Notes

Research for this book relied heavily on family collections from Maggie Richardson, Jeanne Chamberlain, Berkeley Brandt, Theo Halladay, and Benjamin Worcester, and archival material collected by historian John Canemaker. In addition to the excellence of the published work of Canemaker, their vast personal and publicly available collections of interviews, story-meeting transcripts, correspondence, photographs, and artwork offer a wealth of details about the studio and its female employees. Unpublished interviews conducted by John Canemaker and used with his permission formed an essential core of biographical information. Story-meeting transcripts were obtained from personal collections or script libraries and archives. In addition, I conducted interviews with former and current members of the Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios as well as their friends and family members.

Unless otherwise credited, biographical material on Bianca Majolie, Sylvia Holland, Retta Scott, Grace Huntington, and Mary Blair was obtained from correspondence, notes, sketches, photographs, journals, and interviews with relatives, friends, and coworkers.

Chapter 1: One Day When We Were Young

Further information on Bianca Majolie, including examples of her work, can be found in John Canemaker, Before the Animation Begins: The Art and Lives of Disney Inspirational Sketch Artists (New York: Hyperion, 1996); John Canemaker, Paper Dreams: The Art and Artists of Disney Storyboards (New York: Hyperion, 1999); and Didier Ghez, They Drew As They Pleased, vol. 1, The Hidden Art of Disney’s Golden Age: The 1930s (New York: Hyperion, 2015).

Details of the meeting where Bianca presented a concept for Snow White and dialogue were obtained from a story-meeting transcript from January 25, 1937, Bianca’s letters, and interviews with her friends.

A recollection of Bianca’s disastrous story meeting and the quote that starts “This is why we can’t use women” can be found in Didier Ghez, ed., Walt’s People, vol. 9, Talking Disney with the Artists Who Knew Him (Bloomington, IN: Theme Park Press, 2011).

Background on Walt Disney’s history, including his service in the American Red Cross ambulance corps, is described in Neal Gabler, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (New York: Random House, 2006).

Background on the 1929 stock-market crash as perceived by those at the J. C. Penney offices in New York City was obtained in author interviews with former employees and their families.

A description of the first Mickey Mouse cartoon to synchronize sound can be found in Dave Smith, “Steamboat Willie,” Film Preservation Board, Library of Congress.

Thomas Edison said, “Americans prefer silent drama,” in Film Daily, March 4, 1927.

A description of how sound was incorporated into film can be found in Scott Eyman, The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution, 1926–1930 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), and Tomlinson Holman, Sound for Film and Television (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2010).

The history and technique of the click track are described in Mervyn Cooke, ed., The Hollywood Film Music Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

The financial challenges Walt Disney faced in his early years and the sale of his 1926 Moon Roadster are chronicled in Timothy S. Susanin, Walt Before Mickey: Disney’s Early Years, 1919–1928 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2011). Letters between Bianca Majolie and Walt Disney have been published in Ghez, They Drew As They Pleased, vol. 1.

Salary information was obtained from employee records housed at the John Canemaker Animation Collection in the Fales Library and Special Collections at New York University’s Elmer Holmes Bobst Library.

The origin of the Disney life-drawing class can be found in Michael Barrier, The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).

Information about the development and production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs can be found in J. B. Kaufman, The Fairest One of All: The Making of Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (San Francisco: Walt Disney Family Foundation Press, 2012).

The origins of storyboarding can be found in Chris Pallant and Steven Price, Storyboarding: A Critical History (Berlin: Springer, 2015).

A history of how jobs were defined by gender in the 1930s as well as examples of rejection letters sent by the Walt Disney Studios can be found in Sandra Opdycke, The WPA: Creating Jobs and Hope in the Great Depression (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2016).

Chapter 2: Whistle While You Work

Information about the early days of the studio when it was located at 2719 Hyperion Avenue can be found in Bob Thomas, Walt Disney: An American Original (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 1994).

The advertisement “Walt Disney Wants Artists” appeared in the April 1936 issue of Popular Mechanics. The ad brought in many talented artists, including several members of Walt’s Nine Old Men.

Bianca’s early research for Bambi is documented in her correspondence at the time as well as subsequent interviews. Background can be found in John Canemaker, Before the Animation Begins: The Art and Lives of Disney Inspirational Sketch Artists (New York: Hyperion, 1996).

More information on Felix Salten’s work and its significance can be found in Paul Reitter, Bambi’s Jewish Roots and Other Essays on German-Jewish Culture (New York: Bloomsbury, 2015).

“Will they ever stop persecuting us?” is one translation of Salten’s text. It is sometimes translated as “Will they ever stop hunting us?” and follows a discussion of human cruelty and power. The theme of cultural assimilation in Bambi is further expounded upon in Paul Reitter, “The Unlikely Kinship of Bambi and Kafka’s Metamorphosis,” The New Yorker, December 28, 2017.

Hal Horne and his “gag file” is described in Daniel Wickberg, The Senses of Humor: Self and Laughter in Modern America (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015).

Dorothy Ann Blank’s story can be found in Didier Ghez, They Drew As They Pleased, vol. 1, The Hidden Art of Disney’s Golden Age: The 1930s (New York: Hyperion, 2015), and Chris Pallant and Steven Price, Storyboarding: A Critical History (Berlin: Springer, 2015).

A history of the multiplane camera and its development can be found in Whitney Grace, Lotte Reiniger: Pioneer of Film Animation (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2017).

The remarkable contributions of Ub Iwerks have been documented in Leslie Iwerks and John Kenworthy, The Hand Behind the Mouse (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2001).

The glamorous premiere of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is described in J. B. Kaufman, The Fairest One of All: The Making of Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (San Francisco: Walt Disney Family Foundation Press, 2012).

Chapter 3: When You Wish Upon a Star

Discontent concerning on-screen credit among studio employees is documented in Todd James Pierce, The Life and Times of Ward Kimball: Maverick of Disney Animation (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2019), and Tom Sito, Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006).

A history of Los Angeles in the 1930s and of its booming 1923 supply of crude oil can be found in the Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration, Los Angeles in the 1930s: The WPA Guide to the City of Angels (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011).

More information about the excavation of King Tutankhamen and subsequent Tut-mania can be found in Ronald H. Fritze, Egyptomania: A History of Fascination, Obsession and Fantasy (London: Reaktion Books, 2016).

The European illustrators who inspired artists at Walt Disney Studios are detailed in Bruno Girveau, ed., Once Upon a Time: Walt Disney: The Sources of Inspiration for the Disney Studios (Munich: Prestel, 2007).

Analysis of the Pinocchio text can be found in Clancy Martin, “What the Original Pinocchio Says About Lying,” The New Yorker, February 6, 2015.

Arnold Gillespie’s history at MGM is chronicled in A. Arnold Gillespie, The Wizard of MGM: Memoirs of A. Arnold Gillespie (Albany, GA: BearManor Media, 2012).

Visual effects for Pinocchio are described in J. B. Kaufman, Pinocchio: The Making of the Disney Epic (San Francisco: Walt Disney Family Foundation Press, 2015).

Techniques used by the Ink and Paint department for Pinocchio are described in Mindy Johnson, Ink & Paint: The Women of Walt Disney’s Animation (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2017).

A history of Mickey Mouse merchandise can be found in Alan Bryman, The Disneyization of Society (London: Sage Publications, 2004).

Walt Disney’s down payment on fifty-one acres in Burbank is described in Erin K. Schonauer and Jamie C. Schonauer, Early Burbank (Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2014).

A history of penicillin can be found in Eric Lax, The Mold in Dr. Florey’s Coat: The Story of the Penicillin Miracle (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 2004).

Dialogue for Grace and her colleagues was obtained from the story-meeting transcript of January 19, 1939.

Barbara Wirth Baldwin’s role in airbrushing at the studio is documented in Johnson, Ink & Paint.

Chapter 4: Waltz of the Flowers

The quote that starts “This is not the cartoon medium” was said by Walt Disney at a story meeting for the concert feature on December 8, 1938, as obtained from the transcript.

Walt Disney’s legendary meeting with Leopold Stokowski and their subsequent collaboration to advance Fantasound are documented in Tomlinson Holman, Surround Sound: Up and Running (Abingdon, UK: Taylor and Francis, 2008).

A recounting of Stravinsky’s history with Walt Disney and his quote “an unresisting imbecility” can be found in Daniel Albright, Stravinsky: The Music Box and the Nightingale (Abingdon, UK: Taylor and Francis, 1989).

Collaborations between the composer and choreographer are explored in Charles M. Joseph, Stravinsky and Balanchine: A Journey of Invention (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008).

George Balanchine’s early life is described in Robert Gottlieb, George Balanchine: The Ballet Maker (New York: HarperCollins, 2010).

The U.S. premiere of the unabridged ballet of The Nutcracker took place on December 24, 1944, and was performed by the San Francisco Ballet. A history of the ballet’s performances in the United States can be found in Sarah Begley and Julia Lull, “How The Nutcracker Colonized American Ballet,” Time, December 24, 2014.

Details on the development of Fantasound can be found in Mark Kerins, Beyond Dolby (Stereo): Cinema in the Digital Sound Age (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010).

Constraints placed by the Hays Code are described in Thomas Doherty, Hollywood’s Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009).

Discussion of Sunflower’s character in Fantasia can be found in Johnson Cheu, Diversity in Disney Films: Critical Essays on Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality, and Disability (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2013).

Dialogue for the development of Sunflower’s character is from a transcript of a story meeting that took place on October 17, 1938.

Sylvia’s concepts for the Pastoral Symphony were obtained from her sketches and notes made during this period.

Information on the negotiations between the NAACP and Hollywood studio executives is from “Better Breaks for Negroes in Hollywood,” Variety, March 25, 1942.

“The only unsatisfactory part of the picture” quote is from Pare Lorentz, “Review of Fantasia,” McCall’s, February 1941.

The Pastoral Symphony is called “Fantasia’s nadir” in John Culhane, Walt Disney’s “Fantasia” (New York: Abradale Press, 1983).

Hattie Noel’s participation in modeling for the “Dance of the Hours” sequence is documented in Mindy Aloff, Hippo in a Tutu: Dancing in Disney Animation (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2008). Subsequent comments made at her expense come from Lee Blair’s correspondence.

Information on story meetings for The Nutcracker Suite was obtained from story-meeting transcripts of 1938.

The quote “It’s like something you see with your eyes half closed” is attributed to Walt Disney in Neal Gabler, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (New York: Random House, 2006).

Herman Schultheis’s images from their trip to the Idyllwild Nature Center, along with the technical specifications of how stop-motion snowflakes and dewdrops were created for Fantasia, can be found in John Canemaker, The Lost Notebook: Herman Schultheis and the Secrets of Walt Disney’s Movie Magic (San Francisco: Walt Disney Family Foundation Press, 2014).

The BLB mask was designed in 1938 and introduced to the medical community in W. I. Card et al., “The B.L.B. Mask for Administering Oxygen,” Lancet 235, no. 6079 (1940).

Grace’s first altitude record was reported in “Woman Flyer Sets Altitude Record,” Los Angeles Times, August 1, 1939.

Biographical information for Gyo Fujikawa obtained from interviews conducted by John Canemaker on October 27, 1994, used by permission; Edwin McDowell, “Gyo Fujikawa, Creator of Children’s Books,” New York Times, December 7, 1998; and Elaine Woo, “Children’s Author Dared to Depict Multiracial World,” Los Angeles Times, December 13, 1998.

One hundred feet of animation garnered on-screen credit at the Walt Disney Studio from its early days until the 1980s according to J. B. Kaufman, “Before Snow White,” Film History 5, no. 2 (1993).

Oskar Fischinger’s papers and works are currently held at the Center for Visual Music in Los Angeles. His history is recounted in William Moritz, “Fischinger at Disney,” Millimeter 5, no. 2 (1977). The incident of a swastika pinned to his door while working at the studio is recounted in William Moritz, Optical Poetry: The Life and Work of Oskar Fischinger (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004).

The Soviet-Japanese border conflicts of the late 1930s are further explained in Stuart Goldman, Nomonhan, 1939: The Red Army’s Victory That Shaped World War II (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2012).

Elias Disney’s conversation with his son about uses for the studio is recounted in Sarah Kimmorley, “Why Walt Disney’s Animation Studio Is Nicknamed ‘the Hospital,’” Business Insider, August 24, 2017.

The popularity of Mickey Mouse across Europe during the 1930s and ’40s is described by Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in Power (New York: Penguin, 2006); Carten Laqua, Mickey Mouse, Hitler, and Nazi Germany: How Disney’s Characters Conquered the Third Reich (New Castle, PA: Hermes Press, 2009); and Robin Allan, Walt Disney and Europe: European Influences on the Animated Feature Films of Walt Disney (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999).

Walt Disney’s announcement of a million-dollar cut in expenses is recounted in Gabler, Walt Disney.

The production budget and returns for Pinocchio are reported at boxofficemojo.com and the-numbers.com.

The premiere of Fantasia and its subsequent lukewarm reception are reported in Charles Solomon, “It Wasn’t Always Magic,” Los Angeles Times, October 7, 1990, and Neal Gabler, “Disney’s Fantasia Was Initially a Critical and Box-Office Failure,” Smithsonian, November 2015.

Chapter 5: Little April Shower

Animators explain that they believed Scott’s sketches for Bambi were made by a virile man in Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas, Walt Disney’s “Bambi”: The Story and the Film (New York: Stewart, Tabori, and Chang, 1990).

Descriptions of the Penthouse Club can be found in the 1943 Walt Disney Studios employee handbook and in Don Peri, Working with Disney: Interviews with Animators, Producers, and Artists (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2011).

Walt is quoted as saying “I haven’t felt that Bambi was one of our productions” in Neal Gabler, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (New York: Random House, 2006).

The history of Felix Salten’s writing and why his books were banned in Germany can be found in Paul Reitter, “Bambi’s Jewish Roots,” Jewish Review of Books (Winter 2014), and Paul Reitter, Bambi’s Jewish Roots and Other Essays on German-Jewish Culture (New York: Bloomsbury, 2015).

“The Animators had always hoped” quote is from a 1940 in-house studio newsletter in Retta Scott’s private collection and is also cited in Mindy Johnson, Ink & Paint: The Women of Walt Disney’s Animation (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2017).

A history of Mildred Fulvia di Rossi, also known as Millicent Patrick, can be found in Tom Weaver, David Schecter, and Steve Kronenberg, The Creature Chronicles: Exploring the Black Lagoon Trilogy (Abingdon, UK: McFarland, 2017).

Internal memo from Grace Huntington’s private collection beginning “It has always been Walt’s hope” was circulated on January 17, 1939.

The number of women working in the studio and specifically in the Ink and Paint department is reported in Johnson, Ink & Paint.

