Monday, February 16, 2009

Wonderful World of Disney Anniversary

As I celebrate the 35th Anniversary of my first visit to Walt Disney World, I recall an NBC TV special that aired around the same time as my second visit to the Orlando theme park.
This spectacular two-hour retrospective of Disney's primetime anthology show aired on September 13, 1978 and was hosted by popular ABC stars Ron Howard and Suzanne Somers and featured an array of guests from all over the dial. I love how they decided to list characters (both live action and animated) among the "guests". Oddly Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck didn't seem to rate enough to be featured in the ad - yet Old Yeller did. Seeing this ad makes me long for both the glory days of TV Guide and the network TV retrospective special. These type of clip shows became the standard back in the 1970s and continued to a lesser degree into the 1980s and 1990s. It seems like today PBS is the only outlet for such programs (like the recent MAKE 'EM LAUGH), and that truly saddens me. Oh well - what can you do? I'm off to the Magic Kingdom now!

No comments: