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Everyone just loves Disneyland; even Santa wants to visit! He has a lot of stops to make for Christmas, and he still has time to swing by the Happiest Place on Earth. That’s the premise of Santa Stops at Disneyland, the new Little Golden Book written by Ethan Reed. He developed the idea originally as a gift to his son, and it ultimately evolved into this cute holiday book.
Ethan is my guest on this episode of the Tomorrow Society Podcast to talk about his new book and how it came together. He originally appeared on Episode 140 to talk about his background and 22 years at Walt Disney Imagineering. This time, we chat about his interest in holidays at Disneyland and the Little Golden Books that inspired him. I love the idea that Santa and the Elves are bringing gifts to the residents of Disneyland like the pirates, Tiki birds, and even the ghosts of the Haunted Mansion.
We also discuss the upcoming TV series based on Duffy & Friends for Disney Plus given Ethan’s work on their creation. I’m interested to see if they become more popular in the U.S. after this stop-motion show premieres. Finally, Ethan recalls his memories of Disney Legend Alice Davis, who passed away this month. I really enjoyed the chance to talk again with Ethan and highly recommend his new book.
Show Notes: Santa Stops at Disneyland
Purchase a hardcover copy or the Kindle version of Santa Stops at Disneyland.
Follow Ethan Reed on Instagram.
Listen to Ethan’s appearances on the Tomorrow Society Podcast on Episodes 140 and 155.
Support The Tomorrow Society Podcast and buy me a Dole Whip!
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Transcript
Ethan Reed: I actually distinctly remember telling myself when I was getting back on the plane from finishing up Minnie’s Style Studio that, Ethan, you’ll finish this book when you retire, right? That it will be your retirement project. So I was like, okay. I was good with that, and I am like, well, it’ll be ready. It wasn’t ready for my kids, but it’ll be ready for my grandkids. So that was kind of where I was in my head.
Dan Heaton: That is Ethan Reed, and you’re listening to The Tomorrow Society Podcast.
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Dan Heaton: Hey there. We are back here for one more episode before Thanksgiving. Thanks for joining me here on Episode 184 of the Tomorrow Society Podcast. I am your host, Dan Heaton. My guest today is once again, Ethan Reed, who in the past has been on the show to talk about his work at Walt Disney Imagineering. This time is a bit different. We’re talking about his new Little Golden Book that he wrote and illustrated, Santa Stops at Disneyland. Super cute book that came out in September with the idea being that Santa and his elves arrive at Disneyland. They enjoy the rides there, they leave gifts for the Pirates and the ghosts, and also interact with Mickey and Winnie the Pooh and everything else.
Really cool. And if you’re familiar with the Little Golden Books, you know that style. So Ethan’s history with Disneyland is something that makes this a really fun book for the holidays, of course. We also talk about the upcoming Duffy and Friends TV series because Ethan was closely involved in the creation of those characters. And finally talk about Alice Davis, who recently passed away and Ethan’s experiences interacting with her given his fandom for old Disneyland, Marc and Alice Davis, and so much more. So let’s do this. Here is Ethan Reed.
(music)
Dan Heaton: Well, Ethan, it’s awesome to have you back again for third appearance. I’m really excited. Thanks so much for coming back on the podcast.
Ethan Reed: Thank you for having me, Dan. It’s great to be back.
Dan Heaton: Oh yeah, I’m excited. One, because I always enjoy talking with you, but two, because you have written and illustrated a book called Santa Stops at Disneyland, a Little Golden Book. It came out in September and I’m very excited about it. It’s very cool. I have a copy here. What got you interested in deciding you were going to write and illustrate a book?
Ethan Reed: It started as a Christmas present for my eldest son. So he was born in 2006. And it’s funny, it’s like there was lots of things that were going on. The Disneyland Gallery had contacted Walt Disney Imagineering and had asked, hey, do you have the concept artists and other artists at the company, would they be interested in doing art that could be sold at the galleries, the Disneyana store, and stuff like that on Main Street.
So I went to a meeting with Brian Crosby and Larry Nikolai, and both of them have sold tons of artwork at the galleries over the years. I was there and I was invited to this meeting and they’re like, oh, you can do some artwork. And it’s like, oh, it’s Disneyland and all that stuff. And it was probably around the holidays and I started, I went back and they basically were come up with some ideas and pitch them to us for artwork. So I can’t help but tell a story. It’s ingrained in me. I couldn’t just say, oh, I’m going to draw Mickey Mouse. I’m going to make him look like King Mickey or something like that.
I have to tell a story. And I think what it was my kids, my son. It’s like we were at Costco and there was this pack of Golden Books, and in the Golden Books there was a blank Golden Book. Basically Costco put this set together with Random House, and it was like, here’s five classic Disney storybooks and a blank one for your kid to draw in. So my son was an infant, he couldn’t draw yet, and he obviously wasn’t going to draw in it. So it was kind of like the combination of the two things. It’s like doing art for Disneyland, maybe it was like I could tell a story and then doing something with this blank golden book.
And I was just like, I need to do something for my son for his first Christmas. It’s like my wife, my mother, they are great seamstresses and artists in their own, they made things for him and it’s like, well, I’m going to make a book. So I just set out, I’m going to start this Golden Book. So I started by just doing little thumbnail skates sketches and taping them down in this blank Golden Book.
It was just slowly working on it. But I was inspired by this book called Santa’s Toy Shop that came out in the 1950s, and it was illustrated by Al Dempster. And Al Dempster was one of the great artists at the Walt Disney Studios. Did lots of backgrounds, I believe on Pinocchio. He was a friend of John Hench and he did multiple Golden Books, and a lot of the original Imagineers did Golden Books. Not that the listeners can see it, but you can see it. So there’s this one, which is Mickey goes Christmas shopping.
Dan Heaton: Nice.
Ethan Reed: And it was written by Annie North Bedford who did tons of the Golden Books as the writer, but the illustrations were done by Bob Moore and Xavier Atencio. So X Atencio, the guy who wrote Grim Grinning Ghosts and Yo Ho Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me). He illustrated a Golden Book, which I thought that was really cool. And of course John Hench famously did the illustrations for the, what was it, the Peter Pan Golden Book, and there was lots of connections there.
Then I was pretty close with Bill Justice after I first started at Imagineering, and he did Grandpa Bunny, which it’s not a Christmas story, it’s definitely an Easter story, but Dick Kessler and Bill Justice did all of the illustrations for it. And so it’s just like there’s something about the Golden Book and it just something aspirational to me about it. And it really growing up, my father would read us on Christmas Eve, he would read us, it was The Night before Christmas, and it was the Golden Book version, right.
Dan Heaton: Of course.
Ethan Reed: And then of course he’d read the chapter of the Bible where Linus talks about the real meaning of Christmas and the Christmas story, Charlie Brown, whatever, Charlie Brown, Christmas in the fields, watching their flocks, all that stuff, real Christmas. But my favorite was Santa’s Toy Shop, which was Al Dempster and just a beautiful book. So I decided I’m going to do this book in his style and just get it done for my son. But it takes time and it took a lot of time. And just as an artist, I mean at the time I was animating audio-animatronic figures full time.
The drawing that I would do was going to life drawing classes at the Disney Studio TV animation, would have life drawing classes, feature animation, would’ve life drawing classes. And I’d go to them as often as I could. And we had drawing classes at Imagineering as well. But it was finding time to get the work done, opening these attractions all around the world, and then keeping my drawing skills up through life, drawing classes, and then being a new dad, and then, oh, I have to do these illustrations. And just seeing how I grew as an artist. I started it in 2006. I finished it earlier this year.
Dan Heaton: Wow. Well, it looks great. It looks like I’m just like, wow. Ethan’s just his illustrations. I would never know where it came from or how it got there, but how did you ultimately land on having the story of Santa and the elves going to Disneyland and kind of making it almost like they’re guests, they’re decorating, but they’re also riding the rides like the Matterhorn. Because that’s one of my favorite things is just like, yeah, even Santa loves to go on the ride. He’s helping, but it’s not really about that.
Ethan Reed: It’s funny because I’m such a big Disney nerd. There’s this photo, I think it’s from the ‘60s. In the ‘60s, there was this giant star, this giant Christmas star that they would attach to the top of Matterhorn Mountain, and there was a foot, there’s a photo of Santa Claus standing on top of the Matterhorn waving down this helicopter that is dropping off this giant star. And I think that was probably in my head, a lot of Matterhorn references in the book. It’s like the first page in the big spread. There’s a Matterhorn, the last page, there’s a Matterhorn, you’ve got the elves and Santa riding the Matterhorn, you’ve got the Abdominal Snowman or Harold, whatever they like to call him now, sleeping in the Matterhorn.
