What Makes a Disney Legend? with Author Jamie Hecker

Synergy loves company. We have this coterie of rich franchises. The company now that people want to engage with. I came here to try and continue what Walt Disney and his associates set in motion 50 years ago, which is to experiment with every new and innovative, innovative kind of entertainment possible. It's what they hope to do here.

To really develop something that's more than an entertainment enterprise.

It's something that contributes many other ways.

Hey, this is Synergy Love's company, where we explore how Disney connects to everything. I'm Eric, and thank you so much for dropping by because today's episode is going to be legendary. Last fall, I ran an arc of episodes about the series only murders in the building. I love that show, and it's superstar studded. And the core cast, the recurring characters, the seasonal guest stars, are a who's who of big name movie stars, a listers. But only murders in the building is a streaming, exclusive tv show on Disney's Hulu. Not only does the show itself have a connection to Disney, but each of the core casts, Selena Gomez, Martin Short, and Steve Martin, have major personal connections to the Disney company. The episodes I produced for Synergy Loves Company were called only Legend in the series. Maybe you listened to them. There's an episode for each star. If you didn't, go ahead and give them a listen after this. Of course, my miniseries was a spoof on the true crime mystery podcasts like the one in the show. And by the end, I revealed that the answer, spoiler alert, only Steve Martin is a Disney legend. But for me, the questions were just beginning. Steve Martin had the longest relationship with Disney, that's for sure. But both Selena Gomez and Martin Short had actually each worked on more Disney projects than Steve. So it really got me thinking, what makes a Disney legend? So today, keeping me company and helping me answer my Disney Legends question is the guy who literally wrote the book on Disney Legends, Jamie Hecker. Jamie, welcome to the show. I'm so glad you could join me today. Yeah, thank you, Eric.

That was a great introduction. And that's. It just reminded me, yes, Martin short did the narration of the Canada film at Epcot. Steve Martin, influenced by Wally Bogue, performed at the Disney Magic shop. He talks about that in his recent two part documentary, which is on Apple tv. Different brand, but he does name drop his Disney ties.

Nice. No, I'm going to have to take a look at that. I haven't watched it yet, so that'll be an exciting one to add to my list.

Yeah, please do.

Yeah. So just like you said, like, just off the top of your head, you could list some Martin short connections with Disney. And it just kind of hit me when I made those episodes. Like, why is he not one? But Steve Martin is when actually, if you, if you go back and look at what they've done, Steve Martin, actually, Disney did more for Steve Martin than Steve Martin did for Disney. Where Martin short, to be the composite there, he did a lot more for Disney than Disney did for him.

Right. You raised a great question, especially to follow up on your last episode, talking about different studios producing content for other studios, you get into some nebulous gray area. So I'm trying to recollect father of the bride. Was that under a Disney banner?

That, that was a touchstone. And they're both in that. Steve Martin and Martin short.

Exactly. Exactly. So. Right. That, that popped into my head. And help me out with Selena Gomez.

How is, so she got her start on Wizards of Waverly Place, which was a Disney Channel show. She did a bunch of Disney Channel original movies. She had a pretty long running record contract with Hollywood Records, which is Disney's record label. So, like, for a long number of years, everything she did was basically Disney.

Okay, well, I know a little bit more. Yeah, there's, you know, the Disney brand is separate from the Disney company. The company has so many divisions and layers within division. So, yeah, you start to, to filter out who has worked where, has done credit, under what banner, under what project. It becomes a daunting task in some regards to identify lifetime achievements for the company. Small but significant contributions to the company. The Disney legends on Reeves. There's a mix of both types of and everything in between.

So let's let, yeah, let's get into our Disney legend conversation here. So you've written about Disney Legends for a pretty long time in celebrations magazine, and you recently compiled a bunch of your articles into a book called Disney Makers of Magic, volume one.

That's correct. And you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that volume two is around the corner.

Coming soon.

Yeah. So this is the magazine that I write for. It's a quarterly magazine. Used to be six issues a year. Now it's down to four. But, you know, great photos, great crew of writers. I'm really proud to be part of this organization, Disney company. It's a century old. We just celebrated the, that festivity. So there's plenty of history, plenty of individuals, plenty of groundbreaking technology triumphs branching out into new venues. And you realize that there are a lot of men, mostly men, some women, who are up have done significant contributions that they've been called legends. And so I started writing about them over ten years ago as a regular column for the magazine. And my first feature was on. And I'm always delicate with how to pronounce this, because I'm always sure I'm getting it wrong. It's ub iwerks, or it's Ub iwerks. I'm not sure.

I usually go with ub, so I'll go. I'm good with that.

