marty sklar News & Updates

The Stories Are What Defined Bill [Sully] Sullivan’s Storied Disney Career

July 17, 2024 by Chuck Schmidt

The Story — or, more accurately, The Stories — are what defined the 40-year Disney career of William (Sully) Sullivan, who passed away earlier this week at the age of 88.

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At Disney, There’s No Shortage of Ideas, Even Recycled Ones

June 10, 2024 by Chuck Schmidt

There are many other examples of highly touted Disney projects that didn’t make it past the concept stages … but would resurface years later in different forms. At Disney, good ideas are never discarded.

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Disney At The 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair: Ford’s Magic Skyway

April 29, 2024 by Chuck Schmidt

Right from opening day at the New York World's Fair, Ford Motor Company's Magic Skyway attraction was among the most popular shows on the Flushing Meadow, Queens, fairgrounds. To accomplish this, Disney had to come up with dozens of realistic-looking and moving dinosaurs and cavemen, as well as a new, innovative way to move automobiles along a constantly moving track.

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Disney At The 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair: General Electric’s Progressland

April 15, 2024 by Chuck Schmidt

More than any of the other Disney-created New York World's Fair pavilions, General Electric's Progressland – which showed guests how the world of electricity had grown in leaps and bounds over the years – was all about change. And those changes occurred both inside and outside the massive domed building, designed by the firm owned by Walt Disney’s good friend, Welton Becket.

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Disney At The 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair: “it’s a small world”

April 1, 2024 by Chuck Schmidt

The Pepsi-Cola-sponsored “it's a small world,” dubbed The Happiest Cruise That Ever Sailed, was the last attraction created by Disney for the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair. And 60 years later, it remains one of the most endearing Disney attractions ever created.

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Disney At The 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair: Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln

March 18, 2024 by Chuck Schmidt

The Walt Disney Company’s participation in the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair can be traced as far back as 1957. “It started, I guess, with Abraham Lincoln,” remembered Marty Sklar, former head of Walt Disney Imagineering, during an interview in 2010. “That show had been written – not the single Lincoln, but the entire Hall of Presidents show – in 1957.”

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Disney’s Enduring Legacy At The 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair

March 4, 2024 by Chuck Schmidt

“The World’s Fair was really a big lesson, a big proving ground in many ways for us,” Marty Sklar, former head of Walt Disney Imagineering and a Disney Legend, said in 2010. “The main thing we learned was that the audience was there for Disney-style entertainment.”

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MY FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT DISNEY: Any Attraction Designed by Kevin Rafferty

January 8, 2024 by Chuck Schmidt

Members of Walt Disney Imagineering, the creative wing of the company that dreams up the park rides and adventures synonymous with the overall Disney park experience, almost always toil in anonymity.

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MY FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT DISNEY: My Main Street Friends

December 18, 2023 by Chuck Schmidt

During my 45-plus years of covering the wonderful world of Disney, I’ve had the distinct honor of striking up relationships with a good number of Disney’s more prominent cast members, whose careers are memorialized on windows along Main Street USA in California, Florida or France. Whenever I return to a Disney park, I make sure to renew acquaintances with my Main Street buddies.

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MY FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT DISNEY: “it’s a small world”

October 23, 2023 by Chuck Schmidt

"it’s a small world" and I go back a long way … all the way to 1964, when I first rode the quintessential Disney attraction at the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair.

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