Ten Disney Moments At The Oscars

Look in any record book about the Academy Awards and you'll see one name pop up over and over again... Disney.

Whether it's an Oscar personally given to Walt (who holds the record with over 60 nominations, half of those resulting in wins) or to his company (this year alone Disney has 12 nominations, with an almost certain lock on Best Animated Picture) Disney and Oscar have had a great relationship.

Oscar and Mickey Mouse were even born the same year (1928) so there's lots of history between them. The only thing missing for Disney is a Best Picture win. They are still the only major studio left from the "golden days" of the 1920's to remain winless at Best Picture (unless you count the four wins for Miramax, which Disney bought in 1993 and sold just a few years ago.)

Here now are Ten Disney Moments at the Oscars.....

Ten Disney Presidential Connections

President's Day is upon us once again.

Originally two holidays (Washington's Birthday and Lincoln's Birthday) that were combined into one by an Executive Order of President Nixon in 1971, it was renamed President's Day. The third Monday of February is now used to ostensibly honor all US Presidents. It's also a day (and sometimes a week) off for most schools - probably not a good time to visit a Disney park.

Walt Disney himself was pretty apolitical. In his lifetime he supported both Democrats and Republicans alike, and he had friends on both sides of the aisle, including a few Presidents.

Every US President, from Dwight Eisenhower (pictured at right with Walt in 1961) on, has paid a visit to a Disney park at least once in their life. Most visited either before or after their terms, but some came while still in office. (Harry S. Truman, while enjoying his retirement, came to Disneyland and famously refused to ride Dumbo the Flying Elephant because he said it reminded him too much of the Republican's mascot.)

Yes, The Hall of Presidents is on this list. Though it's the best known, that's not the Mouse's only link to the Oval Office. 

Here now, in chronological order, are Ten Presidential Disney Connections: 

Ten Romantic Disney Moments

Romance and Disney.

 

Those two words seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly, salt and pepper or pineapples and ice cream (OK, maybe that last one's not as common, but I just now had a craving for an Adventureland Dole Whip.)

  

I can't say this for sure, but I'd venture a guess that more people have been proposed to, married in or spent their honeymoon at a Disney property than any other places on the planet. (So long Niagara Falls, Las Vegas and Miami, it was nice knowing you.) 

There's just something about the magic of Disney that brings out special feelings in everyone.

I'm not immune to it - see the picture above - I proposed to my wife using a paver at Disney's "Walk Around the World." It was a question literally written in stone. (If you look closely you'll see that even her engagement ring has a familiar shape to it.)

So with thoughts of love in the air, and St. Valentine's Day once again upon us, I decided to put together a list of ten romantic moments in Disney history.

By "moment", I mean just that. I'm not covering a whole film, TV show or play, I mean a singular moment contained in one of those productions. These moments stand out, because we can all feel them when they happen. They either make us sigh, go "awww", or sometimes even weep at two people dedicating themselves to the course of true love in the face of dire circumstances. 

Yes, some of these moments will be sad or bittersweet. Throughout the history of the arts, great romances have often involved tragedy ("Romeo and Juliet", "Madame Butterfly", "Love Story", "Titanic", etc.)

I've also tried to be fair in this list and cover all areas and eras of Disney's 88 year history. You might wonder why I've left out a particular film or character that seems obvious given the love and romance theme. I already covered many of those in my book (The Top 100 Top 10 of Disney) with lists like "Ten Greatest Love Songs' and "Ten Great Disney Couples" so I didn't want to repeat them here. (If you are interested in reading the book, please email me at LucasDisney@AOL.com for release date info.)

So cue the violins, break out the tissues, here are Ten Romantic Disney Moments:    

Ten Most Unusual Disney Films

If you ask people what type of film a “Disney” film is, you’ll get a variety of answers. Everyone seems to have a feel for what a Disney motion picture constitutes, but nobody can quite articulate it clearly.

Even Walt himself had an opinion on this. During a meeting  with his staff to discuss future projects, one of his employees supposedly said  about an upcoming film “We can’t make that, it’s not a typical Disney film.” Walt immediately replied, “heck, I’m Walt Disney and even I don’t know what a “typical Disney” film is!”

It’s more of an instinctual thing, we grew up with these films, so we recognize them immediately without ever having to see the name “Disney” on the poster. That’s why it’s so jarring when we come across a film made by Disney that just doesn’t seem to jibe with our preconceived notions. 

Here are ten that fall into this "unusual" category.

Ten Stars Whose Careers Blossomed At Disney

When most people think of Disney films, the classic cartoon characters are what come to mind first. 

That might have remained the case had Walt not branched out to live action films in the 1950’s. 

He was, of course, just hoping to increase the revenue stream for the studio during a tough time. He inadvertently wound up creating his own star making machine. 

Over the years many actors have used Disney as the launch pad for successful Hollywood careers. Here are ten of the most notable (a few Academy Award winners and nominees among them):

Ten Disney Football Connections

With the big game just a few hours away, I thought I'd make a list of some of the most interesting Disney links to the game of football (Sorry to any readers from other countries, I don't mean the internationally popular game of futbol. I mean good old American Football, the game you don't actually play with your feet - except for the kicker and punter, of course, but that's another story)





 Here are Ten Disney Football Connections (in no particular order):

Ten Disney Icons

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Most companies are lucky if they have one identifiable icon that the general public can immediately recognize and associate with that particular brand.  Disney has been blessed to have so many of them that each generation for the last eighty or so years can almost claim one as their own. Here are ten that have been the face of the company at different periods in its history.