I did include that Christmas tree star that used to be on the top because when they added, they kind of made him a hoarder. He collected different things. He’s kind of a collector now. So there’s that whole scene in the Matterhorn now. So it’s like, well, of course he hid it, where did that star go? Well, the Yeti, not the Yeti, the Abominable Snowman monster on the Matterhorn Mountain at Disneyland. He has it. Right. I think it was that, and just being in love with that Santa’s Toy Shop book. And I think wanting to challenge myself as an artist, it’s like, can I do something that looks like something that Al Dempster did?
Dan Heaton: Right. Well, you mentioned your fandom for Disneyland, which is all over this book. You can tell, I mean, there’s even little references like the candlelight processional on one page or just, and all the attractions. But I’m just curious for you how challenging it was to, because you have to really narrow it down. I mean, there’s not that many pages in this book. Was it tough to get all your ideas down in a compact kind of book designed ultimately for kids?
Ethan Reed: Yeah, I mean, it’s what, 23 pages? I mean, standard Golden Book format and all that. It was interesting because I just started with, I’ve got my notes here from years past. I mean, I would just start with thumbnail sketches, just I was planning a scene in animation. I would just sketch. And for the most part, almost every single thing is, so how it ended up in the book is very close to my initial sketch. I did different versions of it over time, and I would start again. But ultimately, I went back to the first idea, the first staging. And even there was some illustrations I had finished.
It was basically done when I pitched it to Disney. Some of them, after it became official, I would go in and adjust them and things like that. And nine times out of 10, it went back to my original idea. That’s just something I found as an artist that typically that first thought, that first initial thing that you came up with, that’s the purest thing. And it’s not overworked and you just, it’s important to do the exploration.
Dan Heaton: That’s interesting that it was there so early on. Another element that I like is that Santa isn’t just leaving decorations for the guests. Santa’s also giving gifts to the pirates and the ghosts and everyone else like that. They’re the residents of Disneyland. And I’m curious if that was an original idea or a big part of it from the start, because the easy thought would be, oh, Santa went to Disneyland, and now us as people that come in, get to enjoy that, but it actually seems like he’s mostly there for the characters or the inhabitants of the ride,
Ethan Reed: Right? Yeah, exactly mean, yeah. So there’s all the different Golden Books. I think I’ve mentioned a bunch of them, but another one of my favorites is Mickey Mouse and the Missing Mouseketeers, which it came out in, I think it was 1957 or something. Mine’s from 1978 when I was a kid. But I mean, it has Maleficent in it. It has all the villains. And Maleficent is like, this must be the release of Sleeping Beauty because Maleficent does not have the green tone skin. She has peach skin.
So it’s interesting because what I like about this story, this Mickey Mouse and the Missing Mouseketeers is they are in the park, but they’re all real. So that’s kind of where I was going with it. It’s like, yes, the pirates are all real. The ghosts in the Haunted Mansion, they’re all real. And Santa just visits.
Dan Heaton: It’s like he’s visiting their house. Not that it’s almost like you don’t even think of Disneyland really has a theme park. It’s just this cool place that Santa wants to visit.
Ethan Reed: Yeah, I mean, in Disneyland, it is kind of like a state of mind and all that stuff. It’s like if you grew up in the ‘50s, Walt Disney Presents was called Disneyland, and I remember when I was a kid, people would just call Disney movies Disneyland, which I think is probably one of the reasons why there’s still a castle in front of every single Disney film that’s released.
Dan Heaton: Well, yeah, and that’s the whole idea. I’m sure for a while before now, it was even Walt Disney World, people just would use the term Disneyland when it was one park that was just in their brain, the castle and the park. It was not just about that individual place. So I have an important question for you. This might be the most important question. I don’t believe that Hippo really likes fruitcake; I don’t think it’s possible. I think it’s untrue. Is it true? Does the hippo immediately take the fruitcake, feel bad, and then get rid of it?
Ethan Reed: I am a big fan of fruitcake. My grandma had the best fruitcake recipe probably because, and I found the recipe, and I think you can Google it like an old recipe from the ‘60s or something, but it was called Hoot and Holler Whiskey cake. So the fruit cake that my family had was full of liquor. I don’t know. So I never got the I hate fruitcake thing. So fruitcakes I always had were good. I just thought fruit cake, where the hippo was super fun. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it, but the Jingle Cruise.
Dan Heaton: I haven’t been on it. I haven’t been there during the holidays, but I’ve watched videos a few times.
Ethan Reed: But I think I had already sketched up the fruitcake gag for my book. And then when Jingle Cruise happened, which I think was 2010 or something like that, they had Fruitcakes at Disneyland floating in the water by the hippos. So I’m like, well, I got to keep that.