So I think he is. You know, clearly, Walt was the creative visionary. Roy was the CFO for lack, although the term may not have existed then. He really made sure that the company could prosper. And Oobus was really fundamental in those first few Mickey Mouse shorts. So I worked with Walt until about 1930 or so, then he left to form his own studio, eventually returned to Walt Disney, at the time known as Walt Disney Productions, not as an animator, but as an optical wizard. He became a lens and camera technician guru. A lot of the optical effects you see in films, you credit to ubaiworks the 360 cameras that were featured in Circle vision or circarama, you credit ubiworks. So I started with Ub iwerks, and I have. Fortunately, my editor really gives me latitude on who I select and who I write about. I have done, 80% of them have been about individuals. Some of them have been composite articles. I did one on Pixar legends.

Okay.

I did one on supporting cast of Mary Poppins. I did one on Mark and Alice Davis. So the difficulty with those, in hindsight, is that you kind of got to give short shrift to each person. So going forward, unless circumstances dictate, I'm always going to just choose one individual.

Nice.

For the summer issue coming out, I have written about Disney artist and story board, artist, animator, and storyboard artist Joe Grant. So going back to the 1930s and forties, that's the joy is really reaching back to company history. Long before I was aware of the company, long before my time. And you really learn a lot.

Definitely.

That's a quick summary. So we were talking offline about, you know, your, everyone has like a, like an entry point into Disney fandom.

Yeah.

And so for me, I came of age in, in the mid seventies during a very fallow period for Disney animation and live action. I would say what really hooked me was the wonderful world of Disney. And they would have this opening montage sequence of sights and sounds from the studio, from Walt, from Disneyland and Disney World. You would see the monorail entering the contemporary resort, you would see the volcano pool, the original volcano pool at the polynesian. And I'm like, in the late seventies, this is like nirvana to me. I need to see this place. And so my first trip, family trip, we went to 1979, visited the park multiple times. And so I've seen firsthand so many changes at the Magic Kingdom. A few years later, our March high school marching band, we went to Miami for the Orange bowl parade. And afterwards, we went up for New Year's Eve, December of 82, to be at epcot. And on New Year's Day, we marched in the magic kingdom's afternoon parade.

Nice.

So I've got these youth ties to early Walt Disney world history, and then, so I sort of became a kid again when we had our kids. So, like, let's go to Disney. So snake bit. I got hooked, and I wanted to learn more. And it is something that. It's been a passion, an avocation of mine, and it eventually led me to writing, writing general articles and then my columns about legends and then into books.

Nice. So, yeah, so it's coming full circle. You were able to write about a lot of legends and then compile those into that, into that book with the second volume coming soon. So as you've written about so many Disney legends, some that you've probably even got to experience their movies and things like that since going back to your childhood and throughout, how would you describe, like, what is that? What's the award? Who's it for? And what does that honor include? Just kind of in general, what's that award?

A great question. So Disney is one of the few companies, maybe the only company that I can think of, that has this honor system within its. Within its corporate boundaries, certainly think of the NBA, the NFL, have all stars. So what defines a Disney legend is sort of an open. It's a. Each person may have their own interpretation. My first answer is an overall lifetime body of work. I will look at composers Richard and Robert Sherman, who are Disney legends. Everyone knows them from Mary Poppins, but clearly they've done stuff before and after. You know, they did some musical scores for Epcot in the eighties. You look at Disney's nine old men. These were the core character animators. Walt's go to men, all men, of course. And they may not be household names to Disney fans, but some of them are Mark Davis, wonderful animator. He's known as Disney's ladies man because he did Tinkerbell, Cruella DeVille, Cinderella, all these wonderful female characters. He made the unique pivot over to wed industries, which is now imagineering. And he finished his. He switched from animating to three dimensional animating. Walt says, go ride the frontiers. You know, the mine train through Wonderland. Give it a ride. Watch it. Tell me what it needs. Let's. Let's plus it up. Mark gave him feedback. Well, the creators need to be doing funny things and this and that. And he got the same assignment. Ride the jungle cruise. What? We need a repeatability factor. What's. What's it missing? And that's where he, you know, the. The famous scene of the. The, um, the explorers climbing the pole to get away from the rhino, the elephant bath scene. That's all Mark's input. Yes, the ride has been plussed over the years as well, but Mark has a sharp eye for an instant read. He did concept sketches for pirates. And you're in a boat, which is going past these scenes on your left and right, and you have to, as an, as a visitor, you have to be able to read it immediately, understand what's going on. Mark was very skilled at that. And, you know, the town mayor, poor Carlos, being dunked in the well, there's so much going on in that scene. You're focusing perhaps just on the well. What you're not seeing is his wife opening the cupboards or the shutters of her, of her second floor room. And then the, what used to be the by a bride scene. You've got action on both sides of the riverbank, and you might be looking left and you're missing something on the right. Mark says to Walt, I'm sorry. I put too much detail in there. I think I overwhelmed us. Walt's like, no, this is great. They're going to ride it again over and over. So, so that, you know, Mark has his uncanny knack for being able to kind of crystallize a humor scene. You know, he'll draw it in two dimension, and then it's rendered in 3d with animatronics and set designers and show builders. Alice Davis, his wife, Alice Davis, in her own right, is worthy of a digital Disney legend because she did. Some of her major contributions were the costumes for it's a small world and the costumes on Pirates of the Caribbean. She likes to joke, I went from dolls to dirty old men. So, circling back to your question, what's the definition of a Disney legend? It's an individual who makes a significant impact to the company. And some of them may have had a very, very small time at the studio, but their impact resonates beyond their time. My example, I think it's going to be in volume two. Tyrus Wong. He and his father emigrated from China, left behind his mother and family to San Francisco in the early 20th century. His father, he and his father eventually relocated to Los Angeles. He was very, Tyrus was very skilled with the art. Chinese art of water brush, watercolor had a knack for understated scenery. Long story short, he was the art director for Bambi. He was hired at the studio. His talents were immediately recognized. Bambi is in production had been put off for a while because of. They needed more time to refine. How do we animate accurately animal characters instead of humans? So Bambi had a longer gestation period. Tyrus work, he did a lot of the background, background scenery, which inspired the artwork. He didn't stay with the studio much longer than that, but that was a milestone contribution to the company in terms of defining the Disney animation look and feel. So that's the other end of the spectrum. His tenure was relatively short, but his impact was oversized.

Nice. Yeah, it is a wide spectrum of what maybe they, they put who gets put into there and what exactly they provided to the company. But what would you say? Maybe, like, how did this award get started? Let me ask you that.

Yeah. Well, let's go to the word of the day, synergy, because CEO Michael Eisner.

Yes, he's one of my favorites, I got to say.

Mine, too. The early Eisner era.

Right, right. Of course.

Synergy was his buzzword. How do we. We're a company with different channels, different vehicles, different marketing opportunities. Well, sometime between 84 and 87, the Shaggy dog was rebooted. So what the Disney company did was like, okay, let's make a ceremony. We're going to name Fred McMurray a Disney legend. We're going to do a handprint ceremony, and this is going to be our way of sort of kickstarting the promotion for our new release of the Shaggy dog. And the idea stuck. So Disney has unwittingly, Eisner, with his synergy, has opened up a new program. And so it becomes in, this was 87, because I'm glancing down on my book here. No legends were named in 1988. But in 1989, the program continued in grand fashion, inducting all of Walt's nine old men. And so ten individuals were named in 1989. Roy E. Disney. I believe when he was with the company, he was the chair of the selection or nomination committee, along with, presumably other members of the marketing pr. I'm guessing from 1989 to 99, it was an annual event. Some of them were unique. One year it was a eurocentric cast because they were honoring the opening of then what was then Disneyland Paris. Since the D 23 organization stood up. And they have the biannual Expo. The legends ceremony is a public event handled at each expo. That's. That's an amazing ceremony because they really, they don't announce it until a few months prior, as. So it's every other year, which I think is the right amount of time. That was one question we had, we had talked about, is it too frequent, too infrequent? I think two years apart is ideal as long as you have enough individuals that really cover the spectrum of the company, because it is Bedrock foundation is animation. It still does animation, but that's not as live action films. We're now in the world of television and streaming. We've got recording, you've got Hyperion Press, a book imprint. You have these acquisitions that we'll talk about, I'm sure, because as Pixar and Marvel and Lucasfilm have joined the Disney company, it kind of opens a gray area of how are these individuals recognized for their pre acquisition achievements? Yeah, some people have, you know, like, really stern feelings, like, no, they really should only honor it for what they've done during the Disney era. Others will say, no, I mean, Star Wars Lucasfilm was acquired, but it's been in the Parks Star tours. So the argument is it's not really a clear delineated line to say, okay, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, George Lucas, they were certainly viable and reasonable legends because of their interactions with the Disney company long before the acquisition of Lucasfilm.

And that's. Yeah, that's a good question, because as I think I've noticed that more especially as, like you pointed out, with the D 23 inductions, it does seem to be a lot more and more of those, of those acquisitions. So you kind of got into it a little bit, but I'm going to ask it outright. Is the honor becoming diluted at all with all of those expanding Disney properties?

