Every Day Is Special: premieres

Showing posts with label premieres. Show all posts

July 26 - Wonderland Premiere!

Posted on July 26, 2020

The world met Alice of Wonderland fame in 1865, when an Oxford (England) mathematics scholar and teacher named Charles Dodgson published his children's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. He used the pen name Lewis Carroll and later wrote a sequel called Through the Looking-Glass.

What a lot of success those Alice books had! Never out of print; translated into more than 90 languages; adapted for movies, plays, art, radio, board games, computer games, rock songs (!), and even amusement park rides!!!

The Alice in Wonderland ride at Disney.
Above, outdoors. Below, inside scene from the ride.

One of the big-time favorite adaptations of the Alice books is Walt Disney's classic "all-cartoon Musical Wonderfilm," Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland. On this date in 1951, the "wonderfilm" made its world premiere in London.

But this beloved film had a bumpy start! Disney first tried to make a feature-length movie that was live-action (an actress playing Alice) combined with animation (the talking animals and bizarre Wonderland setting) in the 1930s. However, Paramount made a live-action movie of Alice in Wonderland in 1933, so Disney decided to work on another favorite story, Snow White.

Tenniel's Alice

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was such a huge hit that Disney was able to buy the film rights for Alice - complete with the original illustrations by Sir John Tenniel - in 1938. He hired a storyboard artist to develop the story and concept art for the film, but that artist's vision for the movie was too dark and the Tenniel-like characters were too difficult to animate, in Disney's opinion. At that point World War II had begun, and Disney was in the middle of projects like Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Bambi.

So Alice was put aside...

After the conclusion of WWII, Disney approached another writer (an author now known for the dystopian Brave New World, Aldous Huxley) to write a script adapting Alice. Huxley wrote a complicated story that involved the author and the child who inspired the Alice books both being misunderstood and persecuted after the books came out - but the happy ending was that Queen Victoria liked the books and so then everyone else followed suit! Wow, what a switcheroo from writing a movie version of the books themselves!

Around that time, maybe in 1946, an artist named Mary Blair submitted her ideas for Wonderland - illustrations that were quite, quite different from Tenniel's black-and-white images. In fact, Blair's Wonderland was whimsical and brightly colored.

Blair ended up providing the direction that Disney decided to take for a fully animated movie.

As I said, the movie finally premiered on this date in 1951. But...it was pretty much a flop! Critics didn't love it; some British critics said that Disney had "Americanized" the beloved book, hinting that such Americanization had ruined it. Disney wasn't too fazed by the critics, but families didn't show up to the box office, either. I mean, obviously, a lot did - but the movie ended up being a loss of about a million dollars, on that first release.

However: television. Walt Disney was getting into TV-biz, and he released a drastically shortened version of Alice on his television show, and it did really well.

And then, of all things, the college market. Alice became the most rented film in some cities, with lots of sold-out screenings on college campuses. It turned out that Jefferson Airplane had released a song "White Rabbit" and folks who were into all things "psychedelic" loved the bright and unreal settings.

Speaking of rentals, Alice in Wonderland was one of the first Disney titles released on VHS videotape, in 19181, for rental and retail sale, and it was popular enough to launch a Gold Classic version with extra content.

By the way, a theatrical re-release also occurred in the U.S. in 1981, and had occurred a few years earlier in the U.K.

With all of that action in the 1970s and 1980s, you'd better believe that reviewers gave the movie - which was now a classic - some pretty big thumbs up!

Also on this date:

Figure skater Dorothy Hamill's birthday

Maldives Independence Day

Birthday of rock musician Mick Jagger

Anniversary of scientists' first look at moon rocks

The FBI's birthday

One Voice

New York's statehood anniversary

Aunts and Uncles Day

(Fourth Sunday of July)

Liberia's Independence Day

Celebration Days of Saint Anne of Haiti

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September 14 – TV Debuts

Posted on September 14, 2016

Sometimes when I'm rhapsodizing over how wonderful it is to be alive today, partly because of technology, I mention how good TV is these days, compared to the Stone Ages of television (my childhood LOL).

And when I talk about how limited our TV choices were, back then, and how hokey many shows were, one show's name readily comes to my lips:

I say, “Well, we watched shows like My Mother the Car!”

Actually, I don't remember minding that show all that much, at the time. I mean, I was 10, so what did I know? But the preposterous premise (by which I mean the silly central idea of the show) is that a lawyer shopping for a used car discovered a car that is the reincarnation of his own mother! She speaks to him through the car's radio. I mean...that does sound dumb, doesn't it?

Of course, we were also watching other shows that had pretty preposterous premises – an astronaut becomes the master of a 2,000-year-old genie; a witch marries a mortal and tries to live an ordinary suburban housewife; a klutzy architect owns a talking horse; a reporter finds a Martian who is stranded on Earth (and happens to look exactly like humans) and passes him off as his uncle...Trust me, some of these shows were pretty entertaining!

Note that even bad shows that were
instantly cancelled managed to
sell merchandise!