Dan Heaton: Well, the Hippo is so much friendlier now. They don’t have to shoot it anymore. They did when I was a kid. So it’s a much nicer hippo that enjoys the fruit cake, I guess.
Ethan Reed: Yeah, I mean, hippopotamuses are nice. There’s that song, “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas, so now we know what the Hippopotamus wants for Christmas, which is fruit cake.
Dan Heaton: Of course. Another thing I noticed you do have, you have Mickey and Pluto and Chip and Dale and everything, but it’s mostly, I mean, the characters that, and Winnie the Pooh, but the film characters are not as center. It’s more the attraction characters, which I like. And I’m curious, is that something that you were focusing on trying to spotlight that and then have them at the end? Or did it kind of vary as you were doing it?
Ethan Reed: I think it was like, what did my kids, because it percolated for a long time. My son, the book is dedicated to both my kids, Dylan and Noah. Dylan was my first born. His favorite attraction since he was little was the Winnie the Pooh attraction at Disneyland, which I worked on. So to this day, it’s still his favorite attraction. And his parents are the biggest Country Bear Jamboree fans on the planet.
So it’s like, okay, we like Winnie the Pooh too. And of course, who doesn’t love Winnie the Pooh? I mean, we all grew up on the movies. The attractions are, they’re all fun. They’re super fun. The one in Tokyo especially. But it was definitely, of course, I had to include Winnie the Pooh, and I mean, it was a book made for my kids, and it was just so anything that they were into Pluto.
Again, another one of my son’s favorite characters is going to Mickey’s House to meet Mickey. That was a big thing when my kids were small. So it’s capturing the things that they enjoyed about the parks and putting it in the book was the fun thing for me. And it’s even the Pirate, if you think about the pirate illustration, he goes into the Spooky Cave. I don’t show any of the pirates. I know when I was a kid, I was frightened by the pirates and the skeletons and stuff like that. Now, the pig parrot that Marc Davis designed had to include him. He’s fun. He’s cute. Everybody likes him. And I want to say my youngest son had a plush of the Pig Lake Parrot when he was a kid. So yeah, there’s little, a lot of it is personal, so it’s really a personal book.
Dan Heaton: Well, I think it’s cool though that it was something for your kids and still is that, but that then it ends up being something more, though. It took a while. I know. But getting it to be that way, your sons are older now. What do they think of the book now?
Ethan Reed: Oh, they love that I finished it, and that’s the thing about it. It’s like I kept working on it, and I would be lucky to get to an illustration every year, and it would basically be, okay, I’ve taken down the crazy Halloween decorations in the front of the house and I’ve put them all away and it’s like, oh, it’s almost Thanksgiving. Are we going to go home to the Bay Area or are we going to stay around this holiday season? And then it’s like, oh, I got to work on the book.
I would forget about it every year. It’s like I wouldn’t work on it in the summer or the spring, and it was like, oh, it’s getting close to the holidays. I need to work on the book. And typically what happened is I would get started again, and then it’s like, oh, I can draw better.
Oh, I don’t like what I did last year. I’m going to restart this whole illustration. And it was a lot of false starts, really. What ended up happening is typically when I was with Imagineering in January, I’d always have a business trip if it was flying to Tokyo Disneyland to install the Chandu animatronic figure into the Sinbad attraction or heading off to meet with the merchandising team about Duffy in Hong Kong. Right? It’s like I’d have these business trips, and they were always in January, so I’d be like, oh, I’m going to draw on the plane.
I’m going to work on my book on the plane. And I want to say, in 2019, I had this thought process like, oh, I’m on a business trip. I’ve got this 12-hour flight and I’ve got my iPad. I can draw on my iPad. I’ll work that way. And I was just going to work on my book. Basically what happened was I was asked by the head of Disney Publishing to help illustrate the cover for Marty’s posthumous book Journeys with Figment. So I was like, well, I can work on my book on the plane, or I can work on this cool Figment drawing. I love drawing Figment, and it’s going to be on an actual book. I’ll do that instead. I think that’s how I met the head of Disney Publishing was through all that stuff. So it was really fun.
Dan Heaton: When you were working on it, obviously this was something like you said you worked on periodically. Did you believe at some point it would be published as a book, or was this as much just a project for you to kind of improve how you illustrated and everything else?
Ethan Reed: It was really just a project to improve how I illustrated, and it was a project for my kids. So I mean, really what happened is the pandemic. It’s so early 2019, I’m flying to Tokyo and I’m drawing Figment for the cover of Marty’s book, which it was an honor. And then I get to Japan and Duffy meetings, all this cool stuff, working on Minnie’s Style Studio, checking out the Beauty and the Beast attraction, doing all the Imagineering.
