Walt Disney Art Classics Convention 2004 - Part 2
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When the Disneyland Forever program was discontinued, the merchandisers at Disneyland were unhappy. As an alternative, Thornton decided to release complete albums, so the public would know what to expect with each selection. “So we get this opportunity to put the same music out,�? he happily concluded.
The Wonderland Music series is now offered at the 20th
Century Music Shop on Main Street USA in Disneyland Park.
In honor of Disneyland’s 50th birthday, the new series has been named Wonderland Music. The original Wonderland Music store was a mainstay in Disneyland, even occupying different locations as it expanded over the years.
The original Wonderland Music store offered a wide variety of Disney music in
all formats.
Thornton then described some of the first group of recordings that were already available. Walt Disney Takes you to Disneyland is the grand daddy of all theme park recordings, he said. Produced before Disneyland opened, it features Walt Disney giving a brief description of each land, followed by an evocative musical suite. It was the first offering on the Disneyland label, which, Thornton pointed out, is still today the largest producer of children’s records in the world.
Thornton went on to explain that the Wonderland series included a digital reproduction of the original album cover, completely restored and with all text recreated. Liner notes are also reformatted to fit on the back of the smaller CD labels.
Other titles in the original series include The Golden Horseshoe Review (with Donald Novis), Hi Ho with Mary Martin, and the Enchanted Tiki Room soundtrack, complete with the Jungle Cruise, narrated by Disney legend Thurl Ravenscroft.
Thurl Ravenscroft in 2003
Thornton regretted that they could not include the 16 page illustrated booklet with the Tiki Room package. He did mention what a pleasure it was to provide a restored version of the attraction soundtrack, as the original was in “terrible shape,�? The master was very bad, and since major budget had not been allocated for the project, Thornton did much of the denoising and cleaning himself. Further, to avoid producing a monaural version, he reconstructed the original album’s play order with different source material in stereo.
Thornton then announced a project of which he was quite proud. “I am in the process of producing a Disneyland 50th Anniversary six CD set,�? he said. The work, which started with the Tiki Room restoration, was originally supposed to be a tie-in with the Shag art that was created for that attraction’s 40th anniversary in 2003. But that promotion changed direction, and Thornton folded the work into a larger project.
Walt Disney’s
Enchanted Tiki Room
Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln was next discussed. Thornton described listening to original recording sessions, in which Royal Dano, the voice of Lincoln, would be directed by Walt Disney himself. As Walt would push for more and more takes, Dano would get tired and frustrated. When his voice was most weary and strained, Walt would say, “That’s it. That’s what I want.�? Thornton added that attempts to clean the background noise from the original Lincoln tracks resulted in the loss of too much original vocal quality.