NEW BLOG!

Hey everyone! Check out me and Amy's new blog!!! It's called "Puppy and Friends Comic Blog!

Comics detailing the lives of Puppy...

...and his brother Snoopy...

...are coming your way soon!

Check it out Here!

WARNING FROM 1965

You have to read this warning from a radio commentator by the name of Paul Harvey in 1965. You can listen to the audio and the reaction by Glenn Beck Here, but I've copied the text for you below.

The audio is of Paul Harvey explaining how he would destroy us [America] if he were Satan…

“If I were the devil, I wouldn’t be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree—Thee. So I’d set about however necessary to take over the United States. I’d subvert the churches first—I would begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: “Do as you please.” “Do as you please.” To the young, I would whisper, “The Bible is a myth.” I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around. I would confide that what is bad is good, and what is good is “square”. And the old, I would teach to pray. I would teach them to pray after me, ‘Our Father, which art in Washington…’

And then I’d get organized. I’d educate authors on how to lurid literature exciting, so that anything else would appear dull and uninteresting. I’d threaten TV with dirtier movies and vice versa. I’d pedal narcotics to whom I could. I’d sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction. I’d tranquilize the rest with pills.

If I were the devil I’d soon have families that war with themselves, churches that war that themselves, and nations that war with themselves; until each in its turn was consumed. And with promises of higher ratings I’d have mesmerizing media fanning the flame. If I were the devil I would encourage schools to refine young intellects, and neglect to discipline emotions—just let those run wild, until before you knew it, you’d have to have drug sniffing dogs and metal detectors at every schoolhouse door.

Within a decade I’d have prisons overflowing, I’d have judges promoting pornography—soon I could evict God from the courthouse, and then the schoolhouse, and then from the houses of Congress. And in His own churches I would substitute psychology for religion, and deify science. I would lure priests and pastors into misusing boys and girls, and church money. If I were the devil I’d make the symbols of Easter an egg and the symbol of Christmas a bottle.

If I were the devil I’d take from those, and who have, and give to those wanted until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. What do you bet I could get whole states to promote gambling as the way to get rich? I would question against extremes and hard work, and Patriotism, and moral conduct. I would convince the young that marriage is old-fashioned, that swinging more fun, that what you see on the TV is the way to be. And thus I could undress you in public, and I could lure you into bed with diseases for which there is no cure. In other words, if I were to devil I’d keep on doing on what he’s doing. Paul Harvey, good day.”

45 YEARS OF PIRATES

Dead Men have been telling no tales for 45 years today.

Here's me and Emily at Pirates in 2010. Yo! Ho! Yo! Ho! A Pirates Life for Me!



CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE - REOPENING JUNE 15th

In case you haven't heard, Cars Land, and the new entrance to California Adventure, Buena Vista Street will be opening up on June 15th!

Once these open, it will mark the end of the extensive rennovation project that is Disney California Adventure.

3 months, 2 days, 1 big improvement! I'm so excited, I can't wait!

REMEMBERING ROBERT B. SHERMAN

Last Monday, (yes, it took me a week to get this post done) a Disney Legend passed away.

 

 

-Robert Bernard Sherman-

He and his brother Richard were personally hired songwriters for Walt Disney himself. Walt hired them after he heard their Top-10-hit song (sung by Annette Funicello) "Tall Paul".

 

They went on to write film songs for many classic Disney and non-Disney films, as well as many Disney theme park attractions during their lifetimes. Here is a list of film soundtracks they worked on together...

 

The Parent Trap, 1961

In Search of the Castaways, 1962

Summer Magic, 1963

The Sword in the Stone, 1963

Big Red, 1963

Mary Poppins, 1964

The Happiest Millionaire, 1967

The Jungle Book, 1967

The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band, 1968

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, 1968

The Aristocats, 1970

Bedknobs and Broomsticks, 1971

Snoopy, Come Home, 1972

Charlotte's Web, 1973

Tom Sawyer, 1973

Huckleberry Finn, 1974

The Slipper and the Rose, 1976

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, 1977

The Magic of Lassie, 1978

Magic Journeys, 1982

Winnie the Pooh and a Day For Eeyore, 1983

Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, 1992

The Mighty Kong, 1998

Winnie the Pooh: Seasons of Giving, 1999

The Tigger Movie, 2000

 

...a list of film screenplays...

