Tim Callaway and Anthony Reynolds did a thing...five years after they did their last thing together. The Mouse Castle is back (sort of).

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EDITOR'S NOTE: After posting this interview with Denise Chamberlain, I was contacted by Mary Blair's niece, Maggie Richardson, contesting information in the interview. In an e-mail, Maggie told me Denise is not a blood relation of Mary Blair, never met her, and does not represent the Blair family. I contacted Denise for comment, and she confirmed her relationship to Mary was through Denise's uncle, who married Mary's niece, Jeanne, when Denise was a child. Denise still contends that when she was young, she met Mary at various parties and family functions, and still considers Mary her "great aunt," even if not by blood.

Not clarifying Denise's actual relationship to Mary Blair in the interview was an oversight on my part and I apologize for the confusion. Maggie has asked me to delete the podcast and all related materials due to the inaccuracies she is claiming. I have declined, 

What follows is the podcast's show notes as originally posted.

To say Denise Chamberlain has art in her blood…is a pretty accurate statement. Her great aunt, Mary Blair, is a Disney Legend whose distinct artistic style influenced classic Disney animated films like Cinderella, Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland as well as perhaps her most famous work, the Disney park attraction It’s a Small World.

Growing up, Denise got to know Aunt Mary and continues to feel her influence even now, 40 years after Mary’s death. Denise is a successful painter and muralist whose work can be seen throughout Colorado and via her website at MagicBrushArts.com. She joins us today to share stories about Mary Blair and talk about the impact art has had on her life. Denise Chamberlain is Tim's guest today in The Mouse Castle Lounge.

Enjoy!

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David Marley is a historian with a PhD from George Washington University, but that's not important today. What matters is for four years he was a Jungle Cruise skipper at Disneyland! In 2016, he wrote Skipper Stories: True Tales From Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise, which contains dozens of interviews with fellow skips past and present. It's an insightful and often very funny look at one of Disneyland’s most popular attractions. The book has proven so popular that volume two of Skipper Stories will be out later this year. David is going to share some of those stories with us today, so remain seated and keep your hands and arms inside the boat at all times. And don’t worry about that tiger that can jump over 20 feet. We’re 19 feet away—he’ll pass right over us. David Marley is Tim's guest today in The Mouse Castle Lounge.

Enjoy!

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Tammy Tuckey is living the dream. Tammy is a singer, actress and lifelong Disney fan who has just recorded and produced a musical album called You'll Find Me On Main Street. a collection of Tammy's favorite songs from Walt Disney World. It's an eclectic mix of tunes ranging from "Two Brothers" from The American Adventure to "Tomorrow's Child" from Spaceship Earth to "The Great Outdoors" from The County Bear Jamboree Vacation Hoedown. Tammy has a great voice and an obvious love of the material. The passion she brings to the project makes You'll Find Me On Main Street the Disney cover album you need to download right now.

Recording the album gave Tammy the opportunity to work with some of the original artists who created the songs for Disney. They include singer Ali Olmo ("Two Brothers"), fiddler Byron Berline ("The Great Outdoors") and the vocal group Sounds of Blackness ("Celebrate the Future Hand in Hand"). In The Mouse Castle Lounge today, Tammy talks with Tim about what it was like to make the album, what songs you can and can't get permission from Disney to record, and what it takes to get Bob Iger's attention.

Enjoy!

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The Mouse Castle Lounge is back! We’ve pulled the dust covers off the furniture and restocked the bar. And Tim is happy to welcome back a good friend of The Mouse Castle Lounge. He is a prolific author, especially when it comes to Disney history. His books include The Vault of Walt Series, The Secret Stories of Walt Disney World series, Who’s Afraid of the Song of the South and The Book of Mouse. His latest book is Call Me Walt: Everything You Never Knew About Walt Disney. Ladies and gentlemen of Team Mouse Castle, we’re back! So please welcome our guest, Jim Korkis, to The Mouse Castle Lounge.

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The Mouse Castle Lounge has been absent for a few months. Tim explains where he's been and what lies ahead.

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Comic-Con International kicks off Thursday in San Diego and I will be there along with Team Mouse Castle and about 150,000 of our closest nerdy friends as we pack the San Diego Convention Center. It will be my first visit ever to Comic-Con, and I'm super excited to finally be a part of all the craziness. I’m also super excited about my guest today, a gentleman who will co-host a presentation at Comic-Con at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday. He’s one of the previsualization supervisors with Halon Entertainment, Tefft Smith. Tefft will be joining visual effects editor Ed Marsh to present “Feed Your Head: The VFX of Alice Through the Looking Glass.”

Halon Entertainment is a visual effects studio in Southern California that specializes in motion picture previsualization—and what that is, I’m going to let Tefft explain. Halon has done effects work on an impressive list of films including Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jurassic World, Ghostbusters, Tomorrowland, and Birdman. Their most recent collaboration with Disney, Alice Through the Looking Glass was a visually stunning return to Wonderland, directed by James Bobin and starring Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska and Helena Bonham Carter. To tell us all about that experience, as well as his best advice on how to survive Comic-Con is Tefft Smith, my guest today in The Mouse Castle Lounge.

