There are five main movie production studios in Los Angeles, and only four of them give studio tours: Warner Brothers, Paramount, Sony, and Universal. I'd visited them all (plus some smaller ones like the Fox lot, which didn't allow photos) except one—and the one holdout was the one that provides extremely limited public access.
Actually to be fair, I had visited the Disney Studios once about 15 years ago when I was looking for a job and had an informational interview with human resources on the lot. But a knew there was, in fact, a lot I had not seen.
There had been public tours in the past, but no more—so, the only way for me to get in as a regular person was to sign up for a gold-level membership to the Disney fan club, D23. (Walt Disney arrived in Hollywood in 1923, hence the name.)
Once a year, D23 Gold members can buy tickets for a 2.5-hour studio tour, which allows them to drive through the original entrance to the lot and take (almost) all the pictures they want.
If you get to the tour early, you can stop into the former studio commissary, now the Studio Store, which sells exclusive items not found elsewhere off the lot or online.
The tour meets by the Hyperion Bungalow, relocated from the former Hyperion Studio lot at 2719 Hyperion Avenue in Silverlake, Los Angeles (now a Gelson's grocery store). That's where Walt Disney and his team of animators created Mickey Mouse, as well as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs—a 1937 feature length film that was successful enough to help fund the purchase of the property and move to Burbank by 1940.
Much of the campus looks much like it did 85 years ago, with many original buildings and a few new additions mixed in.
Today's Sherman Brothers Stage recording studio used to be known as Stage A until it was renamed in honor of the famed Disney songwriters Robert and Richard Sherman in 2018.
It's right by the directional sign that points out the real, current location of Dopey Drive (although other destinations have moved). Created as a prop for a studio tour scene in the film The Reluctant Dragon (1941), it's stood there ever since.
It also helps mark Pluto's Corner, which features a bright red fire hydrant and some dog prints in the cement.
The old Animation Building (completed in 1939) still stands in its original location, although much of the current-day animation happens in a newer facility across Riverside Drive.
Beloved films like Dumbo, Peter Pan, Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp, and The Jungle Book were created and drawn here.
An exhibit called "Art of Disney's Animation" lines the walls of a hallway, showing visual development art, model sheets to show how a character should look (above), story sketches, layouts...
...and rough and clean-up animations of iconic characters from films like The Lion King (above).
Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie has a prominent place of honor in an intersection of hallways...
...and the Streamline Moderne architectural style that's throughout the lot can particularly be seen in the stairwells (one of which leads to an underground tunnel that connects the building to Ink and Paint, no photos allowed!).
Each doorway that leads to another corridor is emblazoned with a quote from Walt, like "Pictures speak the most universally understood language," "It's kind of fun to do the impossible," and "It seems to me we have a lot of story left to tell."
The pièce de résistance of the Animation Building—and maybe of the entire lot—is Walt's former office suite.
Located upstairs on the third floor in Suite 3H, the space has been used by a rotating cast of executives of the last several decades. In 2015, in commemoration of the studios' 75th anniversary, Disney Archives staff reproduced it exactly as it was when Walt passed away in December 1966, and in its original location. Detailed photos and an inventory were taken before it was dismantled and packed up in 1970.
The permanent exhibit starts with the Animator's Office and Walt's secretary's office/reception area, the gateway to the "inner sanctum."
That leads to Walt's formal office, where Norman Rockwell-drawn portraits of his daughters, Diane and Sharon, hang on the wall behind where Walt once sat at his formal desk.
The piano (above) also stands just as it did when Richard Sherman used to preview songs for Walt. When Disney would say "Play it," the composer knew to start playing "Feed the Birds" from Mary Poppins.
Walt had not one but two connected offices, including his "Working Office." This isn't the first time it's been publicly accessible—it was also recreated and on view (behind glass) at Disneyland in the 1970s.