Back when My Mother the Car debuted (on this date in 1965), most shows filled an entire “season,” and this one was no different. Even though the show was cancelled just a few weeks after its debut on this date in 1965, after a bunch of horrible reviews and ridicule were heaped upon it, there were 30 episodes made. And all 30 of them aired, taking the show into April of 1966.

The show may even have gone into reruns.

These days My Mother the Car is rated the second worst show ever, according to TV Guide, but it's still available as a boxed DVD set and on hulu.com! Maybe it's so bad, it's good!

Another TV show celebrating its anniversary today is The Waltons, which premiered on this date in 1972. It was a big hit and ran for nine seasons and had not one, not two, but SIX TV movie sequels! Even though I watched My Mother the Car despite the fact that it was hokey, I did not watch or even try The Waltons – and yet I still managed to think it was hokey. But the main reason I didn't try the show was that I was going to college and then moving away to an apartment as I got a full-time job, and I just didn't have access to TV most of those years.

At the end of every show, viewers
would see an exterior shot of the Walton's
house, and they would hear various cast
members saying good night to each other.

Just one of the reasons I assumed it was hokey--
despite the awards the show earned.

The last in my premiere-anniversary list for today is the show Mork and Mindy, which had its debut on this date in 1978. This show ALSO had a preposterous premise, but it was so good!

First, the preposterous premise: Mork is an extraterrestrial from Ork (yes, that's right, Mork is from Ork; you have a problem with that?) in an egg-shaped spaceship. He has been sent to observe humans (and, coincidentally again, just happens to look exactly like humans!), but he doesn't fit in very well. Mindy is a human who teaches Mork about Earth and Earthlings and even allows him to move into her attic!

Very silly, but Mork and Mindy starred Robin Williams, and he was sooooo delightful and different, the show was a huge hit in its first season. It even out-rated The Waltons (which was of course in one of its later seasons. But the network execs decided to move the show to another day to capitalize on its success and ended up making the show slip drastically in ratings. It lasted only four seasons, although it did go to syndication, DVDs, a comic strip, and even a Saturday morning cartoon! We can still watch Mork and Mindy on hulu (and maybe some other ways as well).

Mork and Mindy also shot Robin Williams to instant stardom, but I'm thinking that almost any show could have done that – he was pretty darned brilliant!

"Na nu na nu" was what Mork said has he said goodbye.

Of course, I still relish TV of today way, way, way over television of yesteryear. And one thing that makes it especially grand is that we can still see the best shows (and even the worst shows) from yesteryear, thanks to technology!

Also on this date:

Geographer and explorer Alexander von Humboldt

San Jacinto Day in Nicaragua

Anniversary of the completion of the first North American lighthouse

Anniversary of the completion of Handel's Messiah

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December 21 – Anniversary of the Premiere of Snow White

Posted on December 21, 2015

A classic tale of love found, lost, and found again...

Of jealousy and hatred, but also of kindness repaid in kind...

Of scullery-maid-turns-princess...

Of evil-queen-turns-witch...

Of true love's kiss and happily ever after!

Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is one of the first and best of its kind. As a matter of fact, it is THE first full-length cel animated film, and Walt Disney's first full-length film.

It's been awarded and applauded, lauded and loved, re-released and reimagined and spun off into theme park rides, games, a video game, and a Broadway musical.

And it just happens to have been one of my daughter's very favorite things in the whole world, for a few months.

Snow White premiered on this date in 1937.

Did you know...?

These are some early
ideas for the characters.

Until Snow White, animated films had been short, and everyone tried to talk Disney out of creating Snow White. Even Disney and Disney! Walt Disney wanted to make the film, but his brother Roy Disney and Walt's wife Lillian Disney tried to convince Walt not to go through with the project. Hollywood types shrugged off “Disney's Folly,” and Walt even had to mortgage his house in order to finish the movie.

The movie cost an enormous amount – 1.5 million dollars!

Disney received his special Academy Award
from popular child actor Shirley Temple.

But when the movie premiered, it received a standing ovation from a crowd of stars. Reviewers raved about it, called it art, and recommended it for adults as well as children. The film earned a special Academy Award, and it quickly grossed eight million dollars – an enormous, record-breaking amount at the time!

Over the years, Snow White has made $185 million in theaters alone. When you adjust for inflation, it is the tenth highest-grossing movie of all time!

Of course, way, way, way more money has been made with the video and all the merchandise—the dolls, games, books and coloring books, lunch boxes, Halloween costumes, sheets, figurines, and so much more!

Fun stuff...

Which of these Snow White characters can you map onto other Disney animated movies?

A princess (or would-be princess)

A handsome (but boring?) prince (or other leading man)

Absent parent(s)

A jealous stepmother (or other jealous female villain)

A comic relief animal (or two or five or...)

Comic relief sidekick(s)

Here are some Snow White coloring pages.
And here is an online Snow White puzzle.

"Frozen" is the latest monster hit
from Disney!

Fifty-three feature-length animated movies later, Disney and its subsidiary studios have created a whole lot of masterpieces. Still, to some extent they all owe a huge debt to that first big gamble: Snow White!

Also on this date: