According to legend, in 1842, seven years before California’s famous gold rush, a rancher named Francisco Lopez fell asleep beneath a large oak tree on his Placerita Canyon ranch and dreamed of finding gold. When Lopez awoke, he pulled up wild onions to eat that were growing underneath the oak and found gold nuggets in the roots of the onions...
Fifteen-year-old Tim Considine, who would become the consummate in “country cool” as Spin Evans, actually first auditioned for the role of spoiled Marty Markham!
When TV Guide published an issue celebrating the October 3, 1955 debut of Walt Disney’s The Mickey Mouse Club, the cover featured Mickey and Jiminy Cricket…and two young cowboys wearing the sign of the Triple-R Ranch. That fresh-faced television Western “The Adventures of Spin and Marty” was the most popular component of Walt’s multi-faceted new show...
As Disney enthusiasts and historians, we attach ourselves to the obvious and too often overlook the equally notable and precious. This can be especially true in The Walt Disney Company’s long and significant musical history...
Remember the triangular logo? It was emblazoned with the words “Triple-R Ranch” and Spin and Marty, the tween heartthrobs of the 1950s serial of the same name, wore the brand on their t-shirts every day in the show that could be called television’s first mini-series...
Today marks the 225th birthday of David "Davy" Crockett (August 17, 1786 – March 6, 1836), a celebrated 19th century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician. He represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives, served in the Texas Revolution, and died at the Battle of the Alamo. In 1955, Walt Disney’s television serial based upon Crockett’s legendary exploits created the first national television “craze.”
This month's featured film at The Walt Disney Family Museum has a unique and lengthy history in Walt Disney's life and career.
Like most children of his age, Walt had become familiar with the adventures of Alice through their famous literary origins, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), and Through the Looking‐Glass and What Alice Found There (1871), by Lewis Carroll.
Disney historian, Jeff Kurtti, takes time to reflect on the passing of Leslie Neilsen and reminds us that in the beginning of his career, Nielsen had been part of the Walt Disney family of television stars.
Disney historian Paul Anderson, a big Mickey Mouse Club fan, takes us on trip down memory lane:
What immortal words begin, “Who’s the leader of the club?” Of course, every Baby Boomer reading this is now mouthing, or better yet, singing the answer. And now, all together, we can spell (sing) it out: “M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E”. Yes, that famous mouse was the leader of the club! Well, Hey, There; Hi, There; Ho, There. You are correct as you can be (with apologies to Jimmie Dodd) ...
