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I had a wonderful childhood and Disney was one small part of it.
Disney was fun, entertaining, educational and seemed harmless at the time. I must have been immune to the hidden agenda way back then in the before times.
The movies in the theater were fun and my mom would sit with me in the back row so I could move about without bothering anyone.
I knew immediately when they began to release the movies on video tape that it was all over. Once people could buy the movies the theater was not necessary.
Back then they would re-release each movie about every seven years. Smart marketing. But then the videos started and that was it.
Herbie The Love Bug at the drive-in was so fun, and now these things are gone.
I even saw a few at Radio City Music Hall.
I was a smarter kid because of some of the scary themes. I knew to avoid strangers offering shiny things and tales too good to be true. And I learned about liars, cheats and thieves.
I am a musician now and recognize how Disney gave that to us. Just watch Mary Poppins with Julie Andrews & Dick Van Dyke, or Fantasia. Amazing.
We learned about love, and starting a family, even if was set around a bunch of puppies.
And we learned that sometimes things we love die.
Sunday nights at home brought The Bugs Bunny, Road Runner Show and The Wonderful World of Disney. Good stuff when you're a happy child.
The parks were a blast. Running from ride to ride to try and fit as many as you could into a day.
I was at Disney World in 1971 when they first opened. And visited Disneyland several times too.
I am so glad now for earlier days of blissful ignorance.
Now we see clearly the no longer hidden agendas and the dumbasses that care only about themselves and manipulating the world around them.
It is sad to see what has happened, but it was fun, long ago.
Funny how things work out, The Hall of Presidents was always one of my favorites. Go figure.
Thanks for reading.
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I agree with you that Disney movies, or really any animated movies, played a huge role in who I am today. They inspired my art, helped me learn about the animation process, how movies are made through collaborative work, how stories are structured, etc.
More than likely the teams who made the actual movies, the actual animation, the music, etc, had nothing to do with what was going on in the upper levels of Disney, and probably most never even knew. They were just there because they had a passion to draw frame-by-frame a whole animated film. It takes extreme dedication to do that and it is a painstaking process.
Glen Keane for example is one of the greats of film animation. Seeing his rough sketch animations for movies like Beauty and the Beast or Pocahontas or Little Mermaid absolutely blew my mind. AND, he made a short 2D animated film in recent years which shows the life progression of a boy and girl, and the film begins with showing where all human life begins: a single cell dividing into many. He didn't have to animate that, but he did, which makes me believe he's pro-life, or at the very least not an anti-real-science pro-choicer.