This is the office where where Imagineers developed Disneyland and, judging by the circa 1966 aerial map, where they planned its expansions (New Orleans Square and The Haunted Mansion, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln after it relocated from the 1964/65 World's Fair). This was also ground zero for "The Florida Project" (Walt Disney World in Orlando, which opened in 1971).
Just off the Working Office is something really special: Walt's Kitchen, which, like a slice of Tomorrowland, is all electrified (including sliding pocket doors, the stove, and GE-designed illuminated cabinets). House of the Future anyone?
D23 could've filled an entire tour duration just in the Animation Building, but there was even more to see. So, we moved on to the Frank G. Wells Building, built in 1998 and named after a former Walt Disney Company president who died in a plane crash in 1994.
Inside on display are animation cameras that were rendered obsolete by the emergence of the Computer Animation Production System (CAPS) pioneered by Lucasfilm and PIXAR.
They show how the different layers of the multi-plane cameras worked to create an illusion of depth, with a reproduction of Robin Hood (1973) animation artwork from the Walt Disney Animation Research Library.
There's also a Walt Disney Archives office there, where items like an Audio-Animatronics Alice in Wonderland figure from Disneyland's Fantasyland (1984-2014, above) are catalogued and added to the collection.
An entire glass case is devoted to Donald Duck ephemera, like tin toys...
...packaging for consumer food products like "Cheese Quackers" (not pictured: Donald Duck Lime Cola)...
...and wearables (like swim goggles and a duck-billed hat).
The one building on the Disney lot that you can see from afar and evokes a certain "What the...?" response is the Team Disney building (essentially the corporate administrative headquarters), designed by architect and industrial designer Michael Graves. Completed in 1990, it's a Postmodern sandstone temple that's being held up by seven terra cotta dwarfs from Snow White, each standing 19 feet tall like classical Greek caryatids.
It's directly across from the Disney Legends Plaza, also added to the lot in 1998 and now anchored by a 2003 version of "Partners," the statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse that adorns Disney Parks (including Disneyland in Anaheim).
The sculpture "Sharing the Magic" is there, too, depicting Walt's brother Roy O. Disney sitting on a bench hand-in-hand with Minnie Mouse.
The Walt Disney Company has been honoring legends from Disney past and present since 1987 with a handprint ceremony. At first, the plaques were done Chinese Theatre-style, with handprints embedded in sidewalk panels outside of the screening room building on the lot.
But either there were too many for the space or the sidewalk tiles were too impermanent, so Disney began casting the handprints in bronze and hanging them up on the pillars of Legends Plaza.
There are now hundreds of plaques—from legendary performers like Fred MacMurray (the first to be inducted, in 1987), Angela Lansbury (1995), Elton John (2006), Robin Williams (2009), Miley Cyrus (2024) and many more.
Believe it or not, there's even more to see on the Disney Studios lot—including historic soundstages and the Ink & Paint department, which weren't available for viewing during our tour.
Maybe someday I'll be able to go back.
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The studio complex has change since I used to visit in 1955 and 1956 after serving my two years in the army while dad was busy writing various TV series including Andy Burnett, Johnny Tremain, Davy Crocket and the movie Westward Ho the Wagons. Dad, Tom Blackburn, spent a fair amount of time with Walt and around the studio while working. He was the one who discovered Fess Parker that Walt subsequently brought in for a screen test. After coming in the gate, was the automotive garage still there on the right? They serviced and repaired staff cars. While there, when the studio was ordering a fleet of cars dad added his name and he purchased a really big Lincoln for mom. In Walt's office and in other rooms dad pointed out to me oxygen outlets and other features needed in hospital rooms. In order for Walt to get a loan to build the studio it had to be built like a hospital so that St Joseph's Hospital across the road could take it over in case the load defaulted. A story very few know.
ReplyDeleteWas the garage by the original gate (pictured above with the brick sign)? That's the one I drove into (off of Buena Vista St., now known as the Buena Vista Gate), but I don't remember seeing it. That leads to a parking lot that's behind the big soundstages, which bear some advertisements for recent projects on them.
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