Disney’s first cartoon feature film was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which premiered on December 21, 1937. The film received a special Academy Award at the 1939 Oscars, consisting of one standard-sized Oscar and seven miniature ones, to recognize the film as a “significant screen innovation”.
Politically, Walt Disney had been a lifelong Democrat up to the 1940 Presidential Election, when he switched parties. He generously donated to Republican Thomas E. Dewey’s 1944 campaign, and was saddened by Dewey’s defeat.
Disney worked closely with the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover on matters of national security. He testified at the HUAC against several former employees, calling them “communist agitators” and claimed the 1941 strike at Walt Disney Studios was instigated by communists.
Walt Disney is considered to be one of Missouri’s famed Native Sons, alongside Harry Truman and Mark Twain. However, he was born in Illinois and only lived here from ages ~4 to ~16, and then for a few years when he returned from World War I. For a small period of time in his youth (ages ~4 to ~8), he lived in a town called Marceline, halfway between Kansas City and Nowhere. For reasons known only to him, Walt considered Marceline as something of a bucolic utopia where he spent the best years of his life, and rumor has it that Main Street, USA in the Disney theme parks is based on downtown Marceline. Today, Marceline is a depressing dump of a town, just like hundreds if not thousands of once-prosperous farm towns across the Midwest. The children there attend Walt Disney Elementary School.
“Harry Truman” is a 1975 song by the rock band Chicago. It was written by band member Robert Lamm, on the heels of Richard Nixon’s 1974 resignation as president; the lyrics reminisce about Truman and his straightforward style, and how 1970s America was in need of someone like him.
The song was released as a single, and reached #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart; critics compared the song to the work of singer-songwriter Randy Newman.
Harry Truman successfully ran for the U.S. Senate from Missouri in 1934 with the backing of the Democratic Party’s powerful Pendergast machine of Kansas City. He didn’t know, at the time, that he was actually the machine’s fourth pick.
The 1976 movie The Missouri Breaks takes place in Montana and Canada. The Missouri River plays a key part in the film.
Playing off of Missouri, but also back to Walt Disney:
Today in Marceline MO there are Walt Disney related sites, including:
➤ Walt Disney Park
➤ Walt Disney Elementary School
➤ Walt Disney Dreaming Tree and Barn
➤ Walt Disney Childhood Home
➤ Walt Disney Hometown Museum ➜ https://www.waltDisneyMuseum.org ■
The landing page for the web site for the Walt Disney Hometown Museum in Marceline MO has this quote from him:
“I hope the youth of today and the future know a childhood as happy as was mine in Marceline.”
The web site also has a timeline of his life with respect to Marceline, including these 14 entries:
1901: Walt Disney was born in Chicago
1906: when Walt Disney was 5 his family, including parents Elias and Flora Disney and the 5 children (Herbert, Raymond, Roy, Walt & Ruth) moved to a farm in Marceline;
1906-1911: Walt experienced “the magic of many childhood firsts in Marceline”
1906-1911: Walt’s Uncle Mike was a Santa Fe Railroad engineer and would often pass through Marceline. This sparked Walt’s lifelong love of trains.
1906-1911: Marceline resident Doc Sherwood paid a young Walt 25 cents for a drawing of his horse Rupert.
1906-1911: Walt attends a presentation of Peter Pan, which became one of his favorite stories.
1911: Elias Disney’s health is failing and the Disney farm is sold. The Disney family moves to Kansas City.
1938: Walt writes an article for the Marceline News.
1946: Walt Disney returns (to Marceline) to film footage for a special project.
1948: So Dear to My Heart is released. Walt said: "So Dear was especially close to me. Why, that’s the life my brother and I grew up with as kids out in Missouri.
1955: Lady and the Tramp is released and its setting and time period is based on Walt’s memory of Marceline.
1955: With the opening of Disneyland is the opening of Main Street USA, a land inspired by Walt’s hometown.
1956: Walt and Roy return to Marceline for the dedication of the Walt Disney Municipal Park and Swimming Pool
1956: Walt begins buying the Disney farmland and the surrounding acres under his private company, Retlaw. Walt plans to build a living history park known as “The Marceline Project.”
