Monday, April 28, 2008
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Mickey and the Beanstalk
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This Storyteller was released in 1963 DQ-1248 and in 1968 in gatefold/booklet form ST-3974. Both versions feature Robie Lester as the Narrator and the voices of Jimmy McDonald as Mickey Mouse/Willie The Giant, Clarence Nash as Donald Duck, Pinto Colvig as Goofy and Marilyn Hooven as the Magic Harp. The 1968 version featured here has the entire story on Side One and various songs on Side Two.
SIDE ONE
My What A Happy Day
Finniculi Funnicula (Turkey, Lobster, Sweet Potato Pie)
Fee Fi Fo Fum
My Favorite Dream
SIDE TWO
Happy Mouse
Donald Duck Song
Quack! Quack! Quack!
Mickey’s Big Show
(Donald Duck Recites/Clara Cluck)
Mickey Mouse March
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Main Street Electrical Parade Picture Discs
In 1972, Disneyland guests were treated to a brand new concept of entertainment brought to life by thousands of sparkling lights recreating scenes and characters from many Disney film classics. The Main Street Electrical Parade would quickly become the most popular parade in Disney theme parks ever after its 24+ year run at Disneyland Park. It would eventually spin off versions at Walt Disney World magic Kingdom, Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Paris. You can see the classic parade now at Disney’s California Adventure.
To accompany the parade, the late Jack Wagner convinced the producers that the musical soundtrack should be all electronic music performed on the Moog Synthesizer and he found the song that would forever be part of Disneyland history, “Baroque Hoedown” by Jean Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley. This tune would interweave several Disney and Patriotic tunes during the pageantry. In 1973, Disney released a picture disc of the Parade’s soundtrack, performed by Jim Christensen and Paul Beaver. The disc featured artwork of the parade on both sides and was sold at Disneyland. For $1.59.
Coincidentally at Walt Disney World, the same music was used for the nightly Electrical Water Pageant, the brainchild of the Electrical Parade which featured sea creatures recreated by lights to lighten the darkened Vacation Kingdom’s Bay Lake and Seven Seas Lagoon. The sea creatures then change magically into a Patriotic Finale featuring American flags and star units. This sold for $1.79 at WDW.
In 1977, the Main Street Electrical Parade was revived and updated from its original 2-dimensional look to a fully three dimensional presentation. The music was updated and performed by Don Dorsey (with the exception of the Cinderella, Dumbo and Small World units). The new version opened with the Electric Fanfare and closed with a disco-fied Disney medley featuring the Oscar-Winning tunes When You Wish Upon A Star and Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah. That same year the Parade made its East Coast debut at Walt Disney World and both Parks sold a recording of the new soundtrack in picture disc form with artwork of the parade. This sold for $ 1.79.
To accompany the parade, the late Jack Wagner convinced the producers that the musical soundtrack should be all electronic music performed on the Moog Synthesizer and he found the song that would forever be part of Disneyland history, “Baroque Hoedown” by Jean Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley. This tune would interweave several Disney and Patriotic tunes during the pageantry. In 1973, Disney released a picture disc of the Parade’s soundtrack, performed by Jim Christensen and Paul Beaver. The disc featured artwork of the parade on both sides and was sold at Disneyland. For $1.59.
Coincidentally at Walt Disney World, the same music was used for the nightly Electrical Water Pageant, the brainchild of the Electrical Parade which featured sea creatures recreated by lights to lighten the darkened Vacation Kingdom’s Bay Lake and Seven Seas Lagoon. The sea creatures then change magically into a Patriotic Finale featuring American flags and star units. This sold for $1.79 at WDW.
