November 17th - Daily Disney History

1907 - Animator & Disney Legend Les Clark, the first of Walt's "Nine Old Men," is born in Ogden, Utah. Between 1927-1975 he will work on such Disney classics as Steamboat Willie, Sleeping Beauty, Lady and the Tramp, and Peter Pan.

1934 - Disney's Mickey Mouse cartoon The Dognapper, directed by David Hand, is released. In this short, Mickey and an early version of Donald Duck are police officers chasing dognapper Pegleg Pete!

1941 - Disney's fourth animated feature Dumbo is released in Brazil.

1944 - Animator Gary Goldman is born in Oakland, California. He will begin his career in animation with Walt Disney Productions as an in-betweener to legendary Disney animator Frank Thomas on the film Robin Hood.

1944 - Actor Danny DeVito - the voice of Phil in Disney's animated Hercules - is born in Neptune, New Jersey. (Fans of classic TV will forever know him as Louie De Palma on the series Taxi.)

1951 - Actor Stephen Root, the voice of Bubbles in thes 2003 Finding Nemo, is born in Sarasota, Florida. His Disney credits also include the voice of Zeb in the 2002 The Country Bears. (Fans of the TV series NewsRadio will recognize Root for his role of Jimmy James.)

1954 - The Disneyland television series presents "The Donald Duck Story" (a clever take on "This is Your Life"). Clarence Nash, the voice of Donald, appears along with Walt Disney.

1955 - The Mickey Mouse Club airs on ABC-TV. Today is Circus Day.

1956 - The first of eight installments titled "My Dad, Walt Disney," by Diane Disney Miller as told to Pete Martin (a "celebrity friendly" writer) appears in the Saturday Evening Post (Vol. 229 Issue 20). The Saturday Evening Post had first approached Walt with the proposal to have him write (with the assistance of Martin) his biography in serial form back in 1950. They offered Walt $150,000. At the time, Walt was deeply involved in building Disneyland but wanted to help his daughter Diane and her husband Ron get a house. Walt had no money to give them because everything was tied up in his new theme park. So Walt made a counter-proposal that he would be interviewed but that Diane would be credited as the author so that she would receive the money.

1963 - Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color airs "The Truth About Mother Goose."

1973 - In an hour-long televised question-and-answer session held at Disney World's Contemporary Resort, U.S. President Richard Nixon declares "I am not a crook." In front of 400 Associated Press managing editors, Nixon defends his record in the Watergate case. He has flown to Orlando this evening from his Key Biscayne, Florida home for this much-heralded event. (It will be a defining moment of Nixon's career and the start of his presidency's downward spiral.)

1989 - Disney's The Little Mermaid is generally released in theaters. Loosely based upon the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, it marks the first use of CAPS (Computer Animation Production System) in a Disney feature.

1989 - Don Bluth's film All Dogs Go to Heaven premieres. (Bluth had at one time worked for Disney as an animator.)

1993 - The Grand Ballroom at the Disneyland Hotel is packed with food, games, movies, and children from all over the globe for the start of Mickey's Worldwide Kids Day party.

1997 - Cruise Terminal 8, the Disney Cruise Line Terminal, is dedicated in Florida. The $27 million, 70,000-square-foot facility is Port Canaveral's third ultra-modern mega-ship terminal, and will be the exclusive home of Disney Cruise Line's first two ships, the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder.

2001 - The Build-A-Bear Workshop at the Downtown Disney District in Anaheim, California, has its grand opening.

2002 - Disney's Treasure Planet has its world premiere at the Cinerama Dome Theater in Hollywood, California. (It will be generally released 10 days later.)

2003 - It is reported that Disney's Finding Nemo has sold an industry leading 15 million DVDs in less than two weeks at retail stores!

2004 - Disney launches an all-new Muppets Web site. The site, which debuts on this day, features games, biographies of the Muppet characters, screensavers and news about current projects, including the new film The Muppets Wonderful Wizard of Oz, slated to air on ABC-TV next May. (The Walt Disney Company purchased the Muppets in April 2004.)

2005 - Ten animated features are named for Oscar consideration by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Among those chosen is ... Chicken Little.

2006 - An Alaska Airlines plane, painted with the blue Genie from Disney's Aladdin movie and the Make-A-Wish logo, makes its inaugural flight from Seattle-Tacoma Airport to Orange County, California. The uniquely painted Boeing 737-400 celebrates the long-term partnership between the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Alaska Airlines and Disneyland Resorts to make wishes come true for ill children.

2007 - New versions of two classic board games are revealed at Once Upon a Toy in the Downtown Disney Marketplace in Florida. Disney Theme Park Edition Monopoly and Disney Theme Park Tower of Terror Clue both premiere at a special event with guests and Game Artists, Quhyn Kimball and Cody Reynolds from the Disney Design Group.

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