I think it is, but not to a detrimental effect. 2006, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm followed. The Fox library has followed. It's hard to say what maybe, you know, there's a treasure trove of individuals and talent in that Fox film library. So you raise a very good question, and I will do a shameless plug here for my, my first book.

Yeah.

Walt goes to Washington finding Disney in DC. One of these stories. I had trouble determining if I could, if it was really a stretch to put it in the book or not. I'll quick summarize the film Argo features a fictitious movie being filmed based on true events. And there's one scene in the movie where they're discussing movie storyboards, and the lead character, Robert Mendez, is talking to this unnamed individual who was sketching these scenes. What that was based on was the real life event of animator Jack Kirby. He did storyboard sketches for this film treatment that never got picked up. Well, Jack Kirby went on to work for Marvel, creates famous characters like Captain America, worked on the Fantastic Four, fantastic body of work. He's within the Marvel community. He's a household name right there next to Stan Lee. I struggled. I'm like, do I include him in this Disney centric book? Yeah, he works. Worked for Marvel. Marvel owns Disney. Is that enough of a connection? And the reason I ultimately said yes was because he's been named a Disney legend.

Okay. Yeah.

So it does raise the question, where's the line of Marvel and Pixar and Lucasfilm individuals pre acquisition? I don't have that answer. I think everyone will have an opinion. So, yeah, to answer your question, are these acquisitions diluting the process? I think in the near term, yes. In the long term, probably not. I think Disney, as a century old company, is just going to keep growing in different ways that we probably can't conceive of right now. And there will be many individuals who come and go who make contributions for all we know. In the field of technology, we look to animators and story artists, and there may be some technical wizards in the R and D labs at WDI who are worthy of this title that we just don't know about them because we don't see their work. Or maybe we do. We just don't have a name that goes with it.

Yeah, that reminded me of that just as you're talking about that. Like, a Lanny smooth type person who just got inducted into the inventors hall of fame.

Yes.

So he's one that I. You know, maybe he's one of those. One of those names that I didn't know before those news articles came out. But now he's here on our minds, right?

He is. Yeah. I listen to a variety of Disney podcasts. One of them tracks patents that wed Disney Enterprises. That's the. The technical arm of the company that they apply for. And one of them was talked about a tactile, moving floor. And then when I read about the Lanny story, like, okay, now I see where that patent connects to. So you're right. That is a name that now is a household name because very few exceptions, artists, animators imagineers aren't really allowed to put their name on the work. As Marty Sklar used to say, the only name on the company is Walt's name. So, you know.

Yeah. Been talking about those kind of original. You mentioned Fred McMurray as the original Disney legend. And then that next year, with the ten being inducted, out of all of those Disney legends that you have research written about over the years, who would you say are probably the most deserving of that title? Disney Legend.

So you posed this to me beforehand. We've already talked about. He's on my list. Mark Davis. I will add John Hench, okay, to that list. He was also, like Mark, an animator. He did some amazing special effects work for Fantasia. You know, that was a breakthrough film. It was. It was a financial bust at first. But in terms of elevating the status of the company, elevating an art form of animation, it has since, you know, people know about it because, hey, how many 1940 films do you still talk about today? But John Hench was involved in that. He, too, pivoted over to wedding. I'm much more comfortable calling it wed. It just flows off the tongue easier than WDI. So he is one of those gifted. I'll call it a renaissance mindset. He thinks bigger than the scope and scale of things. As a visual artist, he has color palette ideas that refine and shape what he's designing. There's a quip that when he was designing the american adventure pavilion for Epcot, there's a printout of the schematic. He points to the bricks. They're going to be this color, this mid tier is going to be this color. And this is a perfect example of reverse force perspective. It's actually a three story building designed to look like two. So he, to help achieve the illusion, knowing its north south, east west placement, he picks shades of white that will help accentuate the illusion of the building size. And you look down at his notes, and it's stunning that he's. That, you know, it's like playing a game of chess with someone who's ten steps ahead of you. He's aware of a visual appearance, of how it's going to look and how you need to go about achieving it. There's. There's a quip that somebody said to him, like, oh, let's just paint it white. And he replies, I have 47 shades of white in my color palette, you know, or something to that effect. So he takes design very seriously. But, so, yeah, you talk about who I view. Mark Davis, John Henge. I would say the Sherman brothers, I think, for their contributions, Roy Disney. I think everyone has an aha moment or a pinch me moment that's related to Disney. For me, it happened with this book I had, when you're a solo writer, you got to wear the research hat, the writing hat, the marketing hat, the sales hat, all of it. So I'm on Facebook advertising my group. I'm on a variety of Disney groups, historical groups, and I mentioned it there, and I get a comment about it. And the writer asks, is ex atencio featured Xavier extensio? I said, yes, he is. He's in this volume one. He was an animator who pivoted to wed, as, of all things, a songwriter and a story artist. Talk about Walt knowing the talents of his personnel and where they could excel. So it wasn't until a day or two later that I go back and look at this comment. It's from a lady whose last name is Atencio. So I dm her. I happen to notice your name. He goes, are you related? He goes, yes, I am the daughter of Exitencio. I'm like, oh, my gosh. So I mailed, I said, let me mail you a complimentary book. She goes, I've already ordered one. Send one to my daughter because she works at the Burbank studio, and she says hi to her grandfather every day because his hand prints are there at legends plus. And so she sends me a photo of herself holding my book in front of exitencio's plaque at the Disney Legends Plaza. I'm like, oh, my God. This is a pinch me moment right here. I have transcended this listless level of breaking the fourth wall, so to speak. So that was one of the beautiful moments of serendipity that I did not expect when I rolled this article out. So I'm grateful for the opportunity that others, Disney fans and Disney family can enjoy this.

