Foreword

by Floyd Norman, Disney Legend

Had you visited a black home in the late forties, it would not be unusual to find a copy of Ebony magazine on the family coffee table. I never paid much attention to the monthly publication, but this particular issue caught my eye. A full-page photograph of actors James Baskett, Bobby Driscoll, and Luana Patten was featured next to an opinion piece on Walt Disney’s new motion picture Song of the South.

To the best of my knowledge, this was the first time in my young life that I took issue with a magazine’s editorial, and I regretted not having the writing chops to respond. Even though I was just a ten-year-old kid, I took issue with the editors for their unfair characterization of the film and of Walt Disney in particular. I had recently seen Song of the South at our local theater and found the movie delightful. Had they even seen the same film, I wondered?

Many years passed, and when this young artist and others arrived at the Walt Disney Studios in the fifties, we found ourselves having access to the coveted Disney vaults. This meant any movie we wanted to see was suddenly available for screening. Naturally, one of our first choices was Song of the South.

However, I took this a step further. Because employees were able to check out 16mm prints on occasion, I set up a special screening of the Disney film in a local Los Angeles church. The screening of the Disney motion picture proved insightful. The completely African-American audience absolutely loved the movie and even requested a second screening of the Disney classic.

I’ll admit I probably bring less baggage to the table than most. I was lucky enough to grow up in affluent, enlightened Southern California in the Forties and Fifties. My hometown of Santa Barbara was hardly the segregated South, and this unique environ-ment influenced my view of society. My parents and grandparents welcomed people of all colors into their home, so my perspective on race might not reflect the average African American’s view of society.

I am a cartoonist, not an academic, so this will not be an in-depth analysis of ethnic insensitivity. However, I have had the pleasure of speaking with filmmakers and animation old-timers about this rather touchy subject. It might be interesting to note that the funny images they put on paper and on the screen were there not to denigrate — but to entertain.

It’s a long time from Song of the South’s initial release and a maga¬zine’s strident editorial. Yet even today the film continues to be mired in controversy, and that’s a shame. I often remind people that the Disney movie is not a documentary on the American South.

The film remains a sweet and gentle tale of a kindly old gentleman helping a young child get through a troubled time. The motion picture is also flavored with some of the most inspired cartoon animation ever put on the screen. If you’re a fan of classic Disney storytelling, I guarantee you’ll not find a better film.

I survived three different managements at the Disney Company, beginning in the fifties when I worked as Disney’s first black animator and later as a storyman. My unexpected move upstairs to Walt’s Story Department was something I never anticipated. Not only was I privy to the Old Maestro’s story meetings, I had the unique opportunity to observe the boss in action. This included his management style and his treatment of subordinates. Not once did I observe a hint of the racist behavior Walt Disney was often accused of long after his death. His treatment of people — and by this I mean all people—can only be called exemplary.

Over the years, I worked in several different areas. For instance, I was given all sorts of assignments while working as a writer in Disney’s publishing department. One of my many assignments was to write what had become known as the Disney Holiday Story. These were comic strip continuities utilizing the Disney characters. Each of these stories would have a holiday theme and would run in newspapers from November to December 25, when the story would conveniently conclude on Christmas Day.

I had already written stories based on the standard Disney characters, including the wonderful 101 Dalmatians from the film of the same name. But I was getting bored with the typical holiday stuff, and wanted to try something new, different, and perhaps even a little dangerous. Could I possibly convince the powers-that-be at Disney to let me craft a story using the funny, clever, and outrageous characters from Song of the South?

As you might have imagined, Disney was skittish about raising any awareness of a movie it had been trying to bury for years. And, while Disney’s view of the South on which Joel Chandler Harris based his delightful stories might be considered naïve, it was never malicious or offensive.

Decades after its first release, I assumed we all lived in a more enlightened society. The Civil Rights battles of the sixties had been won, and people of color had taken their rightful place in society. Black people in motion pictures were no longer porters and maids. Funny, confident, and edgy performers like Eddie Murphy had replaced bug-eyed comedic actors like Mantan Moreland. It was now the eighties, and I hoped that Disney was willing to uncover the wonderful legacy it had kept hidden for so many years. Could delightful characters like Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Brer Bear be enjoyed by a new generation? This was the question I would take to my bosses at Disney.

In the eighties, Disney was under a new forward-thinking management. Perhaps my timing was right, or maybe I just got lucky. In any case, I was given the go-ahead with my story entitled A Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Christmas.

The story opens with the kids, Johnny and Ginny, coming to Uncle Remus with a problem. The chances of a snowfall in the South are pretty slim, they say. How can they truly enjoy Christmas without snow? This gives Uncle Remus the perfect opportunity to spin another of his Brer Rabbit tales. It seems the clever rabbit had a similar complaint, and his quest for a white Christmas led him into a world of trouble. Not surprisingly, that trouble involved another run-in with Brer Fox and Brer Bear. The story wraps up with Brer Rabbit escaping the clutches of his captors and learning his lesson about the real meaning of Christmas.

The story was submitted, and all appeared to be going well. I even removed the southern dialect from Uncle Remus, and allowed only the critters to retain their colorful dialogue. I was willing to give the illiterate former slave some “polish” as long as I could keep the rabbit, fox, and bear in character.