Tyrus Wong’s history was obtained from an oral history interview with Tyrus Wong, January 30, 1965, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution; John Canemaker, Before the Animation Begins: The Art and Lives of Disney Inspirational Sketch Artists (New York: Hyperion, 1996); and Pamela Tom, Tyrus (PBS, American Masters, 2017). Wong recounts how he was referred to by a racial slur at the studio in all three of these sources.

A comparison of the experiences endured at Ellis Island and Angel Island by immigrants, including the quote about “the conglomeration of ramshackle buildings,” can be found in Ronald H. Bayor, Encountering Ellis Island: How European Immigrants Entered America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014).

A history of the Chinese Exclusion Act can be found in John Soennichsen, The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011).

Examples of xenophobia in reaction to immigration from Asia can be found in J. S. Tyler, “Tiny Brown Men Are Pouring Over the Pacific Coast,” Seattle Daily Times, April 21, 1900, and the editorial entitled “The Yellow Peril: How the Japanese Crowd Out the White Race,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 6, 1905.

In 1892, handbills were posted in Tacoma, Washington, that read “Shall We Have Chinese? No! No! No!” One is currently held at the Washington State Historical Society in Tacoma.

Some of the poems etched on the walls at Angel Island can be found in Him Lai, Genny Lim, and Judy Yung, eds., Island: Poetry and History of the Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910–1940 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991).

The history of Asian American immigrants working at the Walt Disney Studios can be found in Iwao Takamoto with Michael Mallory, Iwao Takamoto: My Life with a Thousand Characters (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009), and Didier Ghez, ed., Walt’s People, vol. 9, Talking Disney with the Artists Who Knew Him (Bloomington, IN: Theme Park Press, 2011).

Development of Bambi obtained from story-meeting transcripts between 1937 and 1940.

Walt’s quote beginning “And as the stag goes off” appears in a story-meeting transcript from June 20, 1940. The conversation is reported in Johnston and Thomas, Walt Disney’s “Bambi.”

Diane Disney is reported to have said, “Why did you have to kill Bambi’s mother?” in Jamie Portman, “Generations Stunned by Death Scene in Bambi,” Boston Globe, July 15, 1988.

The impact of Tyrus Wong’s art on trimming the dialogue in Bambi is explained in Johnston and Thomas, Walt Disney’s “Bambi.”

Frank Churchill’s techniques for developing the score of Bambi are described in James Bohn, Music in Disney’s Animated Features: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” to “The Jungle Book” (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2017).

Visual effects for Bambi are described in Johnston and Thomas, Walt Disney’s “Bambi”; Chris Pallant, Demystifying Disney: A History of Disney Feature Animation (London: A and C Black, 2011); and Janet Martin, “Bringing Bambi to the Screen,” Nature, August 9, 1942.

Definitions of cellulose acetate, cellulose nitrate, and properties of cel animation can be found in Karen Goulekas, Visual Effects in a Digital World: A Comprehensive Glossary of Over 7000 Visual Effects Terms (San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann, 2001).

Walt’s quote beginning “The main thing is the slower pace” is in Johnston and Thomas, Walt Disney’s “Bambi.”

Chapter 6: Baby Mine

Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl, Dumbo the Flying Elephant (Syracuse, NY: Roll-a-Book Publishers, 1939).

Original storyboards for Elmer Elephant by Bianca Majolie can be found in John Canemaker, Paper Dreams: The Art and Artists of Disney Storyboards (New York: Hyperion, 1999).

Materials concerning Mary Goodrich can be found at the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame in New Haven. Her role in adapting “The Snow Queen” is discussed in Charles Solomon, The Art of “Frozen” (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2015).

Walt is quoted as saying “Dumbo is an obvious straight cartoon” in Michael Barrier, The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).

Pinocchio cost $2.6 million to make according to multiple sources, including James Bohn, Music in Disney’s Animated Features: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” to “The Jungle Book” (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2017).

Pinocchio was dubbed in two languages according to Michael Barrier, Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

The quote that starts “The most enchanting film” is in Kate Cameron, “Disney’s Pinocchio a Gem of the Screen,” New York Daily News, February 8, 1940.

Mary Blair’s concept art for Dumbo can be seen in John Canemaker, The Art and Flair of Mary Blair: An Appreciation (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2014).

A discussion of Walt Disney’s association with Technicolor can be found in Scott Higgins, Harnessing the Technicolor Rainbow: Color Design in the 1930s (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009).

Natalie Kalmus’s story can be found in Christine Gledhill and Julia Knight, eds., Doing Women’s Film History: Reframing Cinemas, Past and Future (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2009).

Dorothy’s silver slippers were adapted for political interpretation; see Henry M. Littlefield, “The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism,” American Quarterly 16, no. 1 (1964), and Ranjit S. Dighe, The Historian’s “Wizard of Oz”: Reading L. Frank Baum’s Classic as a Political and Monetary Allegory (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2002).

David O. Selznick’s comments about Natalie Kalmus are in Patrick Keating, Hollywood Lighting from the Silent Era to Film Noir (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009).

Descriptions of the Ink and Paint department, including teatime, can be found in Mindy Johnson, Ink & Paint: The Women of Walt Disney’s Animation (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2017), and Patricia Kohn, “Coloring the Kingdom,” Vanity Fair, February 5, 2010.

The problem with color fading and cellulose acetate is described in Richard Hincha, “Crisis in Celluloid: Color Fading and Film Base Deterioration,” Archival Issues 17, no. 2 (1992).

Walt Disney offered preferred stock to the public beginning in 1940, and it quickly dropped in value from twenty-five dollars to just over three dollars; see Bryan Taylor, “Disney Reminds Us of a Time When Anyone Could Invest Early and Really Make a Lot of Money,” Business Insider, November 17, 2013.

Walt’s salary of two thousand dollars a week in 1940 and the company’s move to Burbank are noted in Neal Gabler, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (New York: Random House, 2006).

President Roosevelt recounted the story of the note given to him by a young girl in Franklin D. Roosevelt, The Public Papers and Addresses of the Presidents of the United States, vol. 5 (New York: Random House, 1938).

More information on the Fair Labor Standards Act can be found in Cass Sunstein, The Second Bill of Rights: FDR’s Unfinished Revolution—And Why We Need It More Than Ever (New York: Basic Books, 2009).

Description of the Snow White Special obtained from the studio restaurant menu held in Grace Huntington’s private collection.

Salary averages and ranges at the studio in 1940 and the formation of the Screen Cartoonists’ Guild reported in Tom Sito, Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006).

The bulk and expense of Fantasound are explained in Charles Solomon, “Fantastic Fantasia: Disney Channel Takes a Look at Walt’s Great Experiment in Animation,” Los Angeles Times, August 26, 1990.

Negative reviews for Fantasia are quoted in Charles Solomon, “It Wasn’t Always Magic,” Los Angeles Times, October 7, 1990.

The studio’s $4.5 million debt is detailed in Gabler, Walt Disney.

Bianca’s concept art for Cinderella and Peter Pan can be seen in Didier Ghez, They Drew As They Pleased, vol. 1, The Hidden Art of Disney’s Golden Age: The 1930s (New York: Hyperion, 2015).

Chapter 7: Aquarela do Brasil

Information on the women of Toei Doga can be found in Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy, The Anime Encyclopedia: A Century of Japanese Animation, 3rd ed. (Southbridge, MA: Stone Bridge Press, 2015).

