, you had to watch them in the movie theaters because they really weren't available. Any other way? How else would you see it? I just don't have any good, like, memories of going. Don't you remember Darth Vader signing your cast? I remember Darth Vader twice or twice signing my cast. I remember that. And you know that Darth Vader? I will tell you something about Darth Vader in the old school days.

Lucasfilm, at least Lucasfilm's version. Now, some toy stores went rogue. I don't think Toys R Us would have done this, but and just would have someone come and wear some kind of costume and be Darth Vader. But the actual Darth Vader that Lucasfilm sent out was a specific guy. And his autograph itself as Darth Vader is kind of a collectible thing itself. Now, I kind of want to find one of those because he did a lot of these store signings, you know, where

gas stations, who knows, toy stores, anywhere they wanted to throw a little Star Wars party, you know, Darth Vader would come out and sign pictures. Too bad I didn't save my cast from when I was 11 years old. Probably didn't want to. It was pretty gross. And then, so, but Julia, you're, so, so, so what I'm getting at is Tina and I have an

like an excuse for Star Wars celebrating May the 4th. But Julia, where did Star Wars come into your life? Well, my older sister, Katie, who's also a millennial,

loved the original movie. But how did that come about? Where did she see it? My dad taped them off of HBO at some point, but he only taped the first and the third, so episodes four and six. Not the best one, Empire Strikes Back. So then for Katie's birthday, several years after she would just go from not knowing what happened in the middle, they finally bought her a VHS copy of Sex.

Return to the Empire? Empire Strikes Back.

All right. All right, Julia. So my sister loved it, but because my sister loved it, I hated it. Okay. Naturally. So really, my fandom came in with Rey and the new trilogy. I can see that, because I feel like we had conversations about Star Wars early in our friendship when you were just not there. I don't know anything about that. Okay. All right. So I do feel like May the 4th is a really great time to just...

Get into it. Yeah. So we did...

We did go to the Legos. We got our free stuff. So like Tina said, you got a little tiny little Millennium Falcon for free. If you spent 50 bucks, that's always fun. And then I went to the higher limits so I could get the little... What I got, my free Lego buildup was just a little pod with a clone minifig where they train them. Camino, of course, Camino. There's some kind of little pods that they are in. So that's what this Lego thing is. So I just, of course, it's free in Star Wars Day. So I had to get that.

So, and then we got little cardboard Lego Yoda ears in the Lego minifig style, which did turn out to be useful, right? Because we did for the second part of our Star Wars Day adventure, we went to a Sunnyvale Park alongside the bay to hear the Googler Orchestra. So Google and Alphabet

employees only make up this orchestra and they were playing a space themed concert that culminated in a very long suite of Star Wars music. So turns out a lot of people wanted to go see this orchestra. So we hit it out of the mall to get there and we got there pretty much just in time for the Star Wars suite, which is good because that's really what I wanted to hear on Star Wars Day.

So that was tons of fun, right? Did you guys, were you glad? Was it worth going? It was totally worth going. They were great. They were really good, right? So the Googler Orchestra's claim to fame is the world's largest baton, which you can make of that what you will. Which he did not have. No, he did not use his 20-yard baton. Excuse me.

Elon Musk is not in charge of Google, but you could imagine him saying, like, we're going to get a world record for having the largest baton. But that is why the Googler orchestra put itself on the map with

performance with the largest baton. But they had normal baton conductor, and they did a really amazing job. So it turns out a company the size of Google, they can finagle up a pretty darn good civic orchestra. And that was pretty fun. Well, you'll be probably hearing this maybe even June the 4th. So whenever this comes out, of course, may the force be with you all. And, you know, we'll talk more about Star Wars all the time as

as we do on Mousetalgia. But just wanted to give you this little May the 4th report. Chef Mayhem signing off. Nanu, Nanu. Here, let's all sign off with other space sign-offs. Scotty, beam me up. All right. I'm going to do R2-D2. Beep, boop, beep, boop, boop. All right. Goodbye. Game Star Wars. You're listening to Mousetalgia. Carpe Kingdom. Seize the magic. Mousetalgia.

All right, Nostalgia listeners, before we go, I thought I would take a little break here and do a little bit of a deep dive myself. Like I mentioned before, when Tina and Julia were talking about the Mary Blair exhibit that had just opened the Walt Disney Family Museum, we have talked about Mary Blair a lot on Nostalgia, actually. And it's interesting to cover and kind of keep thinking about and recycling an artist like Mary Blair, right? Because...

