To learn more about the event, visit our Events page. We hope to see you there!

To learn more about “Dinner With Goofy,” or to purchase your tickets, visit our “Events” page. Tickets will go fast for this rare intimate dinner with one of Disney’s top voice actors.

EVENTS PAGE – “Dinner With Goofy”

During  our event we announced our large annual spring fundraiser for the evening of Saturday, May 15…PLEASE SAVE THE DATE.  Our guest for this event will be Bill Farmer, who is a current Disney Legend, and the voice of Goofy, among other characters.  More details will be forthcoming on exact time and location, but in the meantime you can find out more information on Bill through our “Events” link at the top of the webpage.

If the Walt Disney Studios were to have a real-life Jiminy Cricket, it would have been vice chairman Roy Edward Disney, son of Roy O. Disney and nephew of Walt Disney, the Company’s founders. Besides being its conscience, Roy had also been called the “soul of the Company” because he often looked to its past to define its future.

It’s because of what he meant to the Company as to why his death earlier this morning is such a huge loss. Roy Disney died December 16, 2009, after a yearlong battle with stomach cancer, according to a Walt Disney Co. spokesman. He was 79.

Born in Los Angeles on January 10, 1930, Roy practically grew up at the Studio, where his father managed business affairs, while his uncle inspired artists to create magical animated worlds for movie screens. Roy was there when Snow White and Pinocchio were born and once recalled, “the animators used to test stuff out on me. They’d say, ‘Come on in and watch this and see if you think it’s funny.’”

In 1951, Roy graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in English from Southern California’s Pomona College, and soon launched his entertainment career as an assistant film editor on the television series “Dragnet,” starring Jack Webb. He joined The Walt Disney Studios in 1954, working as an assistant editor on the successful True-Life Adventure films, including “The Living Desert” and “The Vanishing Prairie,” both of which won Academy Awards. He later wrote and co-produced “Mysteries of the Deep,” which won an Oscar nomination in 1959.

Roy left the Studio in 1977, to become an independent producer and investor, but returned seven years later to serve as the Company’s vice chairman and head of the animation department. Since then, Disney animation has produced some of its greatest box office successes of all time, including “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin” and “The Lion King.” Roy literally combined the Company’s past with its future when he revivied one of his uncle’s most colorful visions of all time. “Fantasia 2000,” which is a continuation of Walt Disney’s 1940 classic “Fantasia,” combining classical music with original animation, rang in a new millennium on January 1, 2000, at Imax Theaters across the county.

The entire Thank You Walt Disney, Inc. staff wishes to extend its condolences to the friends and family of Roy E. Disney during their time of sorrow.

“Walt & El Grupo”

• Friday, January 15, 2010

• Screenland Theater

• Doors at 6:30

• Pre-movie talk by J.B. Kaufman

• Movie Begins Promptly at 7:30

J.B. Kaufman

Thank You Walt Disney, Inc. is proud to announce that J.B. Kaufman will be our special guest at the Kansas City Premiere of the film, “Walt & El Grupo.” J.B. is considered as one of the finest Disney scholars in the country and he will join us for a pre-film talk and a brief question and answer session.

J.B. is the author or co-author of three excellent Disney history books, “Walt in Wonderland,” which covers Walt’s Kansas City and early Hollywood period; “The Silly Symphonies: A Companion to the Classic Cartoon Series,” and “South of the Border with Disney: Walt Disney and the Good Neighbor Program, 1941-1948,” published just last month. “South of the Border” is a perfect complement to the film, “Walt & El Grupo.” The film and book both cover this little-known episode in Walt’s life.

J.B. Kaufman was a featured speaker at the D23 Expo in Anaheim, and is also working closely with the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. Our organization is extremely excited to have such an esteemed guest join us for our premiere. J.B. will bring copies of “South of the Border” and the “Museum Catalog” he authored to sign and sell to our guests.

Join us for this RARE appearance by one of the world’s greatest Disney historians. We look forward to seeing you soon!

The Story of “Walt and El Grupo”

“Walt Disney goes South American,” proclaimed the lobby poster for the 1942 film Saludos Amigos. It was an era when Washington called on Hollywood to help shore up relations between the Americas, and the film was the outcome of a trip Disney and a handpicked mini-studio made to Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and other nations of the region at the request of the U.S. government.

It was also a time that Disney would later recall as “the toughest period I’ve had in my whole life.” His studio was going through great difficulties, the Roosevelt administration had growing concerns about Nazi and Fascist influence in Latin America, and the entire world was slipping further into war. On the trip, while gathering story material and befriending fellow artists, Disney and “El Grupo” as they were called, were also embarked on a de facto diplomatic mission and Saludos Amigos carried the expectation of being an offering of inter-American friendship.

It is a story that still resonates on both sides of the equator. Drawing from personal letters and artwork from the trip, remembrances by descendants and survivors, and archival footage that provides a condid and never-before-seen glimpse of Disney and his artists, Walt & El Grupo time travels through five nations to capture a story that is both a tale of making art in a time of war, and a geo-political saga that has pressing relevance to our own times.

Tickets are going fast for this once in a lifetime event. Seating is limited, so don’t wait as this event will likely sell out early.

Tickets are:$20 each$15 each for TYWD Laugh-O-gram Club members 

We also have V.I.P. tickets available for:

$35 which includes a TYWD Poster ($25 value) 

The first 11 V.I.P. tickets sold will get priority seating in the large cushy red leather recliner seats for the movie inside the Screenland theater.

Online Ticket Sales are now closed. There are still tickets to purchase at the door at Screenland Theater. Thank You.

please email any questions to: info@thankyouwaltdisney.org
Tickets are sold on a first come, first serve basis.

