On this date in 1956, Walt Disney pens a letter to the future (to be placed in a time capsule) from his Burbank, California studio entitled:
PREDICTION OF ENTERTAINMENT IN WORLD 50 YEARS FROM NOW.
Mr. Disney believes that the world will be overturned by technology:
[...O]f one thing I’m sure. People will need and demand amusement, refreshment and pleasant relaxation from daily tasks as much in your day as they have in ours and in all the generations of mankind into the remote past. What the exact nature and implementation of these mass entertainments may be, doesn’t make much difference, it seems to me.
Humanity, as history informs us, changes very slowly in character and basic interests. People need to play as much as they need toll. They never cease to be fascinated by they own powers and passions, their base or noble emotions, their faiths and struggles and triumphs against handicap — all things that make them laugh and weep and comfort one another in love and sacrifice out of the depths of their being…
Mindful of the phenomenal discoveries and applications of science to all our activities and institutions, it seems no mere guess that public entertainment will have become machined and powered by atomic and solar energies long before you read this capsule.
The extension of radar and other as yet untapped sources of cosmic force may well have changed the entire technique of communication, in the theatre and television fields as well as in other areas of informational broadcast.
Millions of people in massive assemblies around the world may now be viewing the same staged or natural event, scanned by some incredibly potent scope, in the same amount of time. They may even be viewing presently obscured vistas on neighboring planets as one might look at neighbors across our Los Angeles Streets.
Omniscience will have drawn closer to finite senses and perceptions, for our entertainment as for our livelihood — yours, I should say, who will read this in your 21st Century.
For more like this, read Just Disney.
Source: ThisDayInDisneyHistory
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On this date in 2002, Randy Newman’s “If I Didn’t Have You” – from Disney’s Monsters, Inc. – is awarded an Oscar for Best Song at the 2001 Academy Awards (held at the Kodak Theatre). After 15 nominations, it is Newman’s first Oscar win! Although nominated for Best Animated Picture, Monsters, Inc. is edged out by Shrek.
On this date in 1973, Disney’s live-action Charley and the Angel, starring Fred MacMurray, Cloris Leachman, Harry Morgan, and Kurt Russell, is released. Set during the Depression, a crotchety & frugal shopkeeper named Charley (MacMurray) is visited by an angel (Morgan), who shows him what will happen if he doesn’t change the error of his ways. Nominated for a Golden Globe, it is MacMurray’s 7th and final Disney film.
On this date in 1985, Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend, a film about an American couple who find a family of surviving Apatosaurs (Brontosaurus) in Central Africa, is released. It is Disney’s Touchstone Pictures third release and features the music of Jerry Goldsmith.
On this date in 1962, Actor Matthew Broderick, the voice of the adult Simba in Disney’s The Lion King, The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride and The Lion King 1½, is born in New York City. He also stars in Disney’s live-action Inspector Gadget.
On this date in 1964, Beatle George Harrison escorts Disney teen star Hayley Mills (and her mother Mary Hayley Bell) to a midnight matinee charity benefit showing of the film Charade at the Regal Cinema in Henley-on-Thames.
On this date in 2008, After more than a year of negotiations, Disney Cruise Line and Port Canaveral strike a deal that will keep Disney ships sailing out of Brevard County, Florida for the next 15 years.
On this date in 2001, the world’s first-ever digitally transmitted and projected feature film premiere, of Dimension Films’ Spy Kids, takes place at Disney’s California Adventure as part of a benefit for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Children’s Diabetes Center at UCLA. Boeing Satellite System, a unit of The Boeing Company, hosts the event and uses its Boeing digital cinema system to deliver Spy Kids to the park’s Hyperion Theater. (Boeing digital cinema is a network system that digitally transmits first-run films directly to movie theatres via satellite-based and fiber-optic networks.) Prior to the premiere, park visitors are treated to a parade up Main Street, featuring several of the stars of Spy Kids.
On this date in 1951, Actor and 1998 Disney Legend Kurt Russell, the voice of Copper in Disney’s 1981 release The Fox and the Hound is born Kurt Vogel Russell in Springfield, Massachusetts. Originally signed to a contract by Walt Disney himself, Russell’s live-action Disney credits include Follow Me, Boys! (1966), The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968), The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit (1968), The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), The Barefoot Executive (1971), Now You See Him, Now You Don’t (1972), Charley and the Angel (1973), Superdad (1973), The Strongest Man in the World (1975), Miracle (2004)and Sky High (2005). Russell also appeared in a March 1970 episode of The Wonderful World of Disney (along with the Osmond Brothers), which centered on Disneyland’s new Haunted Mansion attraction.
