Your Disney Story (Introductions Thread)

[quasi72]

Luke, thank u for your warm welcome

[Prince Phillip]

PRINCE PHILLIP, thank you for this posting. It is great to see how it all started with each of you, guys. I am new to the forum and I would like to share my Disney experience with all of you.

Now I am teaching film and video in Maryland... all the way from Salamanca, Spain... and guess what? The chair of my department has asked me to design a course about WALT DISNEY ANIMATION to teach all semester next fall. A-MA-ZING.

And yes, I do love Disney. Makes me dream. Makes me think better about myself. Disney is like my mentor in many things.

I humblely love it...

Hey Welcome Quasi, thanks, for the "Thank You" - Luke is always being complemented about the site, but every once and a I am acknowledged for one of my threads, usually this one, and it feels good.

It is nice to see someone else from Baltimore!

I have thought about teaching if my acting, and eventual movie production, directing, writing, ect.... carreer, doesn't take off. And Ironic enough I have been dreaming about treaching what you currently teach, plus I would love to have a class just to teach about Disney Animation!!!

Well good luck with all that, and welcome, hey maybe you could actually help me get into college

[PatrickvD]

i've been around here for some time and i haven't even introduced myself in this thread. Well, i'm Patrick, im 17 years old and from The Netherlands. The first Disney film i saw was the Little Mermaid on home video. And the first Disney film i saw in theaters was Beauty & the Beast. Ever since i saw those I really wanted to be an animator, and with a little bit of luck im gonna study animation next year.

When disney films started to come out on dvd i started collecting them. and through surfing on the web i found this (GREAT) site/forum. well, i dont know what else i should tell about myself. Hope to stick around for a long time

[Danny]

Hey there everyone!

Well...I've been here for a long time...I just don't really post much. One thing I must say is I'm very pleased with the message boards...you go to any other Disney fansite and their boards are plagued with people who like to argue and get off topic. This is a great website and community...glad to see there are others out there that are obsessive with 2-disc Disney dvds like me

What's my story? I've been a Disney Store stocker for about a year now...and man do I hate retail LOL! Don't get me wrong, being surrounded by Disney dvds and plush toys all day is cool (The Koda plush in particular is sickingly cute)...but I don't like stuffing pre-sells down people's throats like the way you are trained.

Anyway, I have always been a huge fan of Disney animation...and right now I'm at school getting my BA in media arts and animation. I hope to one day be able to work for Disney Feature...even if it isn't what it use to be (or so I hear).

You know, I don't have a particular favorite Disney movie...I like all 42 of them in their own unique ways...and those Pixar movies are awesome! Can't wait for Brother Bear...it's going to be tight!!!! The only Disney animation I don't care much for are the dtv's...they could do so much more with the story and animation. At least TLK 1 1/2 looks funny and interesting.

I also love Disneyland...I go about 4 or 5 times a year (I'm an AP in AZ).

That's me in a nutshell

[Tangela]

Hello, I haven't introduced myself yet? Oh well, My name is Eric but half of you know me as Tangela and the other half of you know me as The Rescuers Fanatic. Anyway my Disney story...? Well, I have loved Disney Movies since I was 2-3 years old and still do. I remember my first Disney movie was Bambi, I also had a The Rescuers hardcover book that I really enjoyed so my mom got me the movie and I loved it, it is my second-to-favorite disney movie.

Second-to-favorite??? Oh! a forum mysterie...

I also like writing, I've written 9 books so far, the 10th one is coming next year.

That's all.

[Mermaid Kelly]

Hope this doesnt offend you Tangela, but all this time, I thought you were a girl! I feel so stupid now to know that you are actually a boy! Sorry!

[Tangela]

Hope this doesnt offend you Tangela, but all this time, I thought you were a girl! I feel so stupid now to know that you are actually a boy! Sorry!

Its ok, my nickname was a bit misleading anyway, I'm still not sure what poco is...

