You can visit the original 1920s sites of Walt Disney Studios, but today you won't find more than an unassuming single-family home and copy shop on Kingswell Avenue and a Gelson's parking lot on Hyperion Avenue. On the other hand, Disney's current-day Burbank studios are one of the only lots in the city that don't offer studio tours. Thankfully, there's a new photo-filled coffee table book to satiate your Disney history curiosity.
The newly released The Walt Disney Studios: A Lot to Remember traces the studios' 90-plus-year history with more than 200 behind-the-scenes photos and pieces of artwork from both the Eastside studios as well as the Burbank lot.
Photograph: Courtesy Disney Publishing Worldwide
Brothers Walt and Roy Disney started their first animation studio in 1923 in their uncle's Los Feliz garage, and a couple of months later set up shop in a storefront down the street. By 1926, they'd opened a proper complex in Silver Lake on Hyperion Avenue. It was there that Walt would create Mickey Mouse, the Silly Symphonies shorts and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. That pioneering piece of feature-length animation almost single-handedly funded the construction of the current studios in Burbank—quite literally alluded to on the campus's postmodern Team Disney building facade, which features those lovable squat sidekicks holding up the roof.
That 1940 campus—including its 1995 animation building expansion across the street—has since been responsible for more than 50 animated features and countless live action films and TV shows. The book explores the history of both the studios itself, with photos of construction and Walt planning his office, and the creative works it produced, including images of character studies for Peter Pan and prop preparation for Disneyland.
Photograph: Courtesy Disney Publishing Worldwide
As we mentioned above, the Walt Disney Studios are closed to the public; unless you befriend a Disney employee, you can only explore the space via occasional tours through the D23 fan club or as part of a six-day Adventures by Disney itinerary. We'll gladly take this behind-the-scenes book as a consolation.
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