In 1977, the Main Street Electrical Parade was revived and updated from its original 2-dimensional look to a fully three dimensional presentation. The music was updated and performed by Don Dorsey (with the exception of the Cinderella, Dumbo and Small World units). The new version opened with the Electric Fanfare and closed with a disco-fied Disney medley featuring the Oscar-Winning tunes When You Wish Upon A Star and Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah. That same year the Parade made its East Coast debut at Walt Disney World and both Parks sold a recording of the new soundtrack in picture disc form with artwork of the parade. This sold for $ 1.79.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Marni Nixon-A Spoonful of Sugar
DQ-1256; 1964 Disneyland Records released a studio version of the songs from the Oscar-Winning musical, MARY POPPINS, starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. The vocalists for this LP were Marni Nixon, Bill Lee, Richard M. Sherman and Pamela Sherman. Marni and Bill were ghost singers for many actors and actress who starred in musicals and both did a grand job for their work. Their work in this LP is no exception.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
The Night Before Christmas
Sorry I haven't been much active on my blog as I have been doing other things but since we are in the holiday spirit, I wanted to share a holiday Disneyland Storyteller from 1976. Disneyland Story reader, Lois Lane recites Clement C Moore's classic, THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS in this package. Side One is the poem as told Side Two features two songs sung by Cliff Edwards as Jiminy Cricket-From All of Us To All Of You and Kris Kringle.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Disneyland Christmas Records Commercial 1970's
Before Larry Groce and the Disneyland Children's Sing Along Chorus released their now famous Christmas-themed albums, the folks at Disneyland Records released a 2-Record set, MERRY CHRISTMAS SONGS which was a compiled collection of songs featured on previous albums. The songs included "It's A Small World" by the Disneyland Boys Choir, "From All Of Us To All Of You", Jingle Bells and other Yuletide favorites. If you ordered this set, you'd be treated to a dramatization of Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL, which was the basis for the animated short, "MICKEY'S CHRISTMAS CAROL". The Walt Disney Players portrayed the classic Dickens characters and were voiced by many voice actors such as Alan Young, Janet Waldo and Clarence "Ducky" Nash. Anyhow, you could order these albums on records, tapes of 8-track tapes. Sorry, no CDs, lol!
Friday, March 23, 2007
My Disney Records Collection Part One
My passion for Disney Records started when my mom went to Gemco and bought me Mickey Mouse Disco and Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes. It began a long-friendship with Disney. And today, I have a large collection of these Disney classics and I still listen to them for pleasure and for nostalgia. My collection ranges from 1956-1988 and they are Storyteller LPs, Soundtracks and Theme Park Soundtracks.
My all-time favorite, of course is Mickey Mouse Disco. Released in 1979, it went Gold, and surprisingly, it reached Platinum and Double Platinum. I still enjoy this classic album along with other Disco classics like the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. This album has disco versions of three Disney standards including the Oscar-Winning tunes, Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah and Chim Chim Cher-ee from Mary Poppins as well as new tracks such as Macho Duck, a parody of The Village People's Macho Man, Mousetrap, and many others. It's a true classic and you can still get this on Ebay or Itunes.
The Storyteller albums are a crowning jewel in my collection and with great reasons. They come included books with beautiful art or photographs from the movies. I enjoy collecting the albums released in the late 50s due to the fact that many pf the albums featured the art from animated cels and are valuable. In addition, the narration of these albums are done to perfection by actors like Thurl Ravenscroft, Ginny Tyler, Dallas McKennon, Mouseketeers Annette, Darlene Gillespie and Jimmie Dodd, and even Jiminy Cricket.
Disney released Picture Disc titles in 1980 but the Disney parks produced a few soundtracks for the Main Street Electrical Parade (1973 and 1977), America On Parade, It's A Small World and others. The 80s discs included soundtracks from Snow White, Pinocchio, Cinderella, Mary Poppins and others, totaling 12 discs, all beautifully illustrated by the folks at Disney.
Disneyland Records was official started in 1956 and headed by Jimmy Johnson after he convinced Walt Disney to produce his own records after the success of Disneyland Park and the TV series Davy Crockett and the Mickey Mouse Club. Before the Disneyland label, many recordings were issued on Columbia, RCA, Capitol and others. The soundtrack albums released from its inception to 1959 are very valuable due to the rare artwork (possibly from animation cels) and the cream of the crop is the original release of the studio version of the score of Alice In Wonderland, featuring Darlene Gillespie and Tutti Camarata. That album alone was worth over $350 because of its one time use of artwork!
A second label, Buena Vista Records was started in 1959 and mostly catered to the teens and adult audiences. It's big success was the soundtrack album from "Mary Poppins" in 1964. In the 1980s, the label released a series for George Lucas' Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies as well as Rainbow Brite, the Star Trek Movies, The Dark Crystal and others.
I must have over 100+ Disneyland/Buena Vista albums to my name and these are my pride and joy. Not only do these records entertain me but have influenced me to see the movies they are based on. Many of these classic albums are available on CD at Disneyland's 20th Century Music Store (at least the last time I heard) and now on Itunes and Amazon.
I highly recommend that you read MOUSE TRACKS-THE STORY OF WALT DISNEY RECORDS by Tim Hollis and Greg Ehrbar. This book will tell you all about the Disney albums and the people who worked on them.
Official Website:
http://www.mousetracksonline.com/
My all-time favorite, of course is Mickey Mouse Disco. Released in 1979, it went Gold, and surprisingly, it reached Platinum and Double Platinum. I still enjoy this classic album along with other Disco classics like the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. This album has disco versions of three Disney standards including the Oscar-Winning tunes, Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah and Chim Chim Cher-ee from Mary Poppins as well as new tracks such as Macho Duck, a parody of The Village People's Macho Man, Mousetrap, and many others. It's a true classic and you can still get this on Ebay or Itunes.
The Storyteller albums are a crowning jewel in my collection and with great reasons. They come included books with beautiful art or photographs from the movies. I enjoy collecting the albums released in the late 50s due to the fact that many pf the albums featured the art from animated cels and are valuable. In addition, the narration of these albums are done to perfection by actors like Thurl Ravenscroft, Ginny Tyler, Dallas McKennon, Mouseketeers Annette, Darlene Gillespie and Jimmie Dodd, and even Jiminy Cricket.
Disney released Picture Disc titles in 1980 but the Disney parks produced a few soundtracks for the Main Street Electrical Parade (1973 and 1977), America On Parade, It's A Small World and others. The 80s discs included soundtracks from Snow White, Pinocchio, Cinderella, Mary Poppins and others, totaling 12 discs, all beautifully illustrated by the folks at Disney.
Disneyland Records was official started in 1956 and headed by Jimmy Johnson after he convinced Walt Disney to produce his own records after the success of Disneyland Park and the TV series Davy Crockett and the Mickey Mouse Club. Before the Disneyland label, many recordings were issued on Columbia, RCA, Capitol and others. The soundtrack albums released from its inception to 1959 are very valuable due to the rare artwork (possibly from animation cels) and the cream of the crop is the original release of the studio version of the score of Alice In Wonderland, featuring Darlene Gillespie and Tutti Camarata. That album alone was worth over $350 because of its one time use of artwork!
A second label, Buena Vista Records was started in 1959 and mostly catered to the teens and adult audiences. It's big success was the soundtrack album from "Mary Poppins" in 1964. In the 1980s, the label released a series for George Lucas' Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies as well as Rainbow Brite, the Star Trek Movies, The Dark Crystal and others.
I must have over 100+ Disneyland/Buena Vista albums to my name and these are my pride and joy. Not only do these records entertain me but have influenced me to see the movies they are based on. Many of these classic albums are available on CD at Disneyland's 20th Century Music Store (at least the last time I heard) and now on Itunes and Amazon.
I highly recommend that you read MOUSE TRACKS-THE STORY OF WALT DISNEY RECORDS by Tim Hollis and Greg Ehrbar. This book will tell you all about the Disney albums and the people who worked on them.
Official Website:
http://www.mousetracksonline.com/
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