This Sunday, I’m pleased to be part of a new series of Walt
Disney presentations on Turner Classic Movies. I’ll be joining Ben Mankiewicz
to introduce a full evening of Disney treats, including the classic Silly Symphonies short Santa’s Workshop (1932) and two other
wintry cartoons, the wonderful behind-the-scenes feature The Reluctant Dragon (1941) featuring Robert Benchley, my boyhood
favorite Davy Crockett, King of the Wild
Frontier (1955), the Oscar-winning True Life Adventure The Vanishing Prairie (1954), and another film I’ve always liked, Third Man on the Mountain (1959)
starring James MacArthur, Michael Rennie, Janet Munro, and Herbert Lom,
followed by Perilous Assignment, an
hour long behind-the-scenes show about the making of the movie on location in
Switzerland. Disney Imagineer Gary Landrum sits in with Ben to introduce the
first episode of Walt Disney’s long-running weekly TV series, The Disneyland Story (1954).
I’m happy to have worked with TCM to select a wide variety of
goodies from the Disney vault which will be parceled out in special evenings
like this every few months. The programming ties in with the network’s imminent
branding of “The Great Movie Ride” at Disney Hollywood Studios, part of Walt
Disney World in Florida. Robert Osborne will appear in a pre-ride video that
will be unveiled in the spring.
I hope you’ll tune in this Sunday, December 21, at 8:00 pm
Eastern Time when the fun begins. There will be more to come in the new year.