And oh, in the evening I’ll work on my book. Didn’t get to. And then I ended up on another business trip in fall of 2019 and finishing up Minnie’s Style Studio. And I am like, I’m going to work on the book. I’m going to get the book done this Christmas. And I didn’t get any, it’s like a couple nights I was able to actually get away and go back to the hotel room and work on the illustrations. But I actually distinctly remember telling myself when I was getting back on the plane from finishing up Minnie’s Style Studio that, Ethan, you’ll finish this book when you retire, that it will be your retirement project.
So I was like, okay. I was good with that. And I’m like, well, it wasn’t ready for my kids, but it’ll be ready for my grandkids. So that was kind of where I was in my head. And then 2020 happened, and the world turned upside down. Projects were shut off, people were furloughed. I was furloughed. And then my wife basically said to me, Ethan, why don’t you work on your book? I’m like, oh, okay, because I’m furloughed. It’s like, of course they’re going to bring me back. Why wouldn’t they? So I just started working on the book. I’m going to finish this whole thing up. So took it all out.
I polished up the text, all that stuff, and it was going to be ready for my kids for Christmas of 2020, which it was, but it was funny. It’s like I was like, hey, this is looking really good. This is looking really, really good. And I was furloughed and it’s like, but I couldn’t pitch it to anyone at Disney because I was furloughed and I was still under contract. It was very complicated.
So I was not able to pitch it until after I was let go from the company. I want to say it was like two days, maybe two or three days after I was let go from the company, I pitched it and it was basically bought off. It’s like, oh, we’d love to do this. So I’m like, great. But the thing to me was I asked my children, I’m like, Dylan, Noah, are you okay with this? Which I made for you guys going out to the world? They’re like, yeah, that’s fine. Honestly, any money that I made from it went to my kids. It’s their college savings.
Dan Heaton: That seems fitting, given how it started. So I’m interested for you, did you go to Disneyland a lot during the holidays? Do you have a lot of memories of going to the parks then? And did that influence wanting to do this? Or was it more just the books themselves?
Ethan Reed: We went to Disneyland. We would typically go to Disneyland in January for Martin Luther King weekend. It was my sister’s birthday as well. So we had a nice three-day weekend. And back then, I mean, it was like January 18th, but they would still have Christmas decorations up in the park, but it wasn’t Christmas. They weren’t necessarily playing the Christmas background music, but you would have the garland on Main Street with the mousers that used to have all the way down Main Street.
That was always cool to me. And my favorite thing was the Country Bear Christmas show, which was written and directed by Michael Sprout and Dave Feiten, and just loved that show. And it was such a great show. So that definitely made an impact on me. And Steve Davidson and his team, they did the Small World Holiday, which again, I’m like, this is fantastic. I love this.
So I think as a kid, I knew there was Christmas at Disneyland and I had, there was this blue Disney book that my parents had was for the 25th anniversary of Disneyland. I remember there was this whole spread, and it was all about the Candlelight Processional. And I’m like, that looks amazing. That looks really cool. So I definitely always wanted to go during Christmas. I think we went around Thanksgiving of 1990 or something like that.
So that was the first time we experienced Disneyland at Christmas. And when my sister started going to USC, we would come down and we’d see the Christmas stuff. And of course, when I went to Cal Arts, I’d go all the time. So I have the Christmas Fantasy Parade soundtrack memorized in my head. So Disneyland’s always magical, but it’s more magical at Christmas.
Dan Heaton: I’ve been to Disney World around Christmas where we used to go when I was young, but I have not been to Disneyland at Christmas. But I would like to, I know I wish the Country Bears still had the Christmas, do they do it in Japan, which I never saw in person. I always saw the Vacation Hoedown. That was the one I always saw, which they don’t do here either, but still very, very cool. Well, I know recently you attended the Dapper Day Expo at the Disneyland Hotel, did a book signing, which I think sounds awesome. I mean recently, meaning last weekend from when we’re recording. So I’m curious somehow how that experience was for you to actually get out and have your book and have a signing or have people see you.
Ethan Reed: It was great. I mean, I hadn’t done anything like that, and I’m still a masker. I still wear my mask everywhere I go. It’s just how I am. So it was just had lots of hand sanitizer with me. But it was great to see fans face to face and get to sign books, and it was really good, really, really good. And Dapper Day is just a really fun event. It’s like you get to dress up and go to Disneyland.