Nice. Yeah. And so as you're talking about these books, that the impact it had even on, on X's family, that that is a really cool story and that you keep, I'm happy to hear that you have plans to keep them going. You have the other one you're going to be finishing up and releasing soon. And then the, you know, even you said going into the future, and I want to kind of go into the future of Disney legends right here.

Okay, let's go there.

Yeah. Disney released their list for this year's d 23, and they have a kind of a long, diverse list in what we were talking about with all those different acquisitions included in that list. So out of that list, and I'm not going to read through the whole list, but I'll probably link to it in the show notes if you wanted to see the complete list. But out of all that list for this year, who's the ones that are shining stars to you, that stick out to you, maybe you want to write about for that third edition.

This is the easiest question to answer. Joe Rohde. You talk about an individual who put in a 40 year career at Imagineering, and his impact to the company cannot be understated. He was hired during the early rush for wed, when they were ramping up, were developing Epcot. We're developing Tokyo Disneyland. We need bodies here at 1401 Flower Street, WDI headquarters. And he was a stage director, or he was working at a high school as a theater, um, either a director or a set builder. He was. He was definitely in the theatrical realm. And one of the students who went to that school, his father was a Disney executive or an imagineer. He says, you know your work, it's good. I know where you can be right now. And so he made the pivot to wed. He said his early work there was doing model building, which he said, this is not my skill set. I did the best I could. He was working in the Mexico pavilion. He eventually worked on the Norway Pavilion. Captain Eo I believe he had some involvement in. However, after Epcot opens, there's a glut of imagineers. There's a reduction in forces. Joe had the moxie and the talent to rise above the rest. I've heard him state that he was paired with another imagineer, sort of a mentor mentee relationship, and that person was not good at public speaking. And so while Joe was great with working with him one on one, when it came time to present the work, Joe was the natural speaker and can explain in English and common language terms what the project was, what they're working on. And so suddenly, he's getting noticed. He stays with a company. Eisner again, wants to get some development. He's tired of losing customers after hours to other Orlando sites. So the concept of Pleasure island at downtown, what was then downtown Disney is created, and you've got nightclubs, comedy club, dance clubs, and one of the most amazing things that Disney ever did. And today, they would not do this, but they created the Adventurers Club. This totally open concept notion that it's 1937, New Year's Eve, it's new member induction night. That's why we're all there. We see some of the regulars who are a variety of actors who can play different roles. It's 50 50, scripted in improv. The room, mostly tiered room. It's not like you're riding on haunted mansion where the doom buggy can pivot you in a certain direction so you don't see the black wall behind you. You're in a three dimensional building. There's artwork and knickknacks and items and artifacts all over the walls. And these were as Joe had a hand in this, not singularly, but he was part of the team that developed it. You know, they went to the, the flea market that, at the Rose bowl, and they would buy these, anything that looked like it came from the thirties. They would write, typewrite up scripts or notes for photos, and they would run it through coffee stains or tea stains to give it a sepia look. C. McNair Wilson was also very involved. If you ever read him or follow his work, he can talk about it. But the Avengers club, it was just brilliant. But that wasn't Joe. That was not his lasting contribution. You look at Animal Kingdom this when the Disney decade was announced by Eisner in 1990, Animal Kingdom, a fifth, a fourth gate, wasn't even on the list. Joe had been approached by Eisner, given seed money to form a small exploratory team to devise how Disney could incorporate an animal centric park wasn't a guarantee. So for five years, job and his team fleshed out, what's it going to be about? What are our themes? What do we know? What do we don't know? They learned very early on they had to have some conservation experts on board, zoology experts. Short story long, the park was not official until 1995. So it was five years in development and it may have been cut right then down there, but it was publicly announced. Groundbreaking took place in August of 1995 and opened up Earth Day 1998. So I have written about Joe and the creation of animal Kingdom in the space of my Legends column. And my thought processes was by the time I get around to publishing this, he'll be a legend. So, yes, I've already written about Joe.