As you can imagine, the editors were aghast when they received the story. How could Disney submit such a racially insensitive story for publication? I wish I could have seen their faces when they were informed that the writer was black.

The story did end up running in newspapers in 1986, with no complaints. Keith Moseley penciled it and Larry Mayer inked it. Yet, four decades after it first premiered, Disney’s Song of the South was apparently still a very controversial topic. It remains so today, nearly sixty-five years after audiences first enjoyed it.

Why bury the wonderful performances of James Baskett, Hattie McDaniel, and Ruth Warrick? Why deny animation fans some of the finest cartoon animation to ever come out of the Disney Studios? Hearing the voice performances of Johnny Lee as Brer Rabbit and Nick Stewart as Brer Bear never fails to bring a smile to my face. America has come a long way since a little black kid sat in a movie theater in Santa Barbara and dreamed of a Disney career. Maybe it’s not too much to hope that the Disney Company might one day get over its self-imposed fears and finally find its own Laughing Place.

Introduction

by Jim Korkis

This year I was a teaching a class of college students about how Disney tells stories three-dimensionally in its theme parks and resorts. During a break, a young lady came up to me to share how excited she was that, as her birthday present, her parents were taking her to see the theatrical stage production of Mary Poppins.

"That's wonderful," I replied. "Have you read the book?"

"There was a book?" she asked incredulously.

"Yes. There were several and some of the elements from them are incorporated into the musical," I responded.

"I just thought it was based on a really old movie," she said, with honest surprise.

I smiled while biting my lip. It took me a moment to realize that the movie Mary Poppins had premiered almost thirty years before she was born, so for her it was just another old movie. It was as much ancient history as when the dinosaurs walked the earth.

That experience was not unique. More and more, I interact with young people who have little or no knowledge of anything that happened beyond the last ten or twenty years, at most. Even worse, when I worked at Walt Disney World, I often saw executives who had little or no knowledge of Disney history nor any desire to know anything about Disney history if it conflicted with what they wanted to do.

I love Disney history.

I love the stories behind the stories. I love the little nooks and crannies that are rarely explored and often forgotten. I love knowing how and why something happened and how it affected other things. I love discovering and documenting these strange tales and sharing them with others.

I often tell people that you can love the Disney Brand, but still have concerns about how the Disney Business operates. Like many other large corporations, the Disney Company wants to control how its business is perceived by today's consumers, even if it means re-writing or eliminating parts of its own history.

The Disney Company has determined that the little stories in this book do not fit comfortably into today's larger story about the happy and magical world of Disney, where every corporate decision is always right. These stories are all true. They are not wild assumptions, rumors, urban myths, or revelations of scandalous activity. These stories are as well-documented as decades of research allow.

There is no need for salacious or sniggering text because the topics are controversial enough just by mentioning them in the first place. Heated emotions and lengthy passionate discussions can be conjured in mere seconds just by bringing up the subject of the Disney feature film Song of the South.

No official Disney book has even a single chapter that tells about the making of Song of the South. This book exists so that the history of Song of the South finally can be shared with all those interested in the film. Perhaps this information may even spark more intelligent discussions about the film in the future.

Some of the Song of the South material in this book first appeared in columns that I wrote over the years under my Wade Sampson pseudonym, as well as in a lengthy article I wrote for Hogan's Alley #16 (2009), a magazine about comic art. Much of my material has been liberally "borrowed" and used uncredited by others since then. Some of the other stories appear here because their topics alone would be considered inappropriate in a different historical collection.

It is not my intent to embarrass or annoy the Disney Company, but simply to record for Disney fans and researchers certain segments of Disney history that have never before been published. These stories, and so many others like them, are already being "lost" as times change, people die, and the Disney Company readjusts its history to make it more politically correct and appropriate for today's world.

Some people believe that certain history should be hidden or forgotten, that its artistic, technical, or historical value is far outweighed by its current inappropriateness. Other people believe that it is foolish and dangerous to censor history to fit current trends, that only by studying and discussing things now considered uncomfortable can we avoid making those same mistakes, and overcome ignorance.

As a Disney historian, I dance on the thin line between traditional academic scholarship and presenting material accessible to a more general audience. I have tried to incorporate references directly in the text rather than include a massive amount of footnotes that would distract from the flow of the story.

Please do not be fooled into believing that the stories in this book are the definitive versions. There is always more to tell about any story. I have discovered that, the moment I commit a story to print, suddenly a previously unknown anecdote or insight will magically appear to taunt me, despite decades of research.

The written word is thousands of years old and books were a treasure that provided a gateway to new knowledge and new discoveries. While many of you may be reading this on some electronic device, there is a joy that it also exists in a physical format so that it can be placed on a bookshelf next to other cherished paper companions.

Each individual chapter is a self-contained story, so feel free to open the book to any section and begin reading. Since I wrote these chapters to be read one at a time and savored, don't feel the need to gorge on the new information all at once. Think of the book as a box of chocolates with different delights and maybe some tasty hidden surprises to enjoy during a pleasant afternoon.

If you have half as much fun reading these stories as I have had writing them, then I had twice as much fun as you.

I hope you enjoy these stories. If you don't enjoy these stories, whatever you do, please don‘t throw me in the Briar Patch.