I'm an art teacher. I got an art degree and I teach art. And so I know about art. You can always, well, I shouldn't say you can always. I mean, artists are like normal people. We have preferences and things that we don't.

like and things that we dislike. But you can often find an artist and keep looking for more and more information about how their art affected the world. And it can help you either appreciate that artist more or look at that artist differently. And Mary Blair, there's no end of people who keep continuing to circle around and look at what she did and look at how Walt Disney admired what she did and look at how hard it was to recreate what she did, you know, and then just kind of try to figure out

you know, what is the story here? So I thought I would do a little bit more of a deep dive into Mary Blair this week, for those of you interested in that kind of thing. And so, um, the first thing I want to do is, um, go back to, I think this is 2021. So about four, about four years ago, um, Jim Korkus, uh, who was a Disney historian, great Disney historian wrote tons of books. Um,

and columns. And he was just really well-versed in the world of Disney, Disney animation, Disney's theme parks, the Imagineers, the animators. He passed away in 2023 from cancer, but he used to write columns for the Walt Disney Family Museum. He was involved with their work too. I mean, he was just always around, right? And so he wrote a column in May of 2021, just called Thoughts on Mary Blair for the Cartoon Research website, cartoonresearch.com, I think is the website.

And he was just kind of trying to look for more information about Mary Blair. So I'm just going to read some of it, not the whole thing, but I'm going to let you hear some of his thoughts. Because this was after John Kaymaker's books about Mary Blair had come out, after the Walt Disney Family Museum had put together its giant, amazing exhibition. So let's see what Jim has to say. So he says...

What more is there left to say about Mary Blair? It starts off by Tida talking about her troubled life. So he says, Mary Blair had a troubled life and in particular had to deal with an alcoholic husband named Lee who, though a talented artist himself, seemed deeply resentful of the attention and opportunities given to his wife. So, um...

You can only imagine, you know, back in this is me again, back in the 40s, you know, when Mary Blair started to blossom her style with the Goodwill Tour. And, you know, before that, she had graduated from San Jose State with honors that got her a scholarship to Chouinard. So she had attention to her own art. So you can imagine in that era when Disney at the time was still not even hiring women for the animation department. It was, you know.

Very possible that her husband could have not dealt with this very well. So back to the article. It says, supposedly, Lee never went to accept her posthumous Disney Legends Award in 1991, offering some remark like, why'd they give it to her? She's dead. I'm still alive. They should give one to me.

Back to Jim.

focusing attention on his achievements and minimizes the work at the Disney studio. Mary Blair comes across as very submissive and is pretty much portrayed as a housewife who has a little talent in art and helps her husband. This is Jim. Once again, I'm only excerpting what I feel is the most relevant information in eliminating the standard hyperbole about the magic of animation and how an impossibly large number of drawings are done for a few seconds of animation. Here is the excerpt.

After meeting at art school in the depths of the Depression, the Blairs reluctantly took jobs in the earliest animation studios. It was way beneath our standards, confides Lee, but we needed to eat. Lee and Mary worked at the MGM Studios. Sound was in at that time, remembers Lee, so we had happy harmonies to rival Disney's Silly Symphonies and Warner Brothers' Merry Melodies. Both Blairs continued their fine arts careers, winning prizes in competitions across the country. It was a Jekyll and Hyde existence, Mary recalls. That's interesting.

So you don't hear often her words about what was going on before Disney, right? So that's interesting. Lee picked up valuable experience that landed him a job as color director with the still growing Disney operation. So Disney had just achieved its first feature success with Snow White and Lee was rushed right into production on Pinocchio, choosing all the color layouts for the animated film.

I remember one time we had thousands of drawings for one Pinocchio sequence that just wouldn't work, said Lee. We tossed all of them in a big pile, and since we already had the soundtrack, there ain't no strings on me, we just went through and matched up the motions to fit the music. It took us days and days.

With over 2,000 animators working for the Disney studio, where Walt had animators to burn, claimed Lee, Lee was transferred to Bambi. But that was just too cutesy for me, not enough fantasy. So the great Walt called me in and said I couldn't leave, he had a new film in mind for me. The upshot of that conversation was Fantasia, which remains the Blair's favorite Disney effort.