The full transcript of Walt’s speech to his employees on February 10, 1941, can be found in Walt Disney, Walt Disney Conversations (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2006).

The roles played by Art Babbitt and Herb Sorrell in the 1941 strike can be found in Tom Sito, Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006), and Steven Watts, The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2013).

Walt Disney’s South American travels are described in J. B. Kaufman, South of the Border with Disney: Walt Disney and the Good Neighbor Program, 1941–1948 (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2009), and Allen L. Woll, “Hollywood’s Good Neighbor Policy: The Latin Image in American Film, 1939–1946,” Journal of Popular Film 4, no. 2 (1974).

Details on the South America trip obtained from Mary and Lee Blair’s records, documents, interviews, and correspondence provided by the Blair family estate.

Chapter 8: You’re in the Army Now

Memo sent by Roy Disney obtained from Sylvia Holland’s records and provided by Theo Halladay.

Concept art and early development for The Little Mermaid obtained by permission from Didier Ghez’s research.

Employee reactions to the strike can be found in Don Peri, Working with Disney: Interviews with Animators, Producers, and Artists (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2011).

Dumbo was called “a fanciful delight” in Bosley Crowther, “Walt Disney’s Cartoon Dumbo, a Fanciful Delight, Opens at the Broadway,” New York Times, October 24, 1941.

A history of Pearl Harbor can be found in Craig Nelson, Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2016).

The reaction of Chileans to Saludos Amigos is documented in Jason Borge, Latin American Writers and the Rise of Hollywood Cinema (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2008).

Background on Boettiger and the development of Condorito can be found in H. L’Hoeste and J. Poblete, eds., Redrawing the Nation: National Identity in Latin/o American Comics (Berlin: Springer, 2006).

“It isn’t exactly like anything the Disney boys have ever done” comes from Bosley Crowther, “The Screen; Saludos Amigos, a Musical Fantasy Based on the South American Tour Made by Walt Disney, Arrives at the Globe,” New York Times, February 13, 1943.

The FBI response to Pearl Harbor and the subsequent Executive Order 9066 are discussed in Matthew Dallek, Defenseless Under the Night: The Roosevelt Years and the Origins of Homeland Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).

The history of Ub Iwerks’s and Walt Disney’s use of optical printers can be found in Jeff Foster, The Green Screen Handbook: Real-World Production Techniques (Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, 2010), and Leslie Iwerks and John Kenworthy, The Hand Behind the Mouse (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2001).

The quotes “Bambi is gem-like in its reflection of the color and movement of sylvan plant and animal life” and “glow and texture” are from “Bambi,” Variety, December 31, 1941.

“The most terrifying curs since Cerberus” is from “The New Pictures,” Time, August 24, 1942.

“The worst insult ever offered in any form to American sportsmen” is from Raymond J. Brown, “Outdoor Life Condemns Walt Disney’s Film Bambi as an Insult to American Sportsmen,” Outdoor Life, September 1942.

“His painted forest is hardly to be distinguished from the real forest shown by the Technicolor camera in The Jungle Book” and “Why have cartoons at all?” are from “Bambi, a Musical Cartoon in Technicolor Produced by Walt Disney from the Story by Felix Salten, at the Music Hall,” New York Times, August 14, 1942.

Bambi lost one hundred thousand dollars in its first theatrical run, as reported in “101 Pix Gross in Millions,” Variety, January 6, 1943.

Alexander P. de Seversky, Victory Through Air Power (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1943).

The role of Victory Through Air Power is discussed in John Baxter, Disney During World War II: How the Walt Disney Studios Contributed to Victory in the War (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2014).

Retta Scott’s drawings for the gremlins and background on the project can be found in Didier Ghez, They Drew As They Pleased, vol. 2, The Hidden Art of Disney’s Musical Years: The 1940s—Part One (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2016).

A history of Roald Dahl’s association with Walt Disney is discussed in Rebecca Maksel, “The Roald Dahl Aviation Story That Disney Refused to Film,” Air and Space, May 22, 2014.

Chester Carlson’s history is told in David Owen, Copies in Seconds: How a Lone Inventor and an Unknown Company Created the Biggest Communication Breakthrough Since Gutenberg—Chester Carlson and the Birth of the Xerox Machine (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004).

Chapter 9: Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah

Artwork from and background information on the health-related shorts can be found in Didier Ghez, They Drew As They Pleased, vol. 2, The Hidden Art of Disney’s Musical Years: The 1940s—Part One (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2016).

The history of tampons is chronicled in Elissa Stein and Susan Kim, Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2009).

A history of Disney’s adaptation of Cinderella is told in Charles Solomon, A Wish Your Heart Makes: From the Grimm Brothers’ Aschenputtel to Disney’s “Cinderella” (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2015).

Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (New York: D. Appleton, 1880).

Discussion of Song of the South can be found in Gordon B. Arnold, Animation and the American Imagination: A Brief History (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2017); Jim Korkis, Who’s Afraid of the “Song of the South”? And Other Forbidden Disney Stories (Bloomington, IN: Theme Park Press, 2012); Jason Sperb, Disney’s Most Notorious Film: Race, Convergence, and the Hidden Histories of “Song of the South” (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012).

Maurice Rapf’s involvement with Song of the South and Cinderella, including the quote “That’s why I want someone like you…,” is detailed in Maurice Rapf, Back Lot: Growing Up with the Movies (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1999).

Vern Caldwell’s memo concerning Song of the South is reproduced in Neal Gabler, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (New York: Random House, 2006).

Some of Mary Blair’s concept art for Song of the South can be seen in John Canemaker, The Art and Flair of Mary Blair: An Appreciation (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2014).

A history of Walter White’s accomplishments with the NAACP can be found in Kenneth Robert Janken, Walter White: Mr. NAACP (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006); Melvyn Stokes, D. W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation”: A History of the Most Controversial Motion Picture of All Time (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); Jennifer Latson, “The Surprising Story of Walter White and the NAACP,” Time, July 1, 2015.

Celebrations occurring in the Port of Los Angeles were reported in Yank, the Army Weekly, June 1, 1945.

More information on the experience of African Americans returning from World War II can be found in Christopher S. Parker, Fighting for Democracy: Black Veterans and the Struggle Against White Supremacy in the Postwar South (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), and Rawn James Jr., The Double V: How Wars, Protest, and Harry Truman Desegregated America’s Military (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2013).

Langston Hughes’s poem “Beaumont to Detroit” is in Langston Hughes, The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994).

Alice Walker movingly described her reaction to Song of the South in a talk at the Atlanta Historical Society in 1981 that was later published as an essay in Alice Walker, Living by the Word: Essays (New York: Open Road Media, 2011).

Reaction and protest to Song of the South are documented in Sperb, Disney’s Most Notorious Film.

“The dialect for Uncle Remus” quote is in “Committee for Unity Protests Disney’s Uncle Remus Cartoon,” California Eagle, August 24, 1944.

The quote about “lily-white propaganda” is in “Needed: A Negro Legion of Decency,” Ebony, February 1947.

Bosley Crowther, “Spanking Disney,” New York Times, December 8, 1946.

Bob Iger’s comments about Song of the South were made at a shareholders’ meeting in San Antonio, Texas, in 2010 as reported by Paul Bond, “Iger Keeps Options Open for ABC,” Adweek, March 11, 2010.

Whoopi Goldberg’s quotes concerning Song of the South were obtained from Kevin Polowy, “Whoopi Goldberg Wants Disney to Bring Back ‘Song of the South’ to Start Conversation About Controversial 1946 Film,” Yahoo Entertainment, July 15, 2017.