[karlsen]

This thread looks to long to read all, but some day I have to get thru it.

But here I go anyways.

Hello, my name is Lars and I am a big Disney fan.

I live in Oslo, Norway but was born in the year of 1976 in another and smaller town of Norway called Grimstad.

My first visit into the magical world of Disney was when I was a little kid and my father took me and my little brother to the video store to rent a movie. For some reason we always ended up with a Disney movie and I belive that my father prefered this because then he knew what we was looking at was safe.

The movies I remember from my childhood are the Love Bug movies, a couple of the Davy Crocket movies, Blackbeards Gost, The Snowball Express, The Computer that wore tennis shoes, and a lot of Donald and Mickey shorts.

Now I am working at two places, one is at a ideal organisation where I have the responsibility of a building where the University of Law are renting some roms. The other job is just a temperary job where I work in sales.

Since I am a hugh fan of movies I have also been fortunate to get to know people in that industry in Norway and one of my friends are now making a short movie for cinema release (as a short film before the main picture) Since he is working with a small budget I am trying to help out as much as I can, and that also involves production meetings.

I have also gotten a listing on imdb.com so if you want to se a picture of me you can only search for my name there (full name are Lars Olav Karlsen).

I am collecting autographs, and I have some pritty great ones. You can see some of the international autographs on my website: www.autographsnet.com

This was a little presentation of me and what I am doing just now in my life.

[Chernabog]

Well, the time has come to post my loooooooonnnnnngggggg story...
If you think it´s too long just skip it, but it should be nice if you take your time to do it!

Disney as Hobby

Disney as hobby is a complex and highly varied thing. The possibilities to find a special niche in the field are not difficult.
The difficult thing IS to have a common knowledge in the whole field.

My own obsession (yes I see it like that!) began in early childhood – I can’t say exactly when.
When I was three years old, my mom took me to a cinema for the first time in my life. The film was Aristocats.
I don’t know if it was that moment that settled itself as a Disney metaphor in my mind, but it is one of the first I have.
We had the Disney-comics sent to our family by subscription under more than 15 years, so I grew up with familiar Disney faces.
From those magazines I became introduced to new films (movie advertises). I begun to like the animated films enormously and though we lived at the countryside at that time and it was difficult to go to the movies – it was precisely what I tried to convince my parents to do, when we went to the city.
I have early memories of Robin Hood, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and The Rescuers.

The interests soon changed from the Disney-comics’ world and into the field of animated films.
I still enjoyed the comics, but not with the same enthusiasm any longer – this interest my sisters took over instead.
But when I had reached the age of 10, I once again looked through the old comics from the years before my birth. Of course I had done that many times before, but never paid much attention to the ads for the live action films Disney had produced. An amazingly new world opened itself up for me.
The big interest for those films started there and then, and this interest are still intact today – more than 20 years later.
I didn’t forget the animation, oh no, but my biggest interest turned to all the rest of the films, which wasn’t so famous as the animated ones.

When we moved to the city I came in contact with other likeminded friends and they served me a lot with information through these early years.
But soon my knowledge was greater than theirs and they began to see me as a nuisance. It led to that I put my nose in the distributor-business of the Disney films in Sweden instead.
They informed me about upcoming releases and movie lists, which at this time were difficult to get complete and up to date here in Sweden, due to that so few of the films produced during that time premiered here.
This was in the beginning of the 80´s and the business for the Disney Company where not so great.
The Swedish distributor office of Disney features closed down and I turned to Copenhagen instead, which took over the whole Scandinavian market.
But they also closed down their business after a while and London was the next step.
All the time everyone at these places was very helpful and nice to me.
When also the English office closed down I got real frustrated – because Warner Brothers took over the distribution rights for Europe and they had no personnel or time, to help me with my questions - which at this time had became rather complex and difficult.