Oh, nice.

It's just a mind boggling that what he does, because he says, I'm not an engineer, I'm not, I don't understand the widgets. I can explain the picture. I know what I want. I know who to talk to to make that happen. He's like the creative executive on these big projects. He knows the nuts and bolts of financing, funding, timelines. You have to be mindful of that if you're going to keep your job. But his overall bodywork is so deserving of this award, and I'm thrilled to learn that he's coming back to wed in a limited capacity. I understand he's gonna be like a teaching a masterclass series. So that is the first name that jumped out to me like, yes, this definitely beyond worthy. I'm looking at the list and one name that I saw that I had like, oh, my gosh. This makes total sense. Why was this not done before? John Williams, one of the most prolific composers in Hollywood, notably for working with Spielberg and Lucas, the entire Star wars franchise. Close encounters, Jaws. Yes. Disney is part of his vocabulary. He is very worthy. I'm going to peek forward at my list here. Harrison Ford, another great choice of his Star wars and Lucasfilm. I think it's safe to say that, yeah, although those are acquisitions, the Indiana Jones stunt show is spectacular. Hey, we're paying homage to the originator of that character, Miley Cyrus. Okay. Appeals to a different generation. It's not a cup of tea, but she has certainly made a contribution to the company. Frank Oz. So we know him as the voice and puppetry of Yoda. Before that, Miss Piggy Muppets. Since then, he's gone on to a wonderful career of directing and other producing. But he directed this wonderful special. It's on Hulu. I think it's still on Hulu. Disney owned Disney. Related yeah, it's a show called in and of itself about Mark Delgado, who is a storyteller, illusionist, card trick player. They filmed about five or six nights in a row of the show. Frank Oz. I was the director of this, so that caught me when I saw that. I'm pleased with this year's list of nominees. Yeah, I think marketing and print has more influence than maybe some of the, some other departments, but it's Disney's a company that has to keep its brand alive, keep its image in the public eye, and I think it's the right blend. I will not be there for the D 23 event, but I would love to be there to see Joe on stage.

Oh, for sure. And that's going back to what you said about it, is marketing and they maybe have a big pull in it. I didn't really realize it as much until we were talking and you talked about Fred McMurray and that was kind of that synergy moment, that marketing moment. So it was, in a way, birthed out of marketing.

Precisely. And it's like they afterwards, like we've got something here. It's like, Fred. He's not the only historical icon we have in the company. There's others. So thus began the Disney Legends program.

Yeah. So keeping this eye on the future with you, writing these articles for the foreseeable future, our new inductees, I got to ask the question kind of like the who do you wish would be listed and named as a Disney legend? I know I have a list of at least one that I'm really adamant about and then even some more and just kind of who's been snubbed, who should probably have it already, but doesn't, especially when we looked at the list, you know?

Yeah, I don't know if I would necessarily say snubbed, but I think the individuals I jotted down are worthy in the five to ten year range. Okay, maybe sooner, maybe later. My first thought, especially when we talked about the acquisitions, I'm focusing on all the creative executives who have dual hats, somebody who has to say, answer to the C suite at Burbank, and also be a showrunner, be a film director, kind of keep things running and smoothly. So I'm looking at Jennifer Lee with Disney animation, known for Frozen and Frozen, two up at Pixar, you have Pete Docter, a film director in his own right, who was elevated to the chief creative officer up there, Lucasfilm. I like the names Dave Filoni for what he's done with the, the Mandalorian. Kathleen Kennedy may or may not be a household name, but she was George Lucas's right hand person for a long time. She really is the connective tissue that goes back to George. Jon Favreau has already been named a Disney legend, but he's doing work with Lucasfilm and Kevin Feige. Feige with Marvel, I think holding together the continuity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in different phases and even how it branched out into ABC had the agent Carter series, and then on Disney, you had the Loki series. So he really has control of the big picture of what's going on in the MCU. So I think those creative executives will get their due. It's just a matter of win.

Right?

