Mary Blair's "It's a Small World"

Mary Blair's artwork and creative ideas for Disney are legendery.  She had a modernistic, more abstract vision that Walt Disney appreciated but was very different from the drawings in his animated films that are rounder, softer in town and cuter, in a different way.  Blair is so revered at Disney that she is lauded in a special section of Disneyland's museum area as a Creative Innovator.  She's in a hall of luminaries that includes astronauts, inventors, politicians, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney and others.

A chapter in my book, The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children's Literature, has a section critically analyzing a book recently published by Disney that uses Mary Blair's conceptual art for Disney's Alice in Wonderland film along with a text loosely adapted from Lewis Carroll's by children's author Jon Scieszka.  Here's a link to a presentation, with images, based on that chapter.

For this blog on our Disneyland trip, I am posting photos of the "It's a Small World" ride to show what it looked like during the Christmas 2010-2011 season.  The music had been changed to an amalgam of the original "Small World" tune along with Christmas carols.  The dolls and scenery within the ride had been decorated for Christmas to reflect the different culture's Christmas, or end of the year, celebrations. 

A panorama of "It's a Small World" at night

Floating along the front of the ride, while going into the ride buildingThe clock area where the dolls come out and walk around.

Floating into the ride during the day

The ride during the day. It's much whiter and doesn't have the same presence within the park as it does at night.

Inside the ride the colors are bright, the dolls look rather cute, slightly dated but still charming and over the top.

The music is constantly playing, a little like treacle. Note the poinsettias and other holiday decorations

Just happy to be in front of "It's a Small World"

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