When the Disney/MGM Studios Theme Park (now called Disney's Hollywood Studios) opened up in the Spring of 1989, one of the original attractions was a tour through an actual honest-to-goodness animation studio. Disney had opened up a Florida branch of their feature animation studio and after watching a brief film guests were able to walk through the studio and watch real people at work on real projects. Nowadays the attraction is a sad shell of it's former self as Disney closed up the actual studio years ago.
But, on my first visit that opening year I can very vividly remember standing there in the studio and watching a guy edit black and white pencil sketches of a rough draft of this Little Mermaid Happy Meal commercial. As a young film nerd, just getting to watch the actual process was a thrill and as a young Disney nerd I was already aware of how grand The Little Mermaid was to be to the animation world.
Everytime I visit the Animation attraction at Disney's Hollywood Studios, I think about the time 15 year old me stood there for the better part of an hour and watched the 30 second piece of film come together. I've searched for it on YouTube several times and was glad to have found it just recently.
I had both of those ornaments as a kid!
ReplyDeleteI was there in May of 1989!!
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