At only 4-years-old, Virginia Davis lit up the screen in Walt Disney’s “Alice’s Wonderland.” This was the first in a series of “Alice Comedies” that Disney made while in Kansas City and California. When Walt moved to California to continue the series, he insisted that Virginia and her family join him to continue the series.

From 1923 to 1924, they made 13 “Alice Comedies” together starting with “Alice’s Day at Sea” and eventually ending with “Alice Hunting in Africa.” These successful comedies helped start the Disney Company, and paved the way for future Disney projects and characters such as Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Mickey Mouse, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” etc.

Virginia’s experiences at Walt Disney Studios didn’t end with the “Alice Comedies.” Walt tried to recruit her as Snow White’s live-action reference model, and she dearly wanted to work on that project. She eventually had to turn the deal down and the live-action reference role went to Marge Champion. But Walt didn’t give up. A few years later, he hired Virginia to do some voice work for “Pinocchio,” and gave her a try-out in the studio’s ink and paint department.

In the late 1930s to early 1940s, Virginia began to lose interest in the Hollywood life. After putting in her last performance in the 1946 MGM musical, “The Harvy Girls,” Miss Davis and her husband, Navy aviator Robert McGhee, left show business for good.

Robert and Virginia were married for 59 years, had two daughters, Margaret Sufke of Boise, IA and Laurieanne Zanderbergen, as well as three grandchildren, Krisitanne Barron, Nicole and Juliette Zanderbergen.

Over the past 20 plus years, Virginia has made numerous appearances at Disneyana events, as well as 2 visits to help out Thank You Walt Disney. In 2005, she was invited to a Thank You Walt Disney fundraiser, and it was the first time she had returned to Kansas City since she left at the age of 4. This past May, at the age of 90, she returned to Kansas City for one of her final public appearances. To a packed room, she recalled stories of working with Walt. She jitterbugged, she reenacted her favorite episode of the “Alice Comedies,” where she was a cowgirl, and she strode around the room with her hands at her hips ready to draw her pistols at a moment’s notice. She had the audience laughing, applauding, and hanging onto every word. She may have left show business over 60 years ago, but show business never left her. She is truly missed, and will forever be known as Walt’s very first star.

The entire Thank You Walt Disney, Inc. staff wishes to extend its condolences to the friends and family of Virginia Davis during their time of sorrow.

On Saturday, May 30, 2009, over 100 Walt Disney fans gathered at the Screenland Theatre Building to celebrate the progress made thus far in the effort to preserve and restore the site of Walt Disney’s first professional film studio in Kansas City, Missouri. Our special Guest of Honor for the evening was Virginia Davis, who starred in Walt’s last cartoon made in Kansas City and his first series made in Hollywood, the Alice Comedies. Virginia turned 90 on New Year’s Eve, but she still has wonderful memories of her work with Walt Disney, both in Kansas City and in Los Angeles.

She gave a very entertaining presentation recalling her work with Walt and her later film work in movies like Three on a Match and The Harvey Girls with Judy Garland. She talked about her lifelong relationship with Walt and the fact that she returned to the Disney Studio as an adult to work in the Ink and Paint Department and to do occasional film work as well.  She demonstrated her jitterbug technique which Walt once asked her to do to inspire his artists for a segment in the Disney film, Melody Time.

A live auction followed Virginia’s presentation and, including the silent auction which took place throughout the evening, nearly $9,000 was received.  The total overhead is still being calculated, but it is clear that Thank You Walt Disney, Inc. had a very successful event and we are in the process of planning future similar events.

On a typical Saturday morning, four unknown artists gathered together at the corner of 31st and Forrest to create some cartoon characters. While this story could have started 87 years ago with some young men named Walt Disney, Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising, this story actually takes place on May 2, 2009. Lead by Lon Davis, a Kansas City Art Institute alumni, Josh Zink, Brandon Waltman and Steven Norris all worked together to recreate a mural along the side of the original Laugh-O-gram Studio. In roughly six and a half hours, the once white boards covering the windows, were transformed into a black and white painting influenced by drawings created by Walt Disney himself.

“The design itself was inspired by the self portrait that Walt drew and later used as his logo while working out of this building,” explains Lon. “The image of a frantic cartoonist trying to create the next drawing before the previous one hits the floor. Multiple papers are flying off his drawing table, each with a different cartoon on them. This image has only been seen on a letterhead from the Disney archives and was roughly one inch tall. We enlarged that logo to roughly twelve feet tall, and then expanded the design to the length of the building, approximately ninety feet.”

The painting wasn’t the only project for the day. Betsy Blodgett headed up a small team of volunteers that helped clean up the grounds, and remove weeds from the landscaping. Barry Morris organized all of the media contacts and helped bring awareness not only to the neighborhood, but to the entire Kansas City metro area by getting news coverage of the event on every local station. Brian Price, Project Manager, helped keep everything on task and on schedule. He worked with the neighborhood Home Depot to get wood and supplies to the location to make this event a success.

Dan Viets, TYWD’s President, helped with the news coverage by handling interviews and answering any questions about the building, the organization, and the history of Walt Disney in Kansas City. It was a team effort by so many people dedicating their time and talents.

While this is just the first step in enhancing the exterior of the building, the hope is to show that there is real progress in the revitalization of this historic building. The top floor windows will soon be covered with 18 banners created by nationally known artists thanking Walt Disney in their own unique way.

“Bringing this logo back to its original location seems fitting,” replies Lon. “It’s as if Walt himself is looking over his original animation studio, and making sure everything is done to his liking.” Walt was never one to rest on his laurels, and neither will we.