In terms of other categories, who are the contemporary voice artists that really stand out? Bill Farmer as goofy. He's already a Disney legend. Not perhaps a household name, but a household voice. Jim Cummings, who has been with the company for decades, he, when they rebooted the Winnie the Pooh films, he can do both Tigger and Pooh with precision. Sterling Holloway, the original voice of Pooh, such a mellifluous voice. And Jim Cummings really captures the essence of that. And for those Epcot aficionados who, who pine for illuminations, the opening narrator, Jim Cummings.

Nice.

So those, I think I will lump him into that category of eventually deserving a legend. The next composer, very prolific, wide body of work in the past couple of decades is Michael Giacchino. He has collaborated with ABC Productions, alias and lost. He did the score for all six seasons. He did rogue one. He's done a handful of Pixar films, Ratatouille up, and the first two that come to mind. So those two individuals should get that honor down the road. And when I think about imagineers, there's always one or two that are left off, or one or two that Disney purist fans, pure, it's not the word, but Disney, you know, history buffs and fans will gnash their teeth like, oh, they should have. So you look at Tom Fitzgerald, one of the key contributors to Epcot Center. Tom Fitzgerald and George McGuinness is another classic imagineer who's involved with Epcot center, passed away in 2017, but a lot of contributions to the early concepts. George McGuinness caught the attention of wed because he designed, I dont know if this is for a college project or an invention competition, but he developed a underground transit system that subway cars or rail cars could actually not have to come to a complete stop to let passengers on and off. It was a case where passengers would preload into, like, a sidecar. As the train approached the station, it would rotate into the car, and then passengers getting off would rotate off to the platform, and they would separate, and the train would continue on. And imagineering saw this and says, wow, you've got an imagineering mind. We're hiring you. So that is another name who should eventually be named a Disney legend. That's what I have. What are your thoughts?

So, yeah, no, I have one. I have, like, the burning one that I'm always, always bothered by. And it's specifically because someone else is a Disney legend, and this guy is not. And that's Tom Hanks. Oh, Tom Hanks is not a Disney legend. He's played Walt Disney.

Yes.

There's very few movies that have been filmed in Disneyland itself. Legally, we'll say, and his movie, that thing you do is one of them. So there's another thing there. He's done so much splash. If we go back to splash. Touchdown. The first big touchdown.

Yeah.

So he's not, but Tim Allen is.

Yeah.

So when you got Buzz and Woody. And Woody's not. But Buzz is that always kind of bothers me. And that one, I will say, is a snub.

But I agree with you that. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. My first thought was saving Mister Banks, and then you raised. Yeah. His production company, Playtown Records, got the work with Disney to film.

Yeah.

Yeah. Tom Hanks. That is a huge oversight.

And I just. Oh, he played Geppetto more recently, too, in the live action Pinocchio. So he's still doing stuff with Disney. And then it makes me wonder, like, what is then the thing? Like, I don't even know if you have any insight into it also, but, like, what is the thing that has left him off the list? Like, you know, when it comes to people like that, is there something, some reason why they haven't?

But that is a fabulous question. And I'll say on the counterpoint to that, and I don't say this with any malice, but one year, all the Disney princesses were honored simultaneously. It was the voice artists. Some princesses have done one movie, one role. They get named the Disney legend because they portrayed a princess. Not taking that away from them. No, they've earned it. But when you. When you throw out some of these other names, like Tom Hanks, I don't know why that didn't hit my radar. Yeah, you're right. There is. There's a question of, are they saving it for, like, a special 40th anniversary of Toy Story? I don't know.

Yeah.

30Th. I don't know, 1995 to a 2025. Maybe they'll do it then. Yeah. But, you know, Tim Allen, to his credit, has also done ABC television, so. Yeah, it's. I would love to be a fly in the wall in those meeting rooms when they discuss potential candidates.

For sure. Yeah, that's just my, that's the one that I always have is, like, my really burning one. Just. And it's mostly because of the buzzwoody, Tim Allen Tom Hanks buddy roles that, you know, and it's like, you know, they both did a lot, so why.

Is it only one?

Yeah, but, yeah, so we, we talked a lot about Disney Legends, which I, like you shared a lot of great stories about some individuals that gave us the. Gave us a little bit more insight into who is a Disney legend? What does that title hold? So, like, let's go back to that big question that I wanted to answer at the beginning. What makes a Disney legend? How do you think you could maybe summarize that? What makes a Disney legend question for me.

