March 07 - Mickey’s Grand Opera is Released

Mar 07, 1936

Mickey’s Grand Opera is Released

There’s something a little bit ridiculous about Grand Opera anyway, but give the conductor’s baton to Mickey Mouse and make Clara Cluck and Donald Duck the stars of the show — as they are in Mickey’s Grand Opera — and you know this most highbrow of art forms is about to get a good-natured skewering — Disney style. Listening to Clara’s piercing clucks and Donald’s unintelligible garbling during their duet is the comic highpoint in a short full of them. And when a mischievous Pluto, at first engaged in dubious battle backstage with a magic hat, eventually finds his way onstage and adds his plaintive howl to the final throes of Clara’s and Donald’s off-key finale, the short ends on a perfect note. Mickey’s Grand Opera was directed by Wilfred Jackson, who was one of those inventive and industrious men Walt specialized in hiring. In his long Disney career, Jackson, who worked as a sequence director on 11 features from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Lady and the Tramp, also invented the bar sheet to coordinate animation action with the soundtrack. Jackson retired from Disney in 1961, and was honored as a Disney Legend posthumously in 1998.

1997

Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean reopens after being renovated.

Pirates Of The Caribbean Ride (HD Complete Experience) Front Seat

2008

In a ceremony prior to the park's opening, Disney Legend Bob Gurr receives a window on Disneyland's Main Street USA. Gurr's Disneyland designs include the Autopia, the Monorail, Omnimovers, and the Main Street Vehicles.

"All the school shop classes were my passion. Wood and metal shop taught me a lot about how to find the easiest way to build something. Skills that would make designing Disneyland Attractions so much simpler."

-Disney Legend Bob Gurr

2010

More than 13,000 runners take part in Disney's Princess Half Marathon at WDW. Gina Aalgaard Kelly of Lisbon, North Dakota wins the race in 1:23:58. The half marathon (originally designed for women - although more than 400 men participated this year) wraps up a weekend of events including the Princess and the Frog Family 5K, Disney’s Fit for a Princess Expo on women’s health and wellness, as well as seminars on training, racing and nutrition.