Enjoy!

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A few weeks ago, we previewed the Collecting Disney auction with Mike Van Eaton from Van Eaton Galleries. This past weekend, over 700 items of Disney history and memorabilia went under the hammer at this successful auction event. Two of those items were a sweater and a pair of mouse ears that belonged to Disney Legend Annette Funicello. Proceeds from the sale of those items went to benefit the Annette Funicello Research Fund for Neurological Diseases.

Annette founded the Research Fund in 1993 to research the cause, treatment and cure of Multiple Sclerosis and other neurological diseases. In 1987, Annette had been diagnosed with MS, a chronic and often debilitating disease that attacks the central nervous system. Annette had the most severe type of MS, which eventually left her unable to walk or to speak. In 2013, Annette passed away at the age of 70 from the complications of MS.

Her legacy, however, will always be that of an actress, singer and eternal Mouseketeer. At the age of 12, Annette was the last child cast for Walt Disney’s original Mickey Mouse Club TV series in 1955. Fueled by her talent, good looks and girl-next-door charm, Annette’s popularity quickly skyrocketed, and soon she was receiving more than 6,000 fan letters per month—an astounding figure in a pre-Internet age. She appeared in numerous other Disney TV and movie projects, including Zorro, The Shaggy Dog and Babes in Toyland.

In the mid-1960s, her Disney contract behind her, she appeared in a series of popular “Beach” movies with singer Frankie Avalon. In 1965, Annette married talent agent and casting director Jack Gilardi, gradually distancing herself from show business to raise a family. The couple divorced in 1981. In 1986, Annette married her long-time friend, rancher and horse-trainer Glen Holt, who I’m happy to say is with us today in the Lounge. Glen was married to Annette until her death and helped care for her throughout her illness. Theirs is a story of great love, friendship and courage in the face of adversity. Also joining us today is Dave Mason, the director of development with the Annette Funicello Research Fund. Prior to the Van Eaton Galleries Disney auction, the three of us talked about how Annette’s personal items are benefitting the Research Fund, but most importantly, we talked about Annette herself: her life, legacy and place as one of Disney’s most iconic stars. We’re remembering Annette Funicello today in The Mouse Castle Lounge.

Enjoy!

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It’s always a pleasure when Mike Van Eaton from Van Eaton Galleries drops by the Lounge, because that means he’s got some really cool Disney stuff up for auction. Today is no different. Now through June 17, you can visit Van Eaton Galleries in Sherman Oaks, California and see their Collecting Disney collection, over 700 items dating back to the earliest days of Mickey Mouse in the late 1920s. The collection includes over 40 years-worth of Walt Disney Studio related merchandise and collectibles. The items are priced for all budgets and tastes, so you can bid $50 on a vintage Sword in the Stone book all the way up to $60,000 for a complete set of studio office furniture. And there are plenty of other surprises in the collection, I guarantee. Of course, if you can’t make it to Sherman Oaks, you can still see the entire collection online at www.vegalleries.com. The entire collection goes up for auction on June 18.

Please welcome Mike Van Eaton, my guest today in The Mouse Castle Lounge.

The Mouse Castle Lounge has been nominated for a People’s Choice Podcast Award. And we are super excited about it, but we really need your support. People’s Choice means podcasting fans choose who wins, so you can show your support of The Mouse Castle Lounge by going to www.podcastawards.com and casting your vote for us the Society-Culture category. You can vote once per day every day now through June 12 and we would really appreciate it if you did. Thank you so much for being part of Team Mouse Castle.

Enjoy!

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Long before Walt Disney World opened--and later closed—an elaborately themed entertainment district, there was a Pleasure Island. Before Six Flags operated a hillside full of thrill rides in Southern California, there was a Magic Mountain. These theme parks were nothing like their contemporary namesakes and their lifespans were frustratingly short. But, along with their often-forgotten sister park, Freedomland in New York, they hold a special place in theme park history and provide a direct line connecting the game-changer that was Disneyland with Universal, Six Flags, Disney and other popular theme parks of today.

In March, historian Todd Pierce was my guest in the Lounge and he told us about C.V. Wood, the colorful entrepreneur who was instrumental in the design and development of Disneyland. My guest today, Robert McLaughlin, picks up where Todd left off. Because, after departing Disney, it was C.V. Wood and his company that designed the Disneyland-wannabe parks of Magic Mountain in Colorado, Pleasure Island near Boston and Freedomland in New York. They were ideas that looked great on paper, but fell short dramatically when it came to financing and attendance. They were pretty good for what they were, but they were no Disneyland.

Bob has written books about all three of these theme parks and his latest, Magic Mountain, was just released by Arcadia Publishing. Please welcome Bob McLaughlin, my guest today in The Mouse Castle Lounge.

Enjoy!

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