The Sons of Liberty

Walt Disney's Johnny Tremain, "The Sons of Liberty" (1957)


Not sure why, but this song popped into my head a couple days ago, even though I haven't heard it in over fifty years.  Funny thing about memory...even though the audio was pretty much as I remembered it, after viewing the video several times, I couldn't remember even a single frame of the video. Nothing looked familiar. I noticed the bad lip syncing of what sounded like a studio recording. I saw what looked like a Hollywood set instead of a real town. I noticed the close up of the girl, well lit and soft focused that screamed "love interest". I saw closeups of character actors who would likely play a prominent part in the upcoming show...things I probably wouldn't have noticed when I was seven, but not a single frame of the video was even vaguely familiar. Go figure.

"Love interest"

Hollywood Went to War

Our thirty third installment of Hollywood Went to War will feature not just one, but five individuals in two World Wars, each who served in his own way.


Jack Benny

Benny left show business briefly in 1917 to join the United States Navy during World War I, and often entertained the troops with his violin playing. One evening, his violin performance was booed by the troops, so with prompting from fellow sailor and actor Pat O'Brien, he ad-libbed his way out of the jam and left them laughing.

Claude Rains

Rains served in the First World War in the London Scottish Regiment, alongside fellow actors Basil Rathbone, Ronald Colman and Herbert Marshall. At one time, he was involved in a gas attack that left him nearly blind in one eye for the rest of his life.By the end of the war, he had risen from the rank of Private to that of Captain.

Bela Lugosi

During World War I, he served as an infantryman in the Austro-Hungarian Army from 1914-16. There he rose to the rank of captain in the ski patrol and was awarded the Wound Medal for wounds he suffered while serving on the Russian front.

Ronald Colman

While working as a clerk at the British Steamship Company in the City of London, he joined the London Scottish Regiment in 1909 as a Territorial Army soldier, and on being mobilised on the outbreak of the First World War, crossed the English Channel to France in September 1914 to take part in the fighting on the Western Front. On 31 October 1914, at the Battle of Messines, Colman was seriously wounded by shrapnel in his ankle, which gave him a limp that he would attempt to hide throughout the rest of his acting career. As a consequence, he was invalided out of the British Army in 1915.

Walt Disney

Disney dropped out of high school at the age of sixteen with a hope to join the army, but he was rejected for being under-age. Afterwards, Disney and a friend joined the Red Cross. He was soon sent to France for a year where he drove an ambulance, but only after the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918...

...1941, the US entered World War II. The US Army and Navy Bureau of Aeronautics contracted most of the Disney studio's facilities where the staff created training and instruction films for the military like Aircraft Carrier Landing Signals, home-front morale-boosting shorts such as Der Fuehrer's Face, which won an Academy Award, and the 1943 feature film Victory Through Air Power. Military films did not generate income, and the feature film Bambi underperformed on its release in April 1942...

Disney took up the work of making insignia for the soldiers as well. They were used to not only bring humor to military units but also be a way to boost morale. The first insignia was created as early as 1933 for a Naval Reserve Squadron stationed at Floyd Bennett Field in New York. Disney created his own insignia design unit... Together, these men created over 1200 unique insignia throughout the duration of World War II. All of the designs were created free-of-charge. "The insignia meant a lot to the men who were fighting ... I had to do it ... I owed it to them." said Disney

Gentlemen, we thank you for your service to your respective countries. Rest in Peace.

Steampunk Willie

Walt Disney meets Firefly:


Cross posted at LCR, Political Clown Parade

Dopey Does Disney

"Teleprompter on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?"

(Inspired by Blonde Sagacity)

Walt Disney Surrenders to Navy's SEAL Team 6

As a follow up to an earlier story, Disney is apparently waving the white flag before an onslaught of bad PR involving their attempt to co-opt the term "Navy's SEAL Team 6" under copyright law.

Less than a month after a daring raid on Osama bin Laden's secret hideout, the U.S. Navy's SEAL Team 6 notched a victory over the Magic Kingdom.

Walt Disney Co. said Wednesday that it would pull an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in which the entertainment giant sought the exclusive right to use the term "SEAL Team 6" on items ranging from toys and games to snow globes and Christmas stockings

Snow globes? You've got to be kidding me! "Oh, look, sweetie! It's snowing on the bullet riddled corpse of bin Laden! We'll take two!"

Disney withdrew the application "out of deference to the Navy," a spokesman said.

The move comes after comics and other critics ridiculed the Burbank, Calif., company for trying to profit off bin Laden's killing. Disney first made the claim two days after the world learned of the secret special-operations unit's daring mission into the al Qaeda leader's Pakistan compound.

"Putting a trademark on SEAL Team 6 is like copyrighting 'The guys who stormed the beach at Normandy,'" joked "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart last week. "It belongs to all of us."

Navy officers privately expressed relief Wednesday that the company had chosen voluntarily to retract its application, saving the organization from a long trademark battle.

Disney knew that once they had lost Stewart, they'd lost the war. Disney then withdrew to their pre-2011 copyright lines as a condition of the peace.
In return, I may need to give up my copyrighted use of Uncle Walt®, though I may lob an occasional rhetorical missile into the Land of Mouse as necessary.

Uncle Walt® is a registered trademark of Proof Positive blog. Any attempt by a large rodent like corporation to usurp this title or his likeness will be met by the full force of law. The crack attorney firm of Dewey, Cheatem and Howe has been retained to insure that copyright provisions are strictly adhered to.

H/T Memeorandum

Obama Not the Only One Trying to Profit From the Bravery of our Navy SEALs

In a stunning move of crass commercialism, The Walt Disney company wants you to buy "Seal Team 6" merchandise.

In a perfect example of a big media company looking to capitalize on current events, The Walt Disney Company has trademarked “Seal Team 6,” which also happens to be the name of the elite special forces team that killed Osama Bin Laden.

The trademark applications came on May 3rd, two days after the operation that killed Bin Laden… and two days after “Seal Team 6″ was included in thousands of news articles and TV programs focusing on the operation.

Disney’s trademark applications for “Seal Team 6″ cover clothing, footwear, headwear, toys, games and “entertainment and education services,” among other things.

I'm sorry, but doesn't that just strike you as wrong? The fact that they want to merchandise SEAL team logos as if they were mouse ears, is bad enough. But to try to deny anyone else from using what should be part of the public domain, without their permission, is just too unbelievable.

You have my permission to boycott all things Disney. Uncle Walt® would have wanted it that way!

Uncle Walt® is a registered trademark of Proof Positive blog. Any attempt by a large rodent like corporation to usurp this title or his likeness will be met by the full force of law. The crack attorney firm of Dewey, Cheatem and Howe has been retained to insure that copyright provisions are strictly adhered to.


As crass as this may be, Disney has it beat by a country mile!

H/T Memeorandum

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.