In a “devil will care” mood I CALLED to the Disney studio in Burbank, California.
I spent ONE HOUR in the telephone, waiting in lines and got connected to different persons which all said the same: Sorry, we cannot help you.
When I came back to the same person for the third time, she laughs, said that she never had met another more insistent person and connected me to Rebecca Cline at the Walt Disney Achieves.
She sympathised with my long story immediately, and all since then, she and David R. Smith had helped me with all my questions and updates of the movie list.
First we only had communication through fax, but now we of course have turned over to e-mail. Very early I also got an invitation from them: When I visit Burbank, they would show me their copy of VICTORY THROUGH AIR POWER from 1943, since that film at that time was withdrawn from the market and was thought to never have an official release on video, due to it’s theme. (But how likely was it that I should travel half the globe, to see a movie?)

Alongside the collecting of the films, I also make complete lists of the films released by the company. Because the list from the Archives is not complete! Due to the co-work between studios nowadays, very few films are 100 % genuine Disney anymore (except the animated ones of course!). Some of the films are not distributed by Buena Vista in USA (Disney’s own distribution company), and therefore not included in their movie list.
When these films is distributed outside USA it is Buena Vista International who handles the business and therefore I put them in their right places in the list and count them as Disney features.
Such films are among others; Popey, Dragonslayer, Air Force One, Starship Troopers, The Runaway Bride, End of Days, The Hurricane and so on.
It became more and more difficult to track these films and after the beginning of 2000 I don’t know if my efforts to do so, is totally complete or not.
The daughter company Miramax’s films are not included in my lists, neither are the numerous TV- or Cable-movies that are produced – only the films that have had a theatrical release.
My movie list is otherwise complete, when it’s come to original premiere dates in USA and Sweden, Swedish titles, running times and ratings.

It was after the purchase of a CD- and a video-player, in the middle of the 80´s, that the whole collecting business started for me.
Nearly all my money went to soundtracks and to paying movie channels, where I recorded the films in a perfect condition.
I didn’t give up – if a movie had a dropout or something that disturbed my critical sense, I simply recorded it again until it was perfect.
Under those years Disney had not begun to release videocassettes for private purchase here in Sweden – you could buy the rental copies, but they were sold for astronomical sums, which I couldn’t afford at that time.
When they started the official home-releases, I mostly thereafter bought all the cassettes instead of just recording them from TV.
But some of them never showed up on video and I still have some from that time which is recorded by me. For example the complete version of MAKE MINE MUSIC which the Company now have massacred when they cut out the “Martin and the Coy´s” segment from the “first ever video release” of that movie in USA.

My first movie soundtrack on CD was Fantasia, though I had a lot of original soundtracks on LP before, such as; The Song of the South, The Living Desert/The Vanishing Prairie, True Life Adventures, Westward Ho the Wagons, Johnny Tremain, Secrets of Life, Grand Canyon, Babes in Toyland, Summer Magic, The Moon-Spinners, That Darn Cat, The Happiest Millionaire, The One and Only, Genuine, Original, Family Band, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Scandalous John, Escape From the Dark, Pete’s Dragon, The Black Hole, Tron and Splash.
The CD quality of the sound was for me the biggest invention in music industry and I thereafter only bought the new soundtracks on CD (and the making of LPs disappeared rather quickly thereafter!).
When also the DVD appeared on the market I preferred that format instead of the ordinary videocassette.
Sometimes there is “cuts” in the new released DVD movies due to the silly policy from the studio that everything that can offend some groups of people should be censored out. So some films I have in two versions – I keep the old videocassette to have the film complete.
Also I don’t buy and upgrade all of the old “live action”-films in the new format – for this they are too many!

In fact I also have some few VCDs (Video-CD), though I prefer to not collect films in this format. An example of such is the short film Captain Eo, with Michael Jackson. This is very funny to have – since the film isn’t shown in any Disney-park any more.