We didn’t go into the park, but we did definitely hang out around the hotel and around the Dapper Day Expo. But really cool artists were there, really fun outfits. And my wife, in fact took some of my artwork from the Golden Book that I did and made a tie for Dapper Day for me, which was super fun. So yeah, it was great. It was great to get out there and get face-to-face with people.
Dan Heaton: And I’m sure, I mean, do you hope to be able to do, masks and everything else not withstanding, but be able to do maybe more signing somewhere if possible?
Ethan Reed: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. There’s all kinds of different bookstores in the LA area, so I’m sure there’ll be more. I’m hopeful there’ll be other things, so we’ll see. But I’m still very, I’m a total germophobe, so me getting out is a good thing.
Dan Heaton: Well, I understand. I’m pretty close to that too, even several years in, so I don’t disagree with that approach. But I’m curious now too. So you’ve published this book, it’s doing very well, we got the holidays, everything else now that, I know it took a while, but would you be interested, are you looking to do another Little Golden Book or be interested in illustrating a book? Or has this kind of created more of an interest in doing that more since you’re not with your current role, you might be not traveling as much, maybe you have more time?
Ethan Reed: Yeah, I mean, definitely. I have a bunch of books that were in process in my head and in sketch form and written out. So there are a few books that are definitely Golden Book fodder that is like, oh yeah, let’s do another Golden Book here and let’s do this. Right. I’ve got a bunch of ideas, but I also want to do some original stuff mean definitely it’s like one of my idols is Bill Peet and Bill Peet, gosh, he was a great storyboard artist, and he did all the storyboards for 101 Dalmatians.
He basically storyboarded that entire film, and he left the Walt Disney Studios, and then he became a children’s book author and a very famous one, and released all kinds of original stories and books based on his own characters. So definitely want to do that, but of course, I love playing in the Disney world.
Dan Heaton: That sounds awesome. Both because you were involved in creating characters or designing characters when you were at Disney, including Duffy and Friends, which I’m curious, I have not talked to you about this, that we learned recently that Duffy and Friends are going to have their own TV series on Disney Plus. I saw the stop motion video and everything else. So I’m curious, how does it feel for you? I mean, you were involved in creating these characters closely tied to them, and now they’re moving to this other medium, which I suspect is going to make them even more popular.
Ethan Reed: I think it’s great. I mean, that’s the thing. I was involved, it takes a long time for things to percolate at a large company like Disney. So I got to work on it for years, and I’ve excited to see it go forward. I believe it’s all going to be the stop motion, which is done by a studio called Stoopid Buddy Stoodios. They do Robot Chicken, I believe they also did, there was a M.O.D.O.K. show that’s on Hulu.
And so a lot of the stop motion shorts that have been released in the last few years have been done by Stoopid Buddy. So I would go over there, work with them, do some art direction animation notes too, because an animator at heart. So yeah, there are great studio. I’m expecting it to be really fun. So we’ll just see when it says character designs by, hopefully they remember me.
Dan Heaton: Well, hopefully this helps to remind people about that. I feel like Duffy is getting more popular. I mean, it’s always been popular overseas, but I don’t know; I have this feeling in the U.S. it would not shock me if they might start popping up more; I saw that one of them was at a Run Disney event recently, Duffy was, do you get that sense that people are getting more into the characters here, not just in Japan and in other countries?
Ethan Reed: I think they’re definitely getting more popular here. My kids, when they were small, they were totally into Duffy in the U.S. and I remember very well that they launched Duffy at the Disney Store in the U.S. outside of the park. And it was just Duffy. There was no ShellieMay; there was no Gelatoni, none of the stuff I worked on, and I don’t think it did well, but there was nothing behind it. There was not a Disney Plus series. So I think the smart move is doing the Disney Plus series and then slowly bringing it out.
You don’t have Disney Stores, but is this something that we’ll see a target in the future? Who knows? It’s like if you do a series like Duffy and Friends, it’s not just going to be something in the park. It’s going to have to break out of the park. You’re going to want it on toothbrushes, you’re going to want consumer products. Of course. And that’s what I do now. So who knows?
Dan Heaton: Well, I mean, I have a picture of with my daughter who’s now 13, I think she was two at Walt Disney World with Duffy, but we didn’t really, at the time, it was like, oh, there’s a character. Let’s take a picture. But it was before friends or anything. So like you said, it was very early on when they were pushing it during that window, but now it does feel really different, I think.