Lee was assigned two crucial sequences of the film, the opening abstract drawings that accompanied the tuning of the orchestra and the classic ballet of the hippos. Every week, Disney would schedule a meeting with what came to be known as the wrecking crew. If Walt was displeased, reminisced Mary, he'd just raise one eyebrow and you knew it was back to the drawing board. Mary joined her husband and went to work on additional numbers that unfortunately never made it to the screen.

The advent of World War II put a halt to animated production, although the Blairs did get in one eventful trip before Lee was drafted, and that was, of course, the Goodwill Tour, where Lee helped conceive one of Disney's most popular characters, the South American parrot Jose Carioca. Lee based him on an actual guide we had in Rio, confessed Lee, and he became the greatest thing down south since Mickey Mouse. After the war, Disney once again tried to entice the Blairs back, but Lee saw the trend going to live-action footage. Accordingly, he started his own animation company in New York, Film Graphics, which

With all of their past laurels to rest on, the Blairs are still in motion, much like Lee's animated drawings.

Keep in mind, this is back in 1976. Last year, they designed a visual presentation of Ravel's Bewitched Child for the San Francisco Symphony, a production so successful that it toured Japan. Animation has been good to us, Lee says gratefully. So back to Jim's thoughts. So Jim is still writing here and he says, Joyce Carlson, who worked with Mary Blair on the It's a Small World attraction for the 1964 New York World's Fair and for Blair's tile mural in the Contemporary Resort Hotel at Walt Disney World, told me in an interview in 1998 that

I used to admire Mary from afar when I was in ink and paint and I would see her and Walt walking around the studios. When I went to work at WED in 1962 on the New York World's Fair, I was assigned to work on the models of It's a Small World with Mary Blair. Mary was very friendly and very artistic. She had a lot of glasses.

It's true. You can see some of them at the Walt Disney Family Museum from time to time. She used to have a lot of different colored contact lenses as well. She used to wear green or blue or any color to go with the outfit she was wearing that day. I'd watch her put them in and I thought, I wouldn't want to wear those. Maybe that affected her colors because her colors were always so bright.

She used theatrical gels and cut them up and put them on top of her artwork. I had to match the colors she picked, and that was a problem because these colors didn't exist with the paints we had. I had to go and get some of the paints from the ink and paint department and mix them in with our paint, and they didn't always mix well. It was like painting with mud. Mary painted very flat, and it wasn't very dimensional. We often had to cut pieces of styrofoam for her and let her move them around. She wasn't always happy how her artwork got translated to animation, but she was happy with the finished product of Small World, I think."

Yeah.

This is familiar. Uh, Lee and Mary Blair would have two or three. I don't know how I lived through that. We'd all still get our work done. It was a place called checks cashed. Herb Ryman would come by. There was sawdust on the floor. We played pool in there. The hamburgers were 40 cents and they were giant and they were great hamburgers. So we order a hamburger and a martini every day. We'd go in there and have martinis, but we still got our job done. Okay. So those are some articles and some interviews repackaged here a little bit by Jim Korkis kind of to give a little more color to who Mary Blair is. Um,

It's interesting. Some of the comments to Jim's article here, I'm just going to read one of them. Some people didn't like Joyce Carlson calling Mary Blair's art flat. And I'm not certain that Joyce was trying to be insulting with that. I mean,

I don't know if Joyce had seen Mary Blair's work, body of work up through the 60s, but certainly as far back as when she was, you know, at San Jose State. I have a magazine that dates back to, I think, the 40s or 50s that has a feature on Mary Blair and not about her Disney work, about her artwork. And certainly she was able to be representative of the world in her art. You learn that as an art student.

to begin and then you begin to develop your style so whether joyce was trying just felt like well all mary blair does is these flat styles or or whether she wasn't really trying to sound dismissive as it sounds a little bit i'm not sure but some of the um responders to this art to this um posting didn't like that she called it flat so here's something paul grow he says with all due respect to joyce i think she did mary blair an injustice

by saying that her painting wasn't very dimensional. While undoubtedly stylized, her paintings employed subtle tricks of composition and perspective to create a vivid and vibrant fantasy world. They are most certainly not all flat in the sense that those of the artist Charlie Harper are. Mary Blair's backgrounds for Disney are so visually arresting that they often distract me from the animated characters in the foreground.

Another commenter comes up, Stephen Ng comes in and says, Preston Blair seems to be more famous than Lee. And he's wondering if Lee felt inferior to his wife and his brother, which led to some of his perhaps personal flaws.