(Retlaw, that company name, is of course Walter spelled backwards.)
(Apologies if I’ve previously posted about this.)
Dismaland was a “bemusement park” constructed by a collective of artists, led by social provocateur Banksy that temporarily opened for tourists in 2015. It was located on the site of a derelict swim park in Weston-super-Mare, UK, across the Bristol Channel from Cardiff. The park was intended to appear as a rebuke of the popular Disney-themed parks, and representing both the banalities and atrocities of current events.
This is the promotional video released by the park creators.
Coney Island in New York City was the location of three amusement parks: Steeplechase Park, Luna Park, and Dreamland. Dreamland burned down before WWI and the other started failing during the Depression. Steeplechase lasted a bit longer but eventually became derelict.
Every year on July 4, Coney Island hosts the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. Between 2001-2006, the event was dominated by Takeru Kobayashi, who not just shattered every record associated with the contest, he transformed competitive eating into a sport. Kobayahsi’s dominance ended when he was bested by American Joey Chestnut.
Currently Joey Chestnut holds 55 World Records in competitive eating contests. Among those include:
- 76 Nathan’s Hot Dogs, in 10 minutes
- 121 Twinkies, in 6 minutes
- 390 shrimp wontons, in 8 minutes
- 141 hard-boiled eggs (shelled), in 8 minutes
- 23 6" Philly CheeseSteaks, in 10 minutes
- 165 Pierogi, in 8 minutes
- 81 Eggo Waffles, in 8 minutes
- 102 tamales, in 12 minutes
- 118 jalapeno poppers, in 10 minutes
- 47 grilled cheese sandwiches, in 10 minutes
- and most recently: 16 lbs of bologna slices in 8 minutes (May 9, 2026)
Frank Dorsa was an American inventor, who specialized in food machinery and food products. In 1928, he and his brothers introduced Eggo Mayonnaise; they later branched out into waffle batter, dry waffle mix, potato chips, salad dressings, noodles, and pretzels, all of which were sold under the Eggo brand name.
Finally, in 1953, Dorsa invented a machine which would cook, and then freeze, waffles, which led to the introduction of Eggo Waffles. In 1968, Kellogg’s purchased the Eggo waffle brand.
In 1953, Harry Truman, Democrat of Missouri, was President of the United States from Jan. 1 through Jan. 20, when Dwight D. Eisenhower, Republican of New York, was inaugurated.
Since 1932, no American President served just one complete term in office, until Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Though he’s forever associated with California politics, Ronald Regan was actually born and raised in Illinois. He spent his formative years moving from one farm town to the next in Northwestern Illinois. As a teen, he spent his summers as a lifeguard at the swimming section of the Rock River in Lowell Park. Allowing people to swim in that treacherous river was unfathomably stupid, as evidenced by the fact that Regan rescued 77 people during his lifeguarding years. Not once did a person drown while he was on the clock.
Other famous actors who worked as lifeguards were Sean Connery, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Vince Vaughn.
The red swimsuits that the actresses wore on Baywatch have become iconic. The suits were custom-fitted for each actress; Alexandra Paul wore a suit with a higher neckline while shorter cast members wore suits with higher-cut legs to give the illusion of height.
Baywatch existed in a television industry concept called “syndication,” which means that no one network retained exclusive broadcast rights. Rather, it was shopped, local station to local station, to be broadcast at a time of their choosing. Usually it’s daytime game shows that are syndicated (to exclude The Price is Right, which has always belonged to CBS), but scripted, syndicated dramas include Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules.
British rock star Sir Elton John’s middle name is Hercules.
In The Nutty Professor (1996), the dinner scene was almost entirely improvised by Eddie Murphy and Jamal Mixon, who played Sherman Klump’s nephew (“Hercules! Hercules!”). Murphy played five characters simultaneously on film, with Mixon (and later, Jada Pinkett Smith) playing individual roles. The role of Sherman’s older brother, Ernie Klump, Sr., was written for Charlie Murphy, Eddie’s older brother, who unfortunately passed away before filming began.