I have succeeded really well in my pursuit to collect the most in Disney music and movies over the years.
How much money I have spent on this collecting business, I rather prefer to not think about – I only know that it’s a huge sum!
And another thing – without Internet I couldn’t have come so far as I have done in my collecting business. All the information that is available there, about (for example) the not official released promo-CDs, should have gone unnoticed by me, in that case. Like it is now, mostly of them are also in my collection.
On the new millennium I also begun to collect the animated short cartoons that the studio produced from 1928 and forward and I now have mostly all of them except a few old Mickey Mouse and some from the early Silly Symphonies.

But as the time passes, there is not so many “fantastic sensation-moments” in my collection mania any more, as you maybe understand! Not since I succeeded in getting the more difficult-to-find items and have mostly everything in films and CDs.
But a great day of joy came on the day I finally got the film “Victory Through Air Power”, in my hands - a film that I thought that I never should have the possibility to see in fact.
Early in 2003, I finally got “Perri” as well – a film that was very, very difficult to obtain until then.
The 30th of July 2003 was a date of mixed feelings for me:
I obtained and saw the last Disney film I had never seen before - Run, Cougar, Run, and that was of course a joy – but at the same time it was sad, because I have now completed my collection and have no more great things to long and search for in this business.
Earlier the same year I had also made a heavy decision; when I finally will succeed to complete my collection of old Disney features, I will also stop to collect the new and future ones – both on video/DVD and CD. This is counted from the end of 2003.
Honestly to say, it was rather easy to make that decision, because I never thought that I really should have the luck to see the day when I had all features in my possessions – but now that day had come! Sooner than I really wanted!
But a decision is a decision and I will keep it – although I prefer to see this “stop” as a temporary break.
So for now I settle down and enjoy my over 15 years long effort - and only the future knows if I will pick it up again and continue someday - somewhere!

Concluding facts:
My collection up to today is complete, in both CDs and features.
I will never give up on the animated films though, so these I will continue to obtain, as well as features I love and want to have in my possession simply because I like them. I will also continue to buy the Disney Treasures DVD Tin Boxes (because this is older material), and sometimes obtain better copies of the films I already have – on DVD for example.
And the interest in Disney in general will surely linger on!
So the future will not be a totally empty space

A little footnote:

The interests in Disney also draw my attention to Don Bluth, the animator that had made so much good thing in Disney animation. When he quit and started his own studio I followed his progress and I also collected his work, on CD and video. The best film he has made is The Secret of Nimh, as I consider being one of the best animated films ever made.

[indianajdp]

Crikey that was one long story
I took TWO intermissions just to get through it all!

It's hard to imagine that you actually completed that collecting quest, and equally hard to imagine that you are quitting "Col Turkey" at the end of 2003. Is it the thrill of the chase that convinced you to take a hiatus, only to pick it up again in about ten years?

[Chernobog]

Well, my name is David, I'm 22 and I live in Gijon, a city of the North of Spain. I'm illustrator and we can say graphic designer as well. I'd like to became an animator, and this is what I wan to do in the following years.

My obsession with disney started when I was about 7 years old and I saw on cinemas a re-release of Robin Hood. BOY, I LIKED IT!! and since that moment I've been watching all kind of animation, but specially Disney. I collect PVC figures od the Disney characters as you can see here:



And about my preferences, my favourite Disney film is the Little Mermaid.

As characters, I like by its animation Chernobog (by Bill Tytla), the Cheshire Cat (by Ward Kimball), Maleficent (by Marc Davis), Cruella de Vil (by Marc Davis), Madame Medusa (by Mlt Kahl), Ratigan (by Glen Keane), Ursula (by Ruben Aquino), the Beast (by glen Keane), Timon (by Mike surrey), Frollo (by Kathy Zielinsky), Hades (by Nick Ranieri), Megara (by Ken Duncan), Yzma (By Dale Baer) and Dr Doppler (by mi paisano Sergio Pablos)

Greetings!!