And then Lucas chimes in and says, well, everything that could have been done to make him feel inferior was done. In the particular case of Lee and Mary, this article reflects quite well the type of depreciation treatment he received in those years in order to build up his wife. Personally, I regret Mary's influence on post-war Disney. Although I greatly enjoy her art, she strikes me as a poor substitute for the challenge offered by the work of the likes of Horvath, Tengreen, or Grant.

So this is interesting. I'm going to read one more article in a minute here and get back to what I was trying to kind of clumsily allude to when Julie and Tina were talking about. There was a time when the artist at the studio had some resentment towards Mary, and I actually might have said that poorly. I think Walt wanted them to get the feel of what she was experiencing.

conceptualizing into the animation, but the whole studio was based on multi-plane cameras and depth and dimension and realism. Like they couldn't ever square that circle, right. To try to find this flat color, strong mid-century animation style pushed into the Disney style of animation. I think that's more what I was talking about, but we'll talk about that in a minute. One last reply to, um, the interview Jim had put out here with Joyce, uh,

It says, great insight. This is John Richardson. He says, great insight into Mary Blair's world. It's hilarious how Carlson patiently described her as never quite getting dimensional art until the last. Poor Picasso could never quite get what side of the head the eyes should be on either. It held him back, I'm sure. And then Mary Blair's colors and compositions still amaze me. And her use of flat color is so eloquent. All right. So that's what Jim Korkus, and you know, just as a coda, I'm

I have spoken to Jim Korkus a couple of times. I think he wrote a, a nice little blurb inside of my haunted mansion book. He did leave some last words on the cartoon research blog. And this is what he said in 2023, just before he passed away in July, 2023, almost two years ago. Boy, it doesn't seem like two years ago. This is what he left. He said, there are so many books I wanted to read or reread.

So boy, this is wasn't didn't quite prepare myself emotionally to start this again. There are so many books I wanted to read or reread so many movies and television shows I wanted to see or receive and many more food treats. I wanted to enjoy again, like seize chocolates. I know God loves me. And this is part of his plan. Be happy and kind to each other. When you think of me, I hope you smile. I loved you all and appreciated your generosity, support, and hope.

Okay, so I do want to share a little bit more with you about Mary Blair. And again, I'm going to turn to other experts in the field. So this is an article by Bill Kinder in the Eat Drink Films blog back from 2014. So this is back when the Walt Disney Family Museum was showing the world of Mary Blair in the Diane Disney Miller Exhibition Hall.

And Bill Kinder, who worked at Pixar for many, many years, director, producer, he wanted to know a little bit more than the Disney book version of Mary Blair. So he wrote this article called

in support and it's kind of in support of the world of Mary Blair exhibition. He's kind of talking about how he's going to go there and he wants to know more about it. So he decides he's going to talk to Ralph Eggleston, his friend at Pixar. So we've talked about Ralph Eggleston on mouse, a number of times. He, of course, a great production designer and artist at Pixar, and he had some ties with Mary Blair. So this is what Bill Kinder has to say. Um,

He says,

I also know I could use a boost in my ability to fully appreciate her art. I understand its role in the films she worked on. I've seen many of the films she touched, and I think of her style as a mid-century modern one with very simple bold lines, but I'm looking for a more nuanced artist's perspective.

So to foreground his visit to the Walt Disney Family Museum's exhibition, he turned to his friend Ralph Eggleston, the brilliant production designer of great Pixar films and accomplished artist. And I knew he would offer a great perspective as both scholar of Hollywood's history and an artist practicing at the top of his craft today.

So then he says, I did not anticipate how close Ralph was to a number of primary sources in Blair's life, including colleagues, friends, and family, adding a colorful dimension to my museum pre-flight. And hopefully this whole conversation is a useful pre-flight to those of you who might still consider going to the Walt Disney Family Museum, even to see this one gallery show, the current exhibition of Mary Blair. So Ralph is one of many who has been inspired by Mary Blair. What she did, more importantly, how she saw her

Her vision was so original that it stylistically influenced decades of our visual popular culture. Ralph appreciates that style, but even more, he appreciates her push for originality and emotion in her work. For someone who describes his job as roller skating during an earthquake, I can see how a daring original like Blair stands as an inspiration. Ralph has managed to collect a few Blair originals of his own. He scored one at a church flea market and is sworn to the preservation of those pieces along with her legacy.

