Disney 50th Anniversary Year     

     When I returned to my old office back at Disneyland the place was buzzing. It was the long-awaited and long-prepared-for 50^th Anniversary year of the company.

     Walt had begun his fledgling enterprise in a tiny garage and now, half a century later, the Disney kingdom had blossomed into an world-wide entertainment giant. And I got to be a part of this magical year.

     And to start things off just right in 1973, I was promoted. How cool is that? I became the Manager of Special Events, which meant that I was the responsible supervisor of everything we did outside of the Parks. Wow.

     What a fabulous opportunity that was. And, what an awesome responsibility as well. After all, we as a company were highly concerned about the image we put forth to the public and there was, most certainly, a standard of excellence we had to meet in every event. What a great job, huh?

     As with everything we did, we relied on the power and reach of television to spread the joy of what we did for family entertainment. That year, there were four major TV events, once in each quarter of the year, in which we would have a presence. Starting on New Year’s Day with the world-famous Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California.  Then, a major segment as part of the 45th Annual Academy Awards show. The one I was most involved in was the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. And, finally, we produced a huge halftime show at the Orange Bowl Football Game in Miami, Florida. Four huge events that took place outside the Park.

     The celebrations, of course, also continued all that year in both the California and Florida Parks with a brand new Electrical Light Parade. It was spectacular and great fun both to create and to watch. But, probably the most important happening for me that year was the re-release of the great old children’s TV show, The Mickey Mouse Club.

   
  It first aired in 1955 and, as a kid, I think I was glued to the television set every day it was on. I fell in love with one of the stars, Annette Funicello, along with every other young man in America and loved all the singing and dancing. It was originally a filmed program and broadcast in black and white, as there really wasn’t decent color television available in the U.S. until the early 70s.

     Being based at the Studio during the Disney On Parade production, I made some wonderful new friends with whom I continued to work on various projects all throughout the anniversary year and well into the next. Namely, Ed Ropolo who was the absolute master of creating theatrical movie trailers and TV commercials for Disney’s movies and the highly-energetic and over-the-top Director of Publicity for the Disney empire, Bob King. Great guys, and who would become life-long friends as well. Both of them had been with the organization for a very long time and they kinda took me under their wings as the new kid with some great potential.

     The three of us were having lunch one day in the Studio Commissary and the conversation came around to the re-release of the “Mouse Club” and what an amazing success that effort had been. We started a “what if?” line of thinking that made all of us become increasingly more excited as we flowed through it together. What if we produced a brand new, modern version of the show, shoot it with television in full color instead of in black and white on film, use the hip and current music genres of the day, cast a truly diverse group of kids who all could sing, dance and act their little hearts out.  Wow!

     The next several months were spent in “pick-up” creative meetings with all of us who were still doing our “day jobs” and had to grab time here and there for some serious head-knocking and brainstorming, which was especially hard with them up in Burbank and me way, way down in Anaheim.

     During that period of time, Bob King had written a memo to Card Walker, the President of Walt Disney Productions, about me about what an asset I would be to the Studio.

     I deeply appreciated that wonderfully kind gesture of Bob’s and it served to make our relationship even stronger.

     After several months of creative thinking and planning, we were ready to make our pitch to Card and the heads of the Studio. We had created a daily show with a different theme for each of the days of the week and designed 65 separate programs which would run for 13 weeks on television stations throughout the U.S.

     By this time, we had also recruited the firm who had been so successful syndicating the re-release of the original show and they were beyond excited about having this new series to pitch and sell to their already happy stations. We thought we had a real winner!

     And, wonderfully and gratefully, Card Walker and his executives thought it could be a winner too!! They gave us money to produce a “pilot” so they could see if what we had designed would really work. After all the talk, after all the thinking, we were more than ready to put this show up on its “feet” and see if our creative juices would flow into something successful.

     I was responsible for casting and rehearsing the kids for the pilot and for creating the set piece where we would shoot a musical number. I called Jack Fisk, one of Hollywood’s top Art Directors (and husband to academy award-winning actress, Sissy Spacek) and he was more than willing to help us design the set. I pulled together some talented kids that I knew from church mostly, who would be the “cast” for the pilot.

     A truly wonderful thing happened next. My old friend, Peter Martin, who now lived “next door” to the Studio in Pasadena was available and I asked him to be my musical director for the pilot. He, happily said yes, so together we wrote a different song for each of the themed days and went into the Salty Dog recording studio with my hastily gathered group of young performers. In a way, the “band was getting back together” (remember The Five Part Invention way back in Denver?) with Peter and I now collaborating once again on what could become an absolutely fantastic new project for both of us. 

     Part of our show content was also to include some educational filmed material and we thought that a 4-minute mini-documentary on the subject of skateboarding, which had been sweeping the country and had become extremely popular with the younger set, would be just the thing for our pilot. Thankfully, I didn’t have to look very far for my skateboarding expert…he was right under my nose. Todd Wuergler!

     My son Todd. The perfect choice to demonstrate the joys of skateboarding. My partner Ed was responsible for the filming of that segment and what a fabulous opportunity for Todd to show off his rapidly expanding expertise. Daughter Debbie was also recruited to be an “extra” and part of the background crowd.

     A true family affair. I was having the time of my life!

     The kids were great, the set was fabulous, the skateboarding segment was terrific, and the music was pretty darn cool too. We were now ready to circle back to the “powers that be” and see if their faith in us and in our idea would hold sway and that we would be given the opportunity to do this for real.

     It did. They did. And we were on our way!

     I was now a full-blown Disney Television Producer!  

And... an official member of the Club!