Day 16 - 31: Disney, Bradbury, and The Halloween Tree

October 31, 2023

Dear Disney,

Happy Halloween!

Darling and I routinely talk about what our posts are going to be about. Sometimes in general terms and others in specific. Sometimes topics are near and dear to one of us more than another. This is one of those topics.

When I was a young lad, I grew up very poor. I fled my circumstances by diving into imaginative worlds and far-off places. Disney helped me do this in the form of its visual media, but others helped in the form of their written words, the like of Tolkien, Jordan, and Lackey.

In 1993, I found something that crossed the lines of visual and written format, the 1993 Hannah-Barbara adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree. A story about friendship and history, The Halloween Tree adaptation inspired me to find the original book.

I read it, loved it, and devoured Bradbury’s other works, short stories and novels alike. He was amazing.

You may be wondering why, in a letter about Disney, do I brink up another creator with works from another studio?

Ray Bradbury and Walt Disney were friends, as Mr. Bradbury states in an interview on how they met:

“It was 1964…I was Christmas shopping and I saw a man coming toward me, loaded with Christmas presents. I said, ‘That’s Walt Disney!’ I rushed up to him and said, ‘Mr. Disney?’ He said, ‘Yes?’ I said, ‘I’m Ray Bradbury, and I love your movies.’ He said, ‘Ray Bradbury! I know your books.’ I said, ‘Thank God!’ And he said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Because I’d like to take you to lunch sometime.’ And Walt said, ‘Tomorrow?’ Isn’t that beautiful? Not, ‘Next month.’ Or, ‘Someday.’ Tomorrow. Walt was spontaneous. The next day, I met him at his office and we had lunch—soup and sandwiches on an old card table. I told him how much I loved Disneyland, and he was thrilled to hear it.”

Over soup and sandwiches, a lifelong friendship arose, if you can believe Mr. Bradbury. From that meeting, Bradbury and Disney began the conversation regarding his new Florida project, Disneyworld. They discussed how some things never die. In the interview, Mr. Bradbury talks about how Disney was talking about the 1965 World’s Fair, but, in hindsight, I wonder if Disney didn’t have an inkling about his own mortality as he would be deceased within the next two years.

Mr. Bradbury, already a fan of Disneyland, love the idea of Disneyworld. He called it a “Schweitzer’s centrifuge,” named for Albert Schweitzer who once said, “Do something wonderful; people may imitate it.” A Schweitzer’s centrifuge is a place where you can spin a person imagination in such a way that it inspires them, ignites their curiosity, and creates within them a desire build brand-new worlds and dreams.

Disney and Bradbury continued working with each, throwing ideas and concepts back and forth, with imagineers, writers, and artists, until the day Disney passed.

After Disney passed, Bradbury was asked to help with Epcot’s design, specifically Spaceship Earth, where he wrote and narrated the original script.

Over the next thirty years, Bradbury would routinely talk with imagineers about the direction the parks were going. He would offer advice and thoughts, never requesting payment. During the opening of Disneyland Paris (Euro-Disneyland) in 1992, Tomorrowland was dedicated to the minds of science fiction authors Jules Verne and Ray Bradbury.

Lastly, in 2007, the oak tree outside of Frontierland, across from the shooting gallery, was decorated with hand-drawn Jack-o-lantern’s in celebration to the final realization of Ray Bradbury’s Halloween Tree. Bradbury himself was there to ignite the tree in one fell switch.

According to Brad Kaye, Creative Entertainment art director at Disneyland, “For the first year, Tony Baxter, Kim Irvine, and I sat in front of the Golden Horseshoe late one night and ‘magic-markered’ all the pumpkins.”

On June 5th, 2012, Rad Bradbury died at the age of 91.

In 1981, at the 10-year anniversary, Mr. Bradbury wrote, “We rarely think that just one man can shake and move a history of ideas and the world that grows from them. But let us think the unthinkable.”

Disney and Bradbury are linked, intrinsically, in my mind, and on this Halloween I hope you enjoy your own Halloween Tree.

Till next time,

Sincerely yours,

Jim Dear and Darling