So Ralph, skipping ahead a little bit, says Ralph was mentored by some of the prominent artists of the Depression era back at the time when Mary Blair, born Mary Robinson, was coming to prominence and she met Lee Blair. And let's see, it says Ralph was mentored by some of the prominent artists of that era and knew one who courted Mary and would later lament that the attractive Ms. Robinson got away.

Lee showed up and had a car, he explained to Ralph, but more importantly, he had a backseat. Ooh, okay. So the newlyweds both worked in the brand new animation industry for Biworks, and then Disney hired Lee. Okay, we talked about that a little bit.

So when they went to visit the countries in South America for the Goodwill Tour, Ralph points to this as the launchpad for a new direction in Mary's artistic vision, as wonderful as it was prior to that trip. There are different theories about the source of the change, and you can form your own as you look at the work in the Presidio. No one knows exactly for sure how or why, but it was after this trip that anything you could call Blair-esque blossomed.

Not that I expect the Founding Museum or really anyone to answer that credibly. Is it really even an appropriate inquiry?

And of course, we talked a little bit about that with Jim Corkus article. So he goes on to say, what precisely is Blair-esque? To steal liberally from Ralph's professional vocabulary, the style is set by her choice of strong graphic patterns and vivid colors, not necessarily saturated colors, but colors composed in a masterful combination to make a vivid impression or to cause the eye to move around the frame.

so this is um actually how i talk to my students so you know he's talking about the elements of art that mary blair has used in her own particular combination um shapes lines colors and sometimes textures sometimes less form for mary blair but a lot of value right so she's trying to establish kind of the hierarchy of what she does using just these elements i'm sorry i've got away from um got away from the article so go back going back to the article

The subtitle of the exhibit is Magic Color and Flare, but don't overlook her great sense of shape as well, Ralph warns. Shape and value came first, perhaps the flare, and color came last. Of course, all these aspects of an image interrelate, and Blair had an ineffable way of painting shape and value directly through color. Maybe that's the magic of the exhibit's title. So then the article goes on to talk about some people think because Mary Blair had such thick...

Coke bottle glasses or, you know, an eyesight issues, maybe that had something to do with how she rendered color. I don't think personally as an artist myself, like we all see the world as we see it, like we don't change it.

If you know what I mean, like whatever she saw as a blue sky would be represented as a blue sky in her art. It would still be blue. Do you know what I mean? Maybe this doesn't make sense to a lot of you. I don't think it's you can't say like, well, this artist saw colors differently. Like colorblindness is is a thing when you can't distinguish between colors, but.

But to see colors differently, how do we know what anyone sees? Like, how can you describe to someone on the phone the color red? If they'd never seen the color red or someone who has never had vision, how can you explain red? Right? You know what I'm saying? Like, we all have our own perspective on what color means. So back to the article. Ralph thinks it hardly matters. I think that too.

Ralph says all artists have an internal palette. He compared the blue skies he renders in say toy story compared to his Pixar colleagues, turquoises and yellow tinge skies. And that's enough to account for Blair's view. Also, you can take any of her paintings and look at them in black and white and they're crystal clear. You don't need any color at all for

For present-day artists like Ralph Eggleston, the important takeaway is that Blair knew how to guide the viewer's eye to the point of the image. Sometimes that point was a sense of playfulness, and what you get is an invitation for your eye to dance around the image. This makes some people think of her as limited to a decorative, ornamental approach.

Ralph points to evidence in her film work that this couldn't be further from the truth. Her work is loaded with character. The images are always full of very specific ideas in support of character. It might appear effortless, but it is never precious. The film work is a means to an end done in the service of character and narrative. She clearly worked hard at and thought a lot about what she was doing in that context. Okay. So that's another artist's view of how to look at Mary Blair's art.

I'm going to give you one more idea to think about when you think about Mary Blair's artwork in context with how the other animators viewed it at the Walt Disney Animation Studio. And this is from the Animation Obsessive Substack, so animationobsessive.substack.com. And it's a conversation about the title of this article is When a Film Doesn't Look Like It's Concept Art, The Mary Blair Problem. So...

