"Walt Disney: An American Original" Part II Book Club Ideas {by Bob Thomas}

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Let's continue with our Disney book club meeting by learning a little more about Walt shall we?

DID YOU KNOW...

That Walt was the original voice behind Mickey Mouse?

While mostly known for his skills as an animator, director and producer, Disney also tried his hand at voice acting. From Mickey’s inception in 1928, all the way to 1947, the mouse’s voice was provided by Disney before being turned over to English voice actor Jimmy MacDonald. Disney loved the character so much that he returned to the studio in 1955 to voice Mickey Mouse shorts for his company’s television show The Mickey Mouse Club.

Getting ready to discuss the book

Our members love any excuse to dress up and take photos so we set up a simple iPhone photo booth and props table to make everyone's selfie dreams come true! ;)

Angie was the PERFECT Snow White, she even had the dreamy fairytale princess look down!

Enjoy scrolling through some of our members photos and giggling along with us.

We tried to recreate how we felt when we saw Disneyland for the first time!
#nailedit

Thanks for sharing these super fun photos Kitch!

We couldn't STOP taking fun pictures! 

Photo by Kitch

Two Snow Whites and an adorable Peter Pan

I GUESS AT SOME POINT WE SHOULD DISCUSS THE BOOK RIGHT? (Hang on, let me take just one more picture...)

When we finally sat down to discuss the book Angie told us that she had a little surprise!

Keep reading...

Photo by Kitch

Angie handed out folded pieces of paper to everyone in the room and told us that she'd handmade four sets of adorable mickey ears, one for each land at Disney (Frontierland, Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, Adventureland), and that the four random winners would each get a pair to wear and take home. 

Once all the papers we handed out we were told we could all open them to see who had won.

What happened next was priceless.

As each person opened their papers, people started yelling out with excited voices, "I WON, I WON!"

We quickly started to notice that there were more far more than four winners and that's right when Angie stood up and declared in grand "Oprah fashion," 

"YOU get a pair and YOU get a pair..." to each person in the room!

EVERYONE won a pair of the special Mickey ears!!

You can see Kitch modeling a pair of Adventureland ears below.

After each of us got our ears and put them on, we broke up into our different lands and were asked to each come up with 2-3 discussion questions based on different times of Walt's life.

Our group got the time of Walt's life that occurred during WWII.

DID YOU KNOW:

Not only did a young Disney attempt to help America on the field of battle, but he also helped several federal agencies throughout his career with animation. He created training films for the US military, propaganda films urging Americans to pay their taxes, and multiple anti-Hitler shorts meant to boost US morale at home. Disney also helped the State Department improve relations with South America by making a 1941 goodwill tour (featuring a specially made movie entitled Saludos Amigos), and later aided NASA by developing documentaries about the space program.

 

Walt received more Academy Awards and nominations than any other person in history!

Between 1932 and 1969, Disney won 22 Academy Awards and was nominated 59 times. Included amongst this trove of Oscars are three awards created specifically for him — one for creating Mickey Mouse, another recognizing his contribution of music in the field of animation, and a specially made prize honoring Snow White and the Seven Dwarves that featured a traditional statuette, and seven miniature versions alongside of it.

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After our lengthy discussion (because let's face it, who wouldn't want to talk about all things Disney related for hours?) Angie had one more surprise for us...

...A special toast to Walt.

"If visitors came to lunch, they were ushered into Walt's conference room at noon. He served them an aperitif of V-8 juice which surprised some of his international guests who expected something stronger. Walt's secretary often warned visitors that if Walt offered them a glass of "tomato juice" they had best accept it."

Angie with our V8 tomato juice shots for our special toast to Walt

Angie thanked Walt for his vision, his determination to follow his dreams and for being a kid at heart which has allowed millions of people around the world to do the same. Each of us raised our glasses to Walt and recalled our memories of Disneyland or our favorite Disney movie.

Thank you Walt for giving us all memories to last a lifetime and for a lifetime of memories for generations to come.

Sincerely, 

      Kelly