 

A Symposium on Popular Songs (uncredited), 1962

Mary Poppins, 1964 (*treatment only, uncredited)

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 1973

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1974

The Slipper and the Rose, 1976

The Magic of Lassie, 1978

Blue Echoes, 1982 (*unproduced)

Ferdinand the Bull, 1986 (*TV screenplay)

Inkas the Ramferinkas, 2013 (announced)

 

...and a list of songs for Disney theme park attractions.

 

"There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" for Carousel of Progress

"Miracles from Molecules" for Adventure Thru Inner Space

"One Little Spark" for Journey Into Imagination

"it's a small world (after all)" for the 1964 New York World's Fair attraction, and then adapted to each Disney Park installation of it's a small world.

"The Astuter Computer Revue" for the 1982 premiere of the CommuniCore Exhibit at EPCOT.

"Magic Highways" for Rocket Rods

"Makin' Memories" for Magic Journeys

"The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room" for Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room

"We Meet the World with Love" and "Meet the World" for the same exhibit in Tokyo Disneyland

 

 

Bob was born on December 19th 1925 in New York City to Al and Rosa Sherman. His father Al was a famous tin-pan alley songwriter. According to Wikipedia, "Al Sherman... paid for Robert's hospital delivery costs with a royalty check that had arrived that day for the song "Save Your Sorrow". In his youth, he played the violin and the piano, painted and wrote poetry. he produced radio and stage programs during his high school years. Also from Wikipedia, "In 1943, Sherman obtained permission from his parents to join the army a year early, at age 17. In early April 1945, he led half a squad of men into Dachau concentration camp, the first Allied troops to enter the camp after it had been evacuated by the fleeing German military only hours earlier. On April 12, 1945, the day President Franklin D. Roosevelt died, Sherman was shot in the knee, forcing him to walk with a cane for the rest of his life. For his service to his country, he received two Battle Stars, a Combat Infantryman Badge, an American Campaign Medal, a World War II Victory Medal, a European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal and a Good Conduct Medal. In addition, Sherman was also awarded several Army Weapons Qualifications badges including a "Sharpshooter badge" with bars for both rifle and submachine gun; a "Marksman Badge" for carbine and an "Expert Badge" for rifle and grenade. During his recuperation in Taunton and Bournemouth in the UK, Sherman was awarded the Purple Heart medal."

 

(Bob on the left, and Dick on the right)

 

 

Wikipedia also says, "Sherman married Joyce Ruth Sasner on September 27, 1953. Joyce and Robert Sherman have four children: Laurie Shane, Jeffrey Craig, Andrea Tracy and Robert Jason. Joyce Sherman died on October 16, 2001."

 

(An impromptu appearance on Walt Disney's weekly television show. Really! Walt surprised them. See the clip Here!)

 

He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005 and in 2008, was awarded the national Medal of Arts with his brother Richard by President George W. Bush at the White House in 2008. 

 

 

 

In May 2009, a documentary made by Disney, "The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story"...

 

...of the lives of these two brothers, as well as a special edition CD set, "The Sherman Brothers Songbook" was released. Over at Disneyland, They were honored with a window on Main Street on the "20th Century Music Co." storefront.

 

 

(Dick and Mickey Mouse)

 

 

Bob was over in England, so he wasn't there to accept the honor.

  

For a list of his awards, see his Wikipedia article.

 

 

In the word's of his brother, “My brother Bob was a poetic soul with limitless imagination and talent. He was my loyal friend all through the years. We were fortunate to have been blessed by two great men, our key inspirations—our father, Al, who teamed us up and taught us the craft, and Walt Disney, who provided us with an opportunity to realize our greatest dreams. Bob will be lovingly missed by all of us in his family.”

 

 

He passed away at age 86 in London, England on March 5th 2012. (His full obituary can be read Here.)

 

Here is the official site for the Sherman Brothers. As well as the amazing official site for their documentary. See these articles for more information...

Disney Parks Blog article

Words by Walt's daughter Diane Disney Miller

Disneyland Live article

Brian Sibley Blog Post

Decidedly Disney Blog Post

Disney and More Blog Post

The Arts Desk article

PHOTOSHOP FUN!

This semester, I'm taking Adobe Photoshop. Here's some of what I've done so far!

Some of the first things I learned were to add patterns and replace colors in photos. Here's some examples...

(This guy's tie used to be a different color and didn't used to have a pattern)

(That blue rose used to be red)

For my first simple assignment, I had to add effects and a quote to a macro shot (close up) of a picture of something.

Here's the final product...

(I added that quote, put a circualr highlight around the beads of water, and then made the bead in the foreground a little bit brighter than the rest)

Next, I had to find a macro shot of a flower...

...and then add effects to it. I decided to zoom in and replace the color of the clouds and edges of the flower. I wasn't sure which color to use, so I just played around with the colors until I had something somewhat natural, yet cool looking. Here's how it turned out...

For my next assignment, I had to find pictures online of buildings/architecture that were shaped like letters in the alphabet to spell out my name. Here it is...

The last two projects were the funnest. Our teacher took our pictures...

(I was pretty tired that morning...)

...and told us to manipulate them however we wanted. I wasn't sure what to do at first, but here's what I ended up doing...

(I darkened my coat, turned my face and lips blue, my eyes red and my hair green)

Then, I cut myself out and put myself on this background. I decided since I chose the colors I chose, it would work best underwater somewhere.

Here's the final product...

For the last project so far, we had to create a holiday ad/poster. We each drew out a number on a piece of paper out of a hat to choose which holiday we would get. The person who got #1 would choose first from a list our teacher had and the #2 and so on. I had the perfect fortune of drawing about #37, which happened to be the last number in the class. By the time I got up there, all of the good holiday's were taken. (Christmas, Halloween, Easter, etc...) I was a little worried I'd get stuck with something wierd like "Ramadan", or "Chinese New Year" or something, but luckily "Grandparents Day" was available. It's not a BIG holiday, but I made it work.

The requirements were that we had to use a picture of ourselves, two other pictures of anything, a holiday title/date and a short description.

I decided that I'd use this one of myself and since I had Grandparents Day as my holiday, that I'd turn myself old.

Here's how it turned out...

(I would've gone a bit farther and made myself look older, but I only had time to change my hair white and make my face and lips paler.

For my other two pictures, I used my grandparents! (What an idea!)

I didn't use this last picture of Grandma however. I used this one.

(What do you think?)

Here's the final result!

Hope you liked my stuff! When I do more stuff, I'll do a future post with them! Until then...

NOBODY OWNS A CHURCH, NO ONE

Just how many "Happy Texts" are there?

In the 1960 Disney feature film "Pollyanna"...

(A Great Film by the way...)

...Pollyanna herself told Reverend Ford that there were 800 "Happy Texts" or glad passages in the Bible. Reverend Ford pondered her statement all night and went through and counted up the so-called "Happy Texts". He announced in his sermon the next day that he had counted exactly 826.

Watch the film clip Here or below...

(Sidenote: Is anyone as jealous as I am of Rev. Ford's sweet laptop computer up on the pulpit?)

Well, I wanted to see if this was true. Are there exactly 826 "Happy Texts"? Thanks to these wonderful modern times, I didn't have to stay up all night reading. I used a scripture search on LDS.org. Here are the results...

Bliss – 2

Enjoyment - 9

Celebrate - 16

Happy – 43

Happiness – 60

Delight – 103

Pleasure – 110

Glad – 139

Joy – 356

Rejoice – 404

Happy Texts Total: 1,242

Wow! They were waaaaay off. Although, the search I did did include the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price. Out of all of those, only 670 were from the Old and New Testament. Maybe I didn't search enough words.

"If God took the trouble to tell us 800 times to be glad and rejoice, He must have wanted us to do it."

-Pollyanna

"When you look for the bad in mankind expecting to find it, you surely will."

-Abraham Lincoln