Some of it is rehashing, so I'm going to skim through this. But the first chapter here is animating Blair. So here I'm going to read a little bit from this sub stack. So it says it happens all the time. Concept art surfaces for an animated film. And people ask, why doesn't the final product look like this? There may be hints or ideas of a similar vibe, but a film really matches the art that inspired it. This is not a new problem for animation. In fact, the most notorious case dates back to the 40s and 50s, the location wall.

was Walt Disney Studio, and the problem was Mary Blair. Today, everyone loves Blair's art, the bright colors, the flowing shapes, the flat graphic approach to perspective. She was one of the greatest to work at Disney, and few have ever loved to work like Walt Disney did. He was the original Blair superfan. Just one thing bothered him. Why didn't his movies look like her concept art?

Walt used to be so annoyed at us because we couldn't pull off what Mary had in those color keys that she made, remembered artist Ken Anderson. It was a years-long source of strife at the studio. One artist told of a remark by Disney in the 50s, For years and years I have been hiring artists like Mary Blair to design the styling of a feature, and by the time the picture is finished, there is hardly a trace of the original styling left. So we've heard Walt claimed to have said things like that a number of times.

Mary Blair became important at Disney Studio in the early 40s. She was one of the new people, the ones who'd gone to art school who were in touch with modern design and illustration. Many of those artists eventually went to UPA where mid-century modern cartoons took off in the 40s and 50s, but Blair wasn't among the rebels. It seems she knew little to nothing about UPA. So while new blood like John Hubley left, Blair stayed. She brought her mid-century sensibility to Disney's films, and Walt Disney quickly took to it. Like Blair once noted, Walt said that I knew about colors he'd never heard of before.

Her influence was felt as early as Saludos Amigos. Okay, so back to the Goodwill tour. To Disney, Blair was unique. There was a gap between him and the UPA people, and he didn't understand modern art theories, but he liked this stuff. Walt was embarrassed by his lack of education, but her work read to him, said Mark Davis, one of the nine old men. Disney wanted it in his films.

And Disney was furious.

So we've heard about how Disney reacted to Under One Dalmatians. Like Ken Anderson said, Walt was one who inherently hated lines. He hated to see a drawing on a screen. He wanted to see them disguised. So he was very upset when he saw what was happening on Dalmatians. He was extremely displeased with it. So Disney's love for Blair's art was a bit unusual in that sense. And when he asked people to use it in the films, it was hard to tell what he meant. Even he didn't quite seem to know. Wilfred Jackson from Snow White recalled two incidents in the late 40s.

After the picture was finished, Walt gave me a real bad time telling me how disappointed he was because I failed to see to it that the feeling of Mary's styling sketches was incorporated. His scolding impressed me so much that when Mary styled the Johnny Appleseed picture in Melody Time, I saw to it that the feeling of her sketches was so faithfully incorporated in that picture that when it was finished, I received an equally defiscating scolding for Walt for stressing the styling of the picture to where it inhibited the effectiveness of the animation.

So you can see the conundrum the artists are feeling here. Let's see. Let me scoot through some of this article. We're almost done here. Back to the sub stack. It was no fluke that Blair's work kept getting changed. Part of the reason was Disney. Part of it, the idiosyncrasies of her art. And part of it was the team.

By this point, the Disney veterans knew their methods. They could do Disney-style animation better than anyone, and many were conservative about it. Ward Kimball, another of the Nine Old Men, was an exception. He loved mid-century art, hung around UPA, and wanted to innovate. Watching his fellow artists grapple with Blair's work upset him. The great little painting she did, nobody ever used, he said. As he put it at another point, she would inspire people, but her drawings were bastardized.

One aspect was that the veterans didn't understand modernist techniques even outside Blair. Kimball recalled that his peers once attempted a modern look just by taking a rounded Disney-style character and squaring its edges. He compared the effect to dot-to-dot art. That was their idea of modernism, he said. So adapting an artist as specific as Blair was guaranteed to be trouble. Ha!

It wasn't only the lack of understanding that got in the way either. Disney animation needed to emote and express and move and connect to the audience in specific ways. It was the house style expected by viewers demanded by Walt Disney. And again, he hated to see a drawing on a screen. In general, characters couldn't be drawings. They needed to be the illusion of life.

which you've heard that phrase before on Mousetalgia. In fact, it's a great book. You should find a copy. Add it to your library. Okay, pairing that with Blair's art was hard. One side always seemed to give, either her design or the illusion.

Like animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson wrote, there were times when the dramatic or charming style suggested by her concept art could not be maintained in the actual animation to everyone's disappointment. Possibly we were just not good enough to convert the strong designs to our type of animation, but we felt that as long as we were achieving our audience identification through sincere, believable characters in real settings...