[Tangela]

Well, my name is David, I'm 22 and I live in Gijon, a city of the North of Spain. I'm illustrator and we can say graphic designer as well. I'd like to became an animator, and this is what I wan to do in the following years.

My obsession with disney started when I was about 7 years old and I saw on cinemas a re-release of Robin Hood. BOY, I LIKED IT!! and since that moment I've been watching all kind of animation, but specially Disney. I collect PVC figures od the Disney characters as you can see here:



And about my preferences, my favourite Disney film is the Little Mermaid.

As characters, I like by its animation Chernobog (by Bill Tytla), the Cheshire Cat (by Ward Kimball), Maleficent (by Marc Davis), Cruella de Vil (by Marc Davis), Madame Medusa (by Mlt Kahl), Ratigan (by Glen Keane), Ursula (by Ruben Aquino), the Beast (by glen Keane), Timon (by Mike surrey), Frollo (by Kathy Zielinsky), Hades (by Nick Ranieri), Megara (by Ken Duncan), Yzma (By Dale Baer) and Dr Doppler (by mi paisano Sergio Pablos)

Greetings!!

Someday I'll show you guys my collection of figures, I made them and painted them my self, there are not Disney though, they're SantDoge...

(You know SantDoge, right??? )

[Chernabog]

Crikey that was one long story
I took TWO intermissions just to get through it all!

It's hard to imagine that you actually completed that collecting quest, and equally hard to imagine that you are quitting "Col Turkey" at the end of 2003. Is it the thrill of the chase that convinced you to take a hiatus, only to pick it up again in about ten years?

The reason that I decided to "quit"/"take a break" is that I have concentrated so hard on this task that much other important things in life have had to stand back instead. I love travel for an example and that is one of the things I like to put my nose more deeply into, in the future.
Of course I have travelled a lot during this 15 years also, but it´s have been more shorter trips (the longest was to US, Bahamas and Mexico in fact!). Now I can begun to plan more longer trips - like a trip around the world, trekking in the Himalayas, three months sailing in the South Pacific and so on.

[Luke]

Awesome stories! Nice collection picture, Chernobog!

Congrats on completing your movie collection, Chernabog!

[quasi72]

Prince Phillip,
again, thank you for your message on top. hey, it's great to know that there's more DISNEY FREAKS in Maryland!!!!

[ddave]

Hi - i'm dave from manchester in UK.

I've been using this site as a reference point for about 4/5 months - its the only one i can find with info on future DVD releases that is reliable.

I dont really have a disney story to speak of - other than my grandad taking me to see pinoc when i was a kid ( I'm 38 now). I just seem to remember always loving mickey & co. Every room in my house has a disney plush toy in it! My wife even bought me a talking mickey telephone in the states & had i re-wired so it would work over here. Over the years i collected most of the classic films on video but it was more of a nice hobby than obsesion, but that has changed in the last 12 months. I now collect DVD's - starting with the classics (only a few to get) and the treasures series - because i missed these on first release i have to get them from auction sites but always wait till i see a good price. I've been over to WDW 3 times in last 11 yrs & each time always come back with a suitcase full of toys/gift's - the first time over in 92 i spent nearly £2,500 in 2 weeks!!!

I now have a 2 yr old son so i can use him as an excuse for buying disney stuff - i'm trying to teach him about disney & took him over to DL paris when he was 1

[quasi72]

And also, it's great to see that there's another SPANIARD in the forum, CHENOBOG, PAISANO, QUE TAL???

[Tangela]

And also, it's great to see that there's another SPANIARD in the forum, CHENOBOG, PAISANO, QUE TAL???

I'm from Spain too! I used to live in Green Galicia!!!

Hello!, I mean ¡Hola!

[Luke]

Hi - i'm dave from manchester in UK.

Welcome to the forum, dave!

[Chernobog]

And also, it's great to see that there's another SPANIARD in the forum, CHENOBOG, PAISANO, QUE TAL???

I can't believe it!! Where are you from exactly?