Yeah. So when you boil it down, it's. There's there's two answers that come to mind. One, do you see this person and immediately identify them with Disney? Or two, did this person make contributions to the Disney company that you immediately associate with Disney? Ub, we've talked about him. The classic scene from Mary Poppins, live action. Burt is dancing with animated penguins. And it's not just a two dimensional dancing. He's lifting his feet. The penguins are scooting in between. And ub came up with that technical process, the traveling mat process. Mind blowing. So, yeah, when you say, you know, Mary Poppins, jolly holiday with you, Bert, it's like, okay, that's Disney. Those people in that scene, those animators, the technicians, the actors, I can recognize those as Disney legends. They may not have a face always or name. They may not be on screen, they may be behind screen. Um, uh, the director, Mary Poppins, uh, not a household name, but he's a Disney legend. Um, he was a reliable film director for a lot of the live action in the fifties and sixties. Yeah, Robert Stevenson, a very prolific film director. You wouldn't necessarily know that he's Disney, but you know his Disney products, and so therefore he gets the nod. He's worthy. So not everyone who contributes to Disney is on screen or has a forward facing role in the parks or resorts, but what they design and build does. So you may not know the name, but you know his body of work. And so what becomes who is deserving? It's really as if you can see that person's work directly or indirectly, and say, yeah, that's Disney, and I like it.

Yeah, no, that's a good point. Even looking back at someone like Miley Cyrus, when you look at her early work, it's. That's Disney, you know what I mean? So I think that maybe is the determining factor. I really do appreciate that because different.

Generations will resonate with her. I know some of the people on the writing team grew up, and to them, the nineties were their formative years. The Disney afternoon channel, Disney afternoon, and dark wing duck and all that, I didn't experience that. That's somebody else's entry into Disney fandom, and that's their, their touchstone. That's great. Everyone has their own moment that they hold on to, and that resonates with them. And so really, if, if somebody is part of that creation that resonates, then, yeah, they're certainly in the discussion for our Disney legend status.

Definitely. Well, yeah. Thank you so much for helping me kind of discover what makes a Disney legend. I think we had a great conversation I know I enjoyed it a lot. And maybe someone listening probably wants to learn more about Disney legends and your writing. So where can we find out all about all of the cool stuff you do online? Your writing, your photography, your books, your magazine articles, all of it. Where can we find you?

Thank you. I will direct you to two websites and then I'll branch off from there. First is jamieheckerwriter.com. I have links to my books that you can buy. My first book and this current edition, volume one, you can get it on Amazon print format, Kindle format. It's also I rolled it out into Apple books. I've got Kindle nook on my radar. My other website is kmffhotography.com. KmF keep moving forward. That was Walt's motto with his approach to the growth of the company. That's been my personal motto. I've had health challenges, so I'm just telling myself, don't look back, look forward. So you'll see my photos out there. And a lot of them are Disney related. A lot of them are just travel related. I've been editing a boatload of photos from my March trip. I will get them posted eventually. I am on Instagram, not terribly active. KMF photog and Jamie Hecker, writer that's a that's it. I really encourage folks to check out those books and check out celebrations magazine, celebrations press.com quarterly magazine. They release occasionally special edition books. This is what the magazine publisher Tim Foster put together. This is the 100th anniversary of the company and he's got more books in the works. And spoiler alert, I took some photos for the books.

Awesome. Well, there you go. Go look up Jamie online and all those cool things that he's working on. And to you. Thank you for listening to this episode. It's been a great time catching up with Jamie hecker to talk all about Disney Legends. And I got a lot more Disney to explore. So I still have to tell you more about my spring break trips. So make sure that you click subscribe and follow in your podcasting app so you don't miss it. If you're enjoying exploring the world through a Disney lens with me on Synergy Loves company, there are a few ways you can support the show. First, I'm on social media, Instagram, and Threadsynergy loves company. Next, if you know someone else who loves Disney just as much as you do, I'd love it if you'd share the show. Just tell them to visit synergylovescompany.com. We can make our community so much bigger, more connected. It'll be awesome. And remember, this show is listener supported. No sponsors. It's just you and me, and in this case, Jamie too. Today takes us a lot of time and resources to make these episodes of Synergy Loves company. There's hours of that going on behind the scenes and cost for hosting and distributing the episodes for you. So if you feel like you get value from the show and you want to give some back, you can donate on Ko Fi Kofi, you can make a donation to buy me a cup of coffee, help the show keep going, help it be hosted, and help me continue making more great episodes like this. So if you look in the show description or go to synergylovescompany.com comma, you'll find a link to my ko fi page and you could give back to the show to help it keep going. But no matter how you decide to support the show, your support means the world to me. So thank you. And that's all for today. Thanks for exploring Disney's connections with me. And until next time, keep discovering the magic in everything.