No matter how fanciful, we had to keep certain fundamentals of animation. We experimented with other types of movement that might fit the suggestions of the stylist, but they always seemed to lack life. No matter what we tried, we were never able to adapt our techniques to the restrictions of an incompatible design.

We all love the crisp, fresh drawings of Mary Blair. Although we kept the colors, the relative shapes, and the proportions, once Mary's drawings began to move by the principles of animation that Walt had decreed, they often lost the spirit of her design. It was no problem to move the drawings artistically, keeping exactly her suggestions, and some very interesting innovations came from those efforts, but as soon as it was necessary to tell a story with warmth and personality, it all broke down.

So some at Disney Studio feared the audiences would reject strictly modern animation as cold and characterless. Looking back, that's easy to argue against. When UPA embraced characters as drawings and moved them in non-realistic ways, viewers loved it. In the UPA films, the leap from concept art to final product was a small one. The next few decades brought plenty of other examples. Take the early Peanuts cartoons. Their style worked well enough to carry not only TV specials, but a hit feature film in 1969, A Boy Named Charlie Brown. And then there's some more examples. So the problem...

How do you make something that's fully Blair and a Disney project? Something that uses the strengths and toolkits of both. Mary Blair herself was often frustrated that her concepts really made it to the screen intact, said John Canemaker. Elements showed up, sometimes in the background, sometimes in the colors, sometimes in the shapes, but deviations almost always happened. The one time her style appeared fully, in her opinion, was the train storybook sequence from The Three Caballeros.

So that scene is fun to watch, but it's also a separate challenge than trying to sell, for example, a Blair-style Pinocchio at feature length. Disney movies called for a certain range of emotions, a certain readability of character expressions. Blair had her own skill set. The two didn't always line up. So skipping to the end of the Substack article, it says,

There were many reasons for the dilution of Blair's style. The same is true of concept art today. On the list, studio tradition, artist skill sets, executive hesitance, the way movies are made. Like in Blair's case, it's not necessarily that studios don't want to follow their concepts. Walt Disney and many of his people loved Blair's art and were curious to try something new, but not every project can use every design and every team. Not every team knows what to do with every designer.

In the words of Mark Davis, another sympathizer with modernism at the Disney Studio, This woman was an extraordinary artist who spent most of her life being misunderstood. All the men that were there, their design was based on perspective, married things on marvelous flat planes. Walt appreciated this and wanted to see this, but he, not being an artist himself, was never able to instruct the men on how to use this.

It gives me a warm feeling toward Walt because he was at least aware of that and he wasn't trained as an artist. And it was tragic because she did things that were so marvelous and never got on the screen. All right. So Star Wars, Mary Blair, all kinds of great stuff. I promise you I will be back sooner than I was this time with another episode of Nostalgia. Thank you, guys. Thanks, Julie and Tina, for joining me this week.

Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, always a pleasure for us to do our palling around. Speaking of palling around, I am on a recent or the most recent episode of the Pall Around podcast, right, Julia? You want to talk about that a little bit?

You've been making a comeback with your pals. Thank you. Yeah, Jeff, you're going to be on our next episode, though I shouldn't say next because I don't know when this one is going to drop. So you're going to be on a recent episode of Pal Around and we're going to talk about Lilo and Stitch. That's right.

That's right. So we'll have some movie reviewing and it'll be cool. All right. So look forward to that. I am happy to be part of Pal around and have a little bit more time. So that'll be fun. All right. So I think that is all the time we have for this week's episode of Nostalgia. If you want to get a hold of me, just send an email to comments at Nostalgia.com. If you want to support the show, go to NostalgiaPlus.com and you can learn about that.

love all my supporters very much. If you want to help out with nostalgia and I know I've been saying this for about two months and you're probably like, I wrote to you and I haven't heard back. I am. Jeff is so busy. Yeah.

He ignores nothing. All right. It's true. It takes some time. It's true. But that's not an excuse. But I'm just like, I'm just saying it. I have been gathering your names and information. And I am going to write to each one of you. And we're going to discuss like how you could possibly be involved with nostalgia. So really appreciate that. And if anyone else, if you want to throw your hat in the ring, I am looking for. And, you know, being honest, I'm not 100% sure. I know I don't have the time to properly explain.

run the show the way it should be run and I'm looking to expand a little bit so if you can help out we would love to talk alright with that let's all go and carpe kingdom and seize the magic bye everybody bye music music

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