Walt is quoted and the atmosphere is described in transcripts of story meetings for Song of the South from July 20, 1944; August 8, 1944; and August 24, 1944.

Mary Blair’s work titled Sick Call can be seen in John Canemaker, Magic Color Flair: The World of Mary Blair (San Francisco: Walt Disney Family Foundation Press, 2014).

Frank Braxton’s history is recounted in Tom Sito, Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006).

Chapter 10: So This Is Love

The 1946 layoffs are described in Michael Barrier, The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).

A history of American television can be found in James Baughman, Same Time, Same Station: Creating American Television, 1948–1961 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007). While the number of television sets in the United States rose to three million in 1950, this still represented a small proportion of total households, likely around 2 percent.

The percentage of women planning to continue work following 1945 was reported by the Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau, Women Workers in Ten War Production Areas and Their Postwar Employment Plans, Bulletin 209 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946).

An overview of midcentury-modern design can be found in Dominic Bradbury, Mid-Century Modern Complete (New York: Abrams, 2014).

Mary Blair’s concept art for Cinderella can be seen in John Canemaker, The Art and Flair of Mary Blair: An Appreciation (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2014).

A discussion of Dior’s influence on the fashion of Cinderella can be found in Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, “Cinderella: The Ultimate (Postwar) Makeover Story,” The Atlantic, March 9, 2015, and Emanuele Lugli, “Tear That Dress Off: Cinderella (1950) and Disney’s Critique of Postwar Fashion,” Bright Lights Film Journal, February 15, 2018.

For Iwao Takamoto’s history, see Iwao Takamoto with Michael Mallory, Iwao Takamoto: My Life with a Thousand Characters (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009), and Susan Stewart, “Iwao Takamoto, 81, the Animation Artist Who Created Scooby-Doo, Dies,” New York Times, January 10, 2007.

Walt said, “This is it. We’re in a bad way,” according to “Recollections of Richard Huemer Oral History Transcript,” University of California, Los Angeles, Oral History Program (1969).

Thelma Witmer’s background is discussed in Mindy Johnson, Ink & Paint: The Women of Walt Disney’s Animation (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2017).

Marc Davis’s history at the studio can be found in Disney Book Group, Marc Davis: Walt Disney’s Renaissance Man (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2014). Davis described his early employment and being mistaken for a woman in Rick West, “Walt Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean,” Theme Park Adventure Magazine, 1998.

Chapter 11: In a World of My Own

For a history of Alice in Wonderland at the studio, see Mark Salisbury, Walt Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland”: An Illustrated Journey Through Time (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2016).

Aldous Huxley’s participation in Alice in Wonderland is discussed in Steffie Nelson, “Brave New LA: Aldous Huxley in Los Angeles,” Los Angeles Review of Books, November 22, 2013.

Reviews of Cinderella in Mae Tinee, “Children Find Cinderella Is a Dream Film,” Chicago Tribune, February 24, 1950, and “Cinderella,” Variety, December 31, 1949.

Cinderella was the sixth-highest-grossing movie of 1950, as reported in “Top-Grosses of 1950,” Variety, January 8, 1951.

Retta’s illustrations for Cinderella can be found in Jane Werner Watson and Retta Scott Worcester, Walt Disney’s “Cinderella” (New York: Golden Books, 1949).

The success of Cinderella’s RCA recordings is described in James Bohn, Music in Disney’s Animated Features: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” to “The Jungle Book” (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2017).

Mary Blair’s concept art for Alice in Wonderland can be found in John Canemaker, The Art and Flair of Mary Blair: An Appreciation (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2014).

Kathryn Beaumont explained what it was like to film live-action sequences for Alice in Wonderland and her excitement about the film’s premiere in Susan King, “Alice in Wonderland: Sixty Years Later, Former Disney Child Star Looks Back,” Los Angeles Times, February 18, 2011.

A history of the television series Disneyland/The Wonderful World of Color can be found in J. P. Telotte, Disney TV (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004).

The development of Disneyland is chronicled in Neal Gabler, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (New York: Random House, 2006). Walt Disney’s dissatisfaction with Alice in Wonderland and his description of the film as a “terrible disappointment” are recorded in Richard Schickel, The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art, and Commerce of Walt Disney (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985).

Chapter 12: You Can Fly!

Patterns of divorce rates after World War II are discussed in Jessica Weiss, To Have and to Hold: Marriage, the Baby Boom, and Social Change (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).

Project Whirlwind is described in Kent C. Redmond and Thomas M. Smith, From Whirlwind to MITRE: The R&D Story of the SAGE Air Defense Computer (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000).

Peter Pan was first performed onstage in London in 1904 and later adapted into a book by the author; see J. M. Barrie, Peter and Wendy (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911). The character Peter Pan was introduced in J. M. Barrie, The White Bird (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1902).

The quote from Dorothy Ann Blank about Tinker Bell being a “surefire sensation” is in Mindy Johnson, Tinker Bell: An Evolution (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2013).

Walt’s quote that “Bianca has been working” is from a story-meeting transcript from May 20, 1940.

Mary Blair’s concept art for Peter Pan can be found in John Canemaker, The Art and Flair of Mary Blair: An Appreciation (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2014).

Retta Scott’s sketches for On the Trail can be seen in Didier Ghez, They Drew As They Pleased, vol. 2, The Hidden Art of Disney’s Musical Years: The 1940s—Part One (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2016). The book she used for reference is Hopi Katcinas Drawn by Native Artists (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology, 1903).

The stereotypes in Peter Pan are analyzed in Angel Aleiss, Making the White Man’s Indian: Native Americans and Hollywood Movies (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing, 2005).

Description of racial caricatures in Peter Pan can be found in Sarah Laskow, “The Racist History of Peter Pan’s Indian Tribe,” Smithsonian, December 2, 2014.

Eyvind Earle’s early experiences at the studio are recounted in Eyvind Earle, Horizon Bound on a Bicycle (Los Angeles: Earle and Bane, 1991).

Marc Davis’s role in developing Tinker Bell is described in Johnson, Tinker Bell.

“But why does she have to be so naughty?” was said in a story meeting on May 20, 1940.

The role of Ginni Mack in posing for Peter Pan and Carmen Sanderson’s use of Asian ox bile is explained in Mindy Johnson, Ink & Paint: The Women of Walt Disney’s Animation (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2017).

A portion of Emilio Bianchi’s techniques are documented in Kirsten Thompson, “Colourful Material Histories: The Disney Paint Formulae, the Paint Laboratory, and the Ink and Paint Department,” Animation Practice, Process, and Production 4, no. 1 (2014).

The early vision for Disneyland was described in story-meeting transcripts and correspondence from 1948 to 1955. The name Disneyland was attached to the project in 1952 according to Neal Gabler, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (New York: Random House, 2006).

Chapter 13: Once Upon a Dream

A history of wide-screen cinema can be found in Harper Cossar, Letterboxed: The Evolution of Widescreen Cinema (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2011).

“Imagine Lauren Bacall on a couch” is documented in Charles Barr, “CinemaScope: Before and After,” Film Quarterly 16, no. 4 (1963).

The colors of Peter Pan were praised before the critic called Tinker Bell a “vulgarity”; see Bosley Crowther, “The Screen: Disney’s Peter Pan Bows,” New York Times, February 12, 1953.

Thelma Witmer’s backgrounds for Peter Pan were specifically praised by Mae Tinee, “Disney’s Peter Pan Tailored for the Modern Generation,” Chicago Tribune, February 5, 1953.