Ethan Reed: Yeah, I’m hoping like was, I think they did the Festival of the Arts at Epcot. I’m hoping that they bring them to Epcot because I think it’s a good fit. Gelatino’s from Mediterranean Harbor, I know a place that’s like that in Epcot, right? So it’s like there’s lots, I think you could get the characters to have homes in most of the pavilions there, but there needs to be content behind it and substantial, I believe. So a Disney Plus series is great.
Dan Heaton: Well, you mentioned your work now, which I know you’re a character artist, so I think you might’ve mentioned this a bit the last time you were on, but just what are you working on now?
Ethan Reed: I’m working on a, I work for this great company called Just Play, and they’re a toy company, and it’s fantastic. I mean, at the end of my career at Imagineering, my favorite part of my day was working on Duffy and Friends, which was toy design. So it really makes sense for me. So I’m working pretty much exclusively on a Disney line of toys. It’s called Disney Doorables, and I work with some really talented artists. There’s this guy, Jose Zamora, who I work with who, if you guys remember Disney Pook A Looz, which was something that was, gosh, I think they were released in 2010, but they were at the Disney Stores there in the park. So he designed all those. The two of us are designing, and we’ve got some younger designers who are super talented that we work with.
And my boss, Monica, is fantastic, and it’s just a really, really cool company. We do lots of different things. We have the license for Sesame Street, so all new Sesame Street toys coming out are from my company, but the Disney Doorables are super fun. I can pull out some samples. So they’re like these little, the best way to describe ’em is if Funko Pop, they’re like little tiny Funko Pop, and they have these glittery eyes and they’re super popular with kids. And I think during the pandemic, people started doing TikTok videos of unboxing. So we’ve got Stitch here, so it’s Pirate Stitch.
Dan Heaton: Oh, nice.
Ethan Reed: So we had to do a cruise set, which is I think, exclusive to Target. But it was super fun to develop that. And because I’m Uber Disney nerd, we get some real fun characters in there that I don’t think merchandise has been made of for years. Like Little Toots, right?
Dan Heaton: Little Toots.
Ethan Reed: We have a Little Toots toy that you can get in Target.
Dan Heaton: I promise this. This is not some sort of pay commercial here.
Ethan Reed: We’re enjoying the toys here. Yeah, toys are fun, man.
Dan Heaton: Well, awesome. That sounds great. And I’m glad you’re going to do some things connecting to Disney too, given your background in fandom. I think it’s really awesome.
Ethan Reed: Yeah, I mean, that’s the thing. I draw Disney more now than I did when I was with Disney. So my entire day is drawing Disney characters and working with a really talented group of sculptors that’s spread out all across the country. And we’ve got sculptors in Asia that are super talented. Yeah, it’s a great team, and I’m super happy.
Dan Heaton: Well, that’s awesome. Well, I wanted to ask you recently, because something that happened recently was the passing of Disney legend Alice Davis, who I know influenced so many people and was involved with small world and so many other attractions. But I was curious, I think you did have a chance to meet her a bit and when you were at Disney. So I am just curious for your experience meeting her or what she was like for you.
Ethan Reed: I loved Alice Davis. She was one of my favorite people that I’ve probably met. I mean, she’s very honest and open and never held anything back. I mean, I’m not kidding. When I was at CalArts, we would have the second Golden Age animators like Glen Keane and Andreas Deja, and those guys come by and give us lectures at CalArts, which was amazing. And I was super excited to meet them and learn from them.
We didn’t have a lot of the Nine Old Men, they were still around. But when I was in high school, I remember stopping by CalArts and seeing a sign up that Marc Davis was going to do a lecture in the Palace, which was this room, which is not a palace at CalArts, but it was the next week, and I was going to be back in San Francisco. So it was interesting, like, oh, I have to go to CalArts.
I need to meet my hero, Marc Davis. And I’m not kidding. I started my internship at Imagineering, and I started by doing two days a week, and I was doing three days a week, and my office where my animation desk was at CalArts got moved. I was an upperclassmen. We had this thing called the Lodge. So we were in the lodge, so we weren’t in character animation central, and no one put a poster up. This was before the Internet. This was before cell phones and stuff.
People had cell phones, but you couldn’t text somebody like, Ethan, you’re going to come to the thing tonight. So I didn’t know that Marc and Alice Davis were going to do a lecture at CalArts, and I had a night class. So I’d worked at Imagineering all day, and I had a night class. I drove back up to Valencia and I go to the library where my class was, and right across from the library is the main character animation department.
There was this giant line of people going into the character animation department. I’m like, what’s that? What is going on here? And it was Marc and Alice. They had done a lecture and they’d done a signing, and I had missed it. I was just broken. I’m like, oh my God. So I went to the library, did my silly little class. I don’t even remember what it was for. It’s like getting my math credits out of the way.
