Munich: “Disney 100” – an exhibition in the anniversary year – Munich

Walt Disney was very attached to his mouse. When the filmmaker wanted to make his new round-eared star of films like “Plane Crazy” big in 1928, many major film distributors demanded that he sold them Micky with all the rights. The 26-year-old artist, director and producer didn’t even think about it, he remained the sole mouse manager and preferred to show films like “Steamboat Willie” in small, independent cinemas.

Whether from economic foresight or paternal affection for his creature, in any case the devotion to his characters as well as later to the cheekier Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto, Minnie or Daisy is the basis for Disney’s world-famous life’s work. It’s all the little heroes and villains with whose quirks and everyday worries fans all over the world can identify to this day; no film and comic brand should be better known, no signature more widespread.

Walt Disney put his playful signet under a momentous contract on October 16, 1923. He finally sold twelve films of Alice in Cartoonland, his version of the classic Alice in Wonderland, to New York film distributor MJ Winkler. Although the art-loving son of a citrus farmer had previously made commercials and fairy tale cartoons in Kansas with his film company Lough-o-Gram, the Alice deal and move to Hollywood is considered the day the Walt Disney Company was founded.

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The first 100 years of the media group, which currently generates 75 billion dollars, will be celebrated in 2023. On the occasion of the anniversary, the Walt Disney Archives are also opening their archives, which have been preserving valuable objects from the company’s history for 50 years. After the world premiere in Philadelphia, “Disney 100” will be coming to Munich for the European premiere from April 18 for several months (for which, as with the long-awaited concerts, tickets are already on sale). In the Small Olympic Hall, the organizer Semmel Exhibitions will then set up an infotainment world of experience, as has been the case since 2014 for Tutankhamun’s tomb treasures, the “Magic City” street art show or the Star Wars universe. You can also immerse yourself in the latter with “Disney 100”, because Luke Skywalker and all Marvel heroes have long belonged to the corporate family. Visitors will be able to get an up-close look at Luke’s lightsaber, Captain America’s shield and other superhero helmets – all original movie props.

On 1500 square meters you will not only walk past showcases in which original screenplays, Disney letters, a Broadway mask from “The Lion King”, the costume of Elisabeth Swan from “Pirates of the Caribbean”, Cinderella’s glass slipper or Mary Poppins’ snow globe can be admired. There should also be immersive multimedia stations in ten galleries that explain everything and make it tangible. The largest exhibit is a one-ton Peter Pan parade float from Disneyland, Disney’s first theme park, opened in 1955 and most children’s dream destination.

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Of course, the Crown Jewels show also features original Walt Disney drawings and art, including some of Mickey Mouse’s earliest drawings and sketches for Steamboat Willie. How he then created quasi-living characters and brought them to the screen. Disney was resourceful like few others, always enthusiastic about innovations – he not only caused a sensation with the first full-length animated film (“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, 1937), he was also always at the forefront in the development of sound and color , such as the first Technicolor film “Of Flowers and Trees”, which brought him the first of a total of 26 Oscars in 1932.

Music has always been an immensely important means of expression and entertainment for Disney – watch again on YouTube how he lets Mickey play with a whole animal orchestra on the steamship. An interesting exhibit is an instrument invented specifically to create Tinker Bell’s fairy magic sound in “Peter Pan” (1953). “Fantasia” from 1940 is also legendary; a sensation at the time, not only as the first film in stereo sound, but the first animated revue based on the works of classical composers such as Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky and Beethoven – of course with a big entrance for the little mouse.

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That’s why the music from Disney films (which also includes everything from Pixar, but also nature documentaries such as “The Desert is Alive”) has also been a treasure trove for film-loving symphony orchestras for several years. The Hollywood Sound Orchestra is going on tour again in 2023 with a big screen, this time under the motto “Disney 100 – The Concert” (on April 22nd for example in the Olympiahalle). One of Disney’s masterpieces with an Oscar-winning soundtrack is to be experienced in January 2023 at the Deutsches Theater in Munich: “Beauty and the Beast” – a crowd favorite as a cartoon, but also in the real film adaptation with Emma Watson – comes as a musical with a 21-piece orchestra, Belle and the Beast. For once, Micky isn’t there, but the singing teapot is also lovely.

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Disney 100 – the exhibition, April 18 to September 3, Munich, Small Olympic Hall