Peter Pan’s four-million-dollar production budget was reported in boxofficemojo.com and the-numbers.com.

The difference between Disney and United Productions of America styles is explained in Adam Abraham, When Magoo Flew: The Rise and Fall of Animation Studio UPA (Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2012). Most artists at the Walt Disney Studios, including Mary Blair, were not interested in the UPA style.

“Produce better pictures at a lower cost” is in Neal Gabler, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (New York: Random House, 2006).

Historical analysis of the fairy-tale legend can be found in Tim Scholl, Sleeping Beauty: A Legend in Progress (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004).

A description of the 1946 premiere of Sleeping Beauty in London can be found in Jennifer Homans, Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet (New York: Random House, 2010), and Anna Kisselgoff, “Sleeping Beauty—The Crown Jewel of Ballet,” New York Times, June 13, 1976.

The establishment of WED Enterprises and the creation of Disneyland are told in Martin Sklar, Dream It! Do It! My Half-Century Creating Disney’s Magic Kingdoms (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2013).

The ABC television series is described in J. P. Telotte, Disney TV (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004).

Walt’s letter to his sister, Ruth, was written on December 2, 1954, and is archived in the John Canemaker Animation Collection in the Fales Library and Special Collections at New York University’s Elmer Holmes Bobst Library.

Biographical information for Alice Davis obtained from author interviews, interviews recorded by Maggie Richardson and John Canemaker, and correspondence used with their permission.

Eyvind Earle’s influences for Sleeping Beauty and the quote starting “On top of all that” are from Eyvind Earle, Horizon Bound on a Bicycle (Los Angeles: Earle and Bane, 1991).

Quota systems for the number of required drawings a day are described in John Canemaker, Walt Disney’s Nine Old Men and the Art of Animation (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2001).

Biographical information for Elizabeth Case Zwicker obtained from interviews with her family, former coworkers, and previously conducted interviews with the artist made available by her estate.

Chapter 14: Dalmatian Plantation

Biographical information for Elizabeth Case Zwicker obtained from interviews with her family, former coworkers, and previously conducted interviews with the artist made available by her estate.

Introduction of Xerox machines in the studio is explained in Michael Barrier, Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Changes necessitated by Xerox are described in Floyd Norman, Animated Life: A Lifetime of Tips, Tricks, Techniques and Stories from a Disney Legend (Abingdon, UK: Taylor and Francis, 2013).

Ub Iwerks’s involvement in bringing Xerox to the studio is recounted in Karen Paik and Leslie Iwerks, To Infinity and Beyond!: The Story of Pixar Animation (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2007).

The expense and financial loss of Sleeping Beauty are reported in Barrier, Hollywood Cartoons.

Roy Disney urging Walt to consider shutting down the animation department is reported in Haleigh Foutch, “How ‘101 Dalmatians’ and a Xerox Machine Saved Disney Animation,” Business Insider, February 13, 2015.

Sylvia Roemer and Sammie June Lanham are mentioned in Mindy Johnson, Ink & Paint: The Women of Walt Disney’s Animation (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2017).

Dodie Smith, The Hundred and One Dalmatians (London: Heinemann, 1956).

Biographical details concerning Dodie Smith obtained through correspondence between her and Walt Disney archived in the Fales Library and Special Collections at New York University’s Elmer Holmes Bobst Library.

Information concerning Bill Peet can be found in Bill Peet, Bill Peet: An Autobiography (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989).

Marc Davis’s background and work at the studio are documented in Disney Book Group, Marc Davis: Walt Disney’s Renaissance Man (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2014).

Earle’s quote “not Walt Disney” and Walt’s quote “Ken’s never going to be…” in John Canemaker, Before the Animation Begins: The Art and Lives of Disney Inspirational Sketch Artists (New York: Hyperion, 1996).

Biographical information for Gyo Fujikawa obtained from interviews performed by John Canemaker on October 27, 1994, used by permission.

One of Gyo’s early illustrated books was Gyo Fujikawa, A Child’s Garden of Verses (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1957).

An appreciation of Gyo’s role in expanding diversity in children’s literature is presented in Elaine Woo, “Children’s Author Dared to Depict Multicultural World,” Los Angeles Times, December 13, 1998.

Homogeneity of children’s libraries is described in Nancy Larrick, “The All-White World of Children’s Books,” Saturday Review, September 11, 1965.

The book containing controversial images of multicultural infants is Gyo Fujikawa, Babies (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1963).

Reviews of One Hundred and One Dalmatians cited are in “Cinema: Pupcorn,” Time, February 17, 1961, and “One Hundred and One Dalmatians,” Variety, December 31, 1960.

The economic impact of One Hundred and One Dalmatians is recounted in Neal Gabler, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (New York: Random House, 2006).

Chapter 15: It’s a Small World

Rolly Crump biographical information obtained from interviews conducted with John Canemaker and Maggie Richardson, and from his autobiography, Rolly Crump, It’s Kind of a Cute Story (Baltimore: Bamboo Forest Publishing, 2012).

A brief history of audio-animatronics can be found in Matt Blitz, “The A1000 Is Disney’s Advanced Animatronic Bringing Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge to Life,” Popular Mechanics, February 28, 2019.

The difficulty Walt Disney faced in obtaining the rights to P. L. Travers’s books is recounted in Valerie Lawson, Mary Poppins, She Wrote: The Life of P. L. Travers (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2013).

Petro Vlahos’s history is remembered in Anita Gates, “Petro Vlahos, Special-Effects Innovator, Dies at 96,” New York Times, February 19, 2013.

Sodium-vapor lights and green-screen technology are expanded on in Jeff Foster, The Green Screen Handbook: Real-World Production Techniques (Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, 2010).

The quotes “Dear Walt, Don’t be frightened by the size of the enclosed letter…” and “I beg, beg, BEG you to give her a more sympathetic, more Edwardian name…” are from a 1963 letter from P. L. Travers to Walt Disney housed in the Fales Library and Special Collections at New York University’s Elmer Holmes Bobst Library. Background on Julie Andrews can be found in Richard Stirling, Julie Andrews: An Intimate Biography (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008).

Julie Andrews recalls Walt saying, “We’ll wait for you,” in Andrea Mandell, “Julie Andrews and Emily Blunt were both new moms making Mary Poppins,” USA Today, November 30, 2018.

Footage from the premiere of Mary Poppins and the short film The CalArts Story can be seen in the bonus materials in the fiftieth-anniversary edition of Mary Poppins, released on December 10, 2013.

Walt is quoted as saying, “CalArts is the principal thing…” on the CalArts website, calarts.edu.

“Disney has gone all-out in his dream-world rendition” appears in “Mary Poppins,” Variety, December 31, 1963.

Revenue from Mary Poppins and comparison to other features’ obtained from boxofficemojo.com and the-numbers.com.

Protests that occurred during the 1964–1965 World’s Fair are described in Joseph Tirella, Tomorrow-Land: The 1964–65 World’s Fair and the Transformation of America (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013).

Sketchpad was first described in Ivan Sutherland, “Sketchpad: A Man-Machine Graphical Communication System” (PhD dissertation, MIT, 1963).

A history of Ivan Sutherland and Sketchpad can be found in Tom Sito, Moving Innovation: A History of Computer Animation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013).

Walt’s passing is recounted in Neal Gabler, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (New York: Random House, 2006).