It’s learned how to surf the Internet. I think the standards are much higher now, but it was so crazy. I want to say the next day I was back at Imagineering and I was telling one of the animators who trained me, Deborah Short, I was asking her, I was telling her what happened. She’s like, oh, well, Ethan, oh, don’t worry about that. Marc and Alice are going to come by for lunch next week.
It’s not on one of the days you typically come in, but would you like to come in like, yes, please. So I went in and it was amazing. It was just the animators and the show programmers at Imagineering. So there’s, I think 10 or 12 of us and Marc and Alice and a nice lunch, and Marc and Alice had their slideshow, and they showed us all this great art, most of which you can see in Chris Merritt’s book, the Art of Marc Davis. So they had the Garden of Gods, it had the Western River Expedition, all that stuff.
And Marc and Alice both just told these fantastic stories, and she was just so sweet, and she didn’t hold anything back, which was great. Jim Clark was very close with the Davises. And through Jim, I got the opportunity to visit Alice a few times. My kids met Alice.
There was a library at our library up here in Valencia, California, not far from Calarts. And she did a lecture there, and she talked about how she would have butcher paper on her kitchen table when she was a child, so she could just draw. So we went to IKEA, I want to say the next day, and bought this butcher paper thing, and the kids would just draw on it. So because Alice said, do that, and the kids are both fantastic artists because of that, I think. Right? So, so I really do miss her. But she would come by to the figure finishing department at Imagineering and meet with the current figure finishers.
And I know she was an inspiration to all of them. And the standards that are still used in audio animatronic costuming, she set, right? I mean, there’s this famous story about the costumes in Pirates of the Caribbean that one of the, as Walt Disney would call ’em, Sharp Pencil Boys, one of the accounting people, they said, oh, you can’t have X amount of costumes. But Alice, she cut extra fabric, and I guess there was a fire in the Pirates of the Caribbean in the Burning City scene, and she was able to get the costumes done in a couple of days because she had cut extra fabric. So now there’s always spares.
Dan Heaton: Well, that’s awesome. I mean, I’m glad you got the chance to meet them, especially after that first experience.
Ethan Reed: Oh, yeah. But it was so funny. Like I’m not get to ever meet them. And then the universe has a way of like, nope, you are going to meet them and you’re going to have a much better conversation with them. Just 13, it’s 15 people, and instead of this big giant auditorium, and it’s just like the book, my book, it’s like I had told myself in 2019, hey, I’m not going to finish this until I’m retired. And yeah, I went through a furlough, I went through a layoff, all that stuff. But I finished my book and I’m very happy at the company I’m working at now, and I’m still friends with all my Imagineering buddies, so it’s all good.
Dan Heaton: That’s awesome. And I’m glad that you were able to finish the book, which is great. If people want to learn more about the book or pick up a copy or whatever, what should they do, Ethan?
Ethan Reed: Well, I mean, because it’s a Little Golden Book, it’s available basically everywhere. Anywhere a book is sold, right? You can order the Golden Book. So Target has it. Walmart has it, Amazon has it, Books a Million has it. I’ve had friends send me photos from Roppongi Hills in Japan, and they’re like, oh my God, Ethan, they have your book. So it’s all over the world.
Another friend, yeah, Rob’t Coltrin, who was just named a Disney legend, he sent me a photo of, he was at a Hallmark bookstore in Texas of all places, and it’s like, Ethan, it’s your book. So it’s everywhere, which is great, and it makes me very happy. So I really hope that people get the book, whether they celebrate Christmas or not, I hope they read it to their kids or just themselves and they enjoy it and they feel a bit of that holiday spirit.
Dan Heaton: I would highly recommend it. I mean, for little kids, for older kids, it sounds great, and I’m glad to learn a little bit more about how long it took and the path. So Ethan, it’s always awesome to talk with you. Thanks so much for coming back again.
Ethan Reed: Yeah, it was great to see you, Dan, and happy holidays to you.
Dan Heaton: Well, before we finish, Ethan wanted to make sure that we mentioned Scott Tilly and Winnie Ho from Disney Publishing, who were instrumental in helping Ethan get to the finish line with this book, make It look nice. Everything else, if you enjoy this book, they played a big part along with Ethan and so many others in making this come together. If you enjoyed this interview, you should go back and listen to episodes 140, which is where I talked to Ethan all about his story and background, working on Little Mermaid, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Mystic Manor, so many others, and Episode 155, where