The Disneyana Fan Club, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and enjoying the legacy of all things Disney, once again held their annual convention, Disneyana Mania 2015.

As always, their two-day affair was packed with presentations and banquets and a plethora of Disney luminaries.

One of the first presentations was “Sherman Brothers: A Songwriter’s Observations,” in which Robbie Sherman, the son of Disney Legend Robert Sherman, talked of the counterpoint that ran through much of the Sherman Brothers’ music and lives.

An accomplished songsmith himself (he currently has a musical “Love Birds” playing in Edinburgh,) Sherman then presented the club with a song he wrote particularly for them, performed by “The Liberty Voices,” from EPCOT’s American Pavilion.

(Warning: It is as charmingly persistent an earworm as many of his father and uncle’s songs ever were.)

Lunch was Disneyana’s annual “Lunch With A Disney Legend,” where two new legends were inducted into the Disneyana roster of Legends: Joe Lanzisero, and Dick Nunis.

Joe Lanzisero, current Senior Vice President Creative at Walt Disney Imagineering, started in animation and has worked on projects for the Disney Cruise Line and Disney Parks around the world, e.g., Winter Summerland Miniature Golf, Roger Rabbit’s Cartoon Spin, Mystic Point, and the Aquaduck.

He spoke briefly on his transition from animation to Imagineering, the process of developing Mystic Manor and the new Animation Magic experience on the Disney Fantasy, and his perpetual search for the next “fun, cool thing to work on.”

Dick Nunis, during his tenure at the Walt Disney Company, served both as Executive Vice President of Walt Disney World and Disneyland, and as President of the Outdoor Recreation Division, overseeing Walt Disney World, Epcot Center, and the Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park.

With some enthusiasm, he shared anecdotes from his time working in Operations with Dick Irvine, the various challenges involved in opening “Project X,” and his memories of working with “the greatest man who ever lived on the face of the Earth.”

After lunch, we heard from Dennis Tanida, a Disneyana member, Architect, and Imagineer, about his accidental career with the Walt Disney Company in “Six Degrees of Separation from Walt.” (Long time AllEars readers may remember Dennis from way back in 2008 when I mentioned the talk he gave in Tokyo DisneySea on the work he did for the Fortress Exploration and sailing ship Renaissance: /blogs/guestblog/2008/04/a_trip_to_tokyo_disneyland_par.html)

The first day concluded with author Jeff Barnes introducing us to his book “The Wisdom of Walt,” which uses practical examples from both Walt Disney and Disneyland to help people live their dreams.

Highlights from the second day included an interview with Disney Legend Bill Sullivan about his career working operations on projects as varied as the Winter Olympics, the New York World’s Fair, the Contemporary, and EPCOT.

Garner Holt, along with his team of Bill Butler, Tracy Cathey, Vic Martin, and Dave Feiten, presented a hilarious panel on “Mechanized Magic, The Art and Technology of Animatronics.”

Some interesting notes: Most of the panel had worked at WDI for decades, and then left to work at Garner Holt; DCA is the first theme park where they have made the majority of the figures (120;) a large project for Garner Holt is the creation of an animated mock-up shooting gallery for the military to simulate hostile situations; Dave Feiten has animated more characters than anyone living; and they displayed what may be one of the only photos of the Confucius head created for the never-realized Disneyland Chinese Restaurant–possibly the earliest human Disney animatronic.

(Past readers may also remember Garner Holt from blogs I wrote on the 2014 TEA Awards, and the 2010 “Marvelous Mechanized Magical Kingdom” event.)

The convention ended, as it typically does, with their Celebration Banquet–this one was commemorating Cinderella’s 65th Anniversary, with Disney historian and former Archivist Paula Sigman Lowery talking about the history of Cinderella.

(Lowery also co-wrote the liner notes for the recent Legacy Collection “Cinderella” soundtrack.”

The Disneyana Collectables Show and Sale was the following day with overflowing amounts of the memorabilia so dear to a Disney collector’s heart.

So once again Disneyana provided fans with an eventful convention filled with interesting speakers with both historical insight and a view towards the future. While it’s not the cheapest convention to buy into, it is non-profit and certainly the most stress-free of all the ones I’ve attended this year. If you’re looking for a smaller, more intimate event, with no lines and the opportunity to meet and talk with virtually all the speakers at reasonable length, I highly recommend looking into Disneyana for next year. Maybe you’ll have gotten the song out of your head by then.

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