Chapter 16: Up, Down, Touch the Ground

Biographical information for Heidi Guedel obtained from interviews with coworkers and her autobiography, Heidi Guedel, Animatrix—A Female Animator: How Laughter Saved My Life (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2013).

Biographical information for Edwin Catmull obtained from Edwin Catmull and Amy Wallace, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration (New York: Random House, 2014), and Karen Paik and Leslie Iwerks, To Infinity and Beyond!: The Story of Pixar Animation (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2007).

The 1972 video “A Computer Animated Hand” can be found online at https://boingboing.net/2015/08/05/watch-breakthrough-computer-an .html.

Women made up 28 percent of computer science graduates in the 1970s, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS), “Degrees and Other Formal Awards Conferred” surveys, 1970–71 through 1985–86.

The number of women enrolled at CalArts in 1975 is reported in Deborah Vankin, “Animation: At CalArts and elsewhere, more women are entering the picture,” Los Angeles Times, May 25, 2015.

The impact of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is discussed in Frank Dobbin, Inventing Equal Opportunity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009).

Biographical information on Michael Giaimo was obtained from author interviews.

Chapter 17: Part of Your World

Brad Bird is quoted as saying “These bunglers tended to play…” in Keith Phipps, “Every Brad Bird Movie, Ranked,” Vulture, June 14, 2018; the “incredibly exacting” quote is from Hugh Hart, “How Brad Bird Went from Disney Apprentice to Oscar-Winner and Architect of Tomorrowland,” Fast Company, May 29, 2015.

Biographical information for Edwin Catmull obtained from Edwin Catmull and Amy Wallace, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration (New York: Random House, 2014).

A history of special effects used in the Star Wars original trilogy can be found in Thomas Graham Smith, Industrial Light and Magic: The Art of Special Effects (New York: Ballantine Books, 1986), and J. W. Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars (New York: Ballantine Books, 2013).

Background on the formation of Pixar can be found in Catmull and Wallace, Creativity, Inc., and Karen Paik and Leslie Iwerks, To Infinity and Beyond!: The Story of Pixar Animation (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2007).

Information on corporate restructuring and the role of Roy E. Disney and Michael Eisner can be found in James B. Stewart, Disney War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005).

A history of the Pixar Image Computer can be found in David A. Price, The Pixar Touch (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008).

Biographical information for Ellen Woodbury obtained from author interviews.

Tina Price’s history at the studio is documented in Mindy Johnson, Ink & Paint: The Women of Walt Disney’s Animation (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 2017).

The role of Menken and Ashman at the studio, footage from Ashman’s speech in the animation department, and the performer Divine’s influence on the creation of the character Ursula is documented in bonus materials to The Little Mermaid: Walt Disney Signature Collection released by Walt Disney Home Entertainment on February 26, 2019. Further details on Divine’s legendary role in cinema can be found in “Divine, Transvestite Film Actor, Found Dead in Hollywood at 42,” New York Times, March 8, 1988, and Suzanne Loudermilk, “Divine, in Death as in Life,” Baltimore Sun, October 15, 2000.

Background on Ashman can be found in David J. Fox, “Looking at ‘Beauty’ as Tribute to Lyricist Who Gave ‘Beast His Soul,’” Los Angeles Times, November 15, 1991, and Joanna Robinson, “Inside the Tragedy and Triumph of Disney Genius Howard Ashman,” Vanity Fair, April 20, 2018.

Background on Brenda Chapman obtained from Nicole Sperling, “When the Glass Ceiling Crashed on Brenda Chapman,” Los Angeles Times, May 25, 2011; Adam Vary, “Brave Director Brenda Chapman Breaks Silence on Being Taken Off Film,” Entertainment Weekly, August 15, 2012; Seth Abramovitch, “Female Director of Pixar’s Brave on Being Replaced by a Man: ‘It Was Devastating,’” Hollywood Reporter, August 15, 2012; and author interviews.

Jeffrey Katzenberg is quoted as calling The Little Mermaid a “girl’s film,” in bonus materials to The Little Mermaid: Walt Disney Signature Collection.

Ursula was called a “visual feast” in the review “The Little Mermaid,” Variety, December 31, 1989.

Ebert called Ariel’s character “fully realized” in his review; see Roger Ebert, “The Little Mermaid,” Chicago Sun-Times, November 17, 1989.

Box-office performance for The Little Mermaid obtained from box officemojo.com and the-numbers.com.

Information on Linda Woolverton obtained from Eliza Berman, “How Beauty and the Beast’s Screenwriter Shaped Disney’s First Feminist Princess,” Time, May 23, 2016; Rebecca Keegan, “First Belle, Now Alice: How Screenwriter and Headbanger Linda Woolverton Is Remaking Disney Heroines for a Feminist Age,” Los Angeles Times, May 29, 2016; Seth Abramovitch, “Original Lion King Screenwriter Apprehensive of Remake: ‘I Wasn’t Thrilled with Beauty and the Beast,’” Hollywood Reporter, December 3, 2018; and author interviews.

Roy E. Disney is quoted as calling Howard Ashman “another Walt” in bonus materials to The Little Mermaid: Walt Disney Signature Collection.

Perspective on the role of AIDS in shaping lyrics in Beauty and the Beast can be found in Joanna Robinson, “The Touching Tribute Behind Disney’s First Openly Gay Character,” Vanity Fair, March 1, 2017.

The stigma that individuals living with HIV in the 1980s experienced is recalled in Natasha Geiling, “The Confusing and At-Times Counterproductive 1980s Response to the AIDS Epidemic,” Smithsonian, December 4, 2013.

Janet Maslin described Ashman as “an outstandingly nimble lyricist” in her review “Disney’s Beauty and the Beast Updated in Form and Content,” New York Times, November 13, 1991.

The number of AIDS-related deaths in the United States in 1991 was 29,850, as reported by the CDC in “Mortality Attributable to HIV Infection/AIDS Among Persons Aged 25–44 Years—United States, 1990, 1991,” MMWR Weekly, July 2, 1993.

Controversy over lyrics in Aladdin was reported in David J. Fox, “Disney Will Alter Song in Aladdin,” Los Angeles Times, July 10, 1993.

Dialogue for female characters obtained from Karen Eisenhauer, “A Quantitative Analysis of Directives in Disney Princess Films” (master’s thesis, North Carolina University, 2017); Jeff Guo, “Researchers Have Found a Major Problem with The Little Mermaid and Other Disney Movies,” Washington Post, January 25, 2016; and Oliver Gettell, “Here’s a Gender Breakdown of Dialogue in 30 Disney Movies,” Entertainment Weekly, April 7, 2016.

Chapter 18: I’ll Make a Man Out of You

Biographical information for Rita Hsiao obtained from author interview.

Robert San Souci’s consulting role in Mulan is described in Jeff Kurtti, The Art of “Mulan” (Glendale, CA: Disney Editions, 1998).

Early script challenges during the development of Mulan are discussed in the bonus materials to Mulan: Special Edition, released by Walt Disney Home Entertainment on October 26, 2004.

A few examples of criticism of Jasmine in Aladdin can be found in Roger Ebert, “Aladdin,” Chicago Sun-Times, November 25, 1992, and Janet Maslin, “Disney Puts Its Magic Touch on Aladdin,” New York Times, November 11, 1992.

The development of Pocahontas at the studio is recalled in Patrick Rogers, “A True Legend,” People, July 10, 1995; Nicole Peradotto, “Indian Summer: How Pocahontas Creators Drew on Life and Legend,” Buffalo News, June 25, 1995; and Michael Mallory, “Pocahontas and the Mouse’s Gong Show,” Animation, February 23, 2012.

The main character of Pocahontas was criticized as “generic” in Owen Gleiberman, “Pocahontas,” Entertainment Weekly, June 16, 1995. The character was called “Poca-Barbie” in Peter Travers, “Pocahontas,” Rolling Stone, June 23, 1995.

A statement criticizing Pocahontas was released by the Powhatan Renape Nation on July 1, 1996, and can be viewed on the Manataka Indian Council website: https://www.manataka.org/page8.html.

Further history of Pocahontas can be found in Camilla Townsend, Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma: The American Portraits Series (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005).

The origin of DreamWorks Animation is described in Scott Mendelson, “15 Years of DreamWorks Animation and Its Complicated Legacy,” Forbes, October 2, 2013. Biographical information for Edwin Catmull obtained from Edwin Catmull and Amy Wallace, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration (New York: Random House, 2014).

CAPS at the studio and the making of Toy Story are discussed in Chris Pallant, Demystifying Disney: A History of Disney Feature Animation (London: A and C Black, 2011), and Karen Paik and Leslie Iwerks, To Infinity and Beyond!: The Story of Pixar Animation (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2007).

RenderMan’s utility is explained in Anthony A. Apodaca, Larry Gritz, and Ronen Barzel, Advanced RenderMan: Creating CGI for Motion Pictures (Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufmann, 2000).

Production of Toy Story is described in Burr Snider, “The Toy Story Story,” Wired, December 1, 1995.

It took Lasseter five days to animate twelve and a half seconds, according to David A. Price, The Pixar Touch (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008).

John Lasseter’s difficulties in creating the Luxo Jr. short are described in Brent Schlender, “Pixar’s Magic Man,” Fortune, May 17, 2006.

The quote beginning “Its lure is the image of girls” is in Nadya Labi, “Girl Power,” Time, June 24, 2001.

Biographical information on Brenda Chapman obtained from author interviews. The quote beginning “At the start of my career” is from a panel organized by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media on October 12, 2006.

The quote beginning “Sometimes women express an idea” is from Brenda Chapman, “Stand Up for Yourself, and Mentor Others,” New York Times, August 14, 2012.

The “We finally get a black princess” quote is from Brooks Barnes, “Her Prince Has Come. Critics, Too,” New York Times, May 29, 2009.

Production budgets and profits obtained from boxofficemojo.com and the-numbers.com.

Brave was predicted to be a “pretty standard princess movie” in Ray Subers, “Forecast: Pixar Aims for 13th-Straight First Place Debut with Brave,” boxofficemojo.com, June 21, 2012.

Brenda Chapman thanked her daughter at the Academy Awards according to Dave McNary, “Oscars: Brave Wins Tight Animation Race,” Variety, February 24, 2013.

Chapter 19: For the First Time in Forever

Biographical information for Jennifer Lee obtained from John August and Craig Mazin, “Frozen with Jennifer Lee,” Scriptnotes, iTunes app, January 28, 2014; Jill Stewart, “Jennifer Lee: Disney’s New Animation Queen,” L.A. Weekly, May 15, 2013; Sean Flynn, “Is It Her Time to Shine?,” Newport Daily News, February 17, 2014; Michael Cousineau, “UNH Degree Played a Part in Oscar-Winning Movie,” New Hampshire Union Leader, March 29, 2014; Will Payne, “Revealed, the Real-Life Frozen Sisters and the Act of Selfless Love That Inspired Hit Film,” Daily Mail, April 7, 2014; Karen Schwartz, “The New Guard: Jennifer Lee,” Marie Claire, October 21, 2014; and James Hibberd, “Frozen Original Ending Revealed for First Time,” Entertainment Weekly, March 29, 2017, as well as author interviews.

Development of “The Snow Queen” is described in Charles Solomon, The Art of “Frozen” (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2015).

The sister summit for Frozen is described in Dorian Lynskey, “Frozen-Mania: How Elsa, Anna and Olaf Conquered the World,” Guardian, May 13, 2014, and Kirsten Acuna, “One Huge Change in the Frozen Storyline Helped Make It a Billion-Dollar Movie,” Business Insider, September 3, 2014.

Biographical information on Michael Giaimo was obtained from personal interviews conducted by the author.

The use of Material Point Method to create snow and ice is explained in Zhen Chen et al., “A Particle-Based Multiscale Simulation Procedure Within the MPM Framework,” Computational Particle Mechanics 1, no. 2 (2014).

Biographical information for Fawn Veerasunthorn obtained from Todd Ruiz, “From Chonburi to the Red Carpet, Academy Award Winner Chased Her Dream,” Coconuts.co, March 14, 2014; Bobby Chiu, “Developing Style,” ChiuStream, Podcast Republic, February 2, 2017, as well as author interviews.

“Generic nature of the main characters” is from Scott Foundas, “Frozen,” Variety, November 3, 2013.

A lack of “memorable tunes” is from Elizabeth Weitzman, “Frozen, Movie Review,” New York Daily News, November 26, 2013.

“Musically thin” is from Dan Kois, “Frozen,” Slate, November 26, 2013.

Frozen’s financial success is reported in Maane Khatchatourian, “Box Office: Frozen Crosses $1 Billion Worldwide,” Variety, March 3, 2014.

The “subtly weaves in racial profiling” quote is from Brian Truitt, “Zootopia Animal World Reflects Human Issues,” USA Today, March 3, 2016.

“Marks a return to the heights of the Disney Renaissance” is from Peter Debruge, “Film Review: Moana,” Variety, November 7, 2016.

A discussion of Moana’s history can be found in Doug Herman, “How the Story of Moana and Maui Holds Up Against Cultural Truths,” Smithsonian, December 2, 2016.

Background on the #MeToo movement can be found in Christen A. Johnson and K. T. Hawbaker, “#MeToo: A Timeline of Events,” Chicago Tribune, March 7, 2019.

Lasseter acknowledged that his actions were “unquestionably wrong” and apologized for his behavior as reported in Anthony D’Alassandro, “John Lasseter Expresses Deep Sorrow and Shame About Past Actions at Emotional Skydance Animation Town Hall,” Deadline, January 19, 2019.

Biographical information for Pete Docter obtained from author interviews.

Pete Docter and Jennifer Lee taking over Lasseter’s position, as reported in Brooks Barnes, “Frozen and Inside Out Directors to Succeed Lasseter at Disney and Pixar,” New York Times, June 19, 2018.

Percentage of women studying animation versus those working in the field was reported in Emilio Mayorga, “Annecy: Women in Animation Present Gender Disparity Data,” Variety, June 17, 2015.

Current statistics on female directors, writers, and on-screen portrayal obtained from Martha M. Lauzen, “It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World: Portrayals of Female Characters in the 100 Top Films of 2017,” Report from Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, 2018; and Stacy L. Smith et al., “Inequality in 1,100 Popular Films: Examining Portrayals of Gender, Race/Ethnicity, LGBT and Disability from 2007 to 2017,” Report of the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, 2018.

Information about the Bechdel test obtained from Alison Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007).

Only 53 percent of films pass the Bechdel test was reported in Walt Hickey, “The Dollars-and-Cents Case Against Hollywood’s Exclusion of Women,” FiveThirtyEight.com, April 1, 2014.

Epilogue: Happily Ever After

Mary Blair’s original murals at Disneyland can be viewed at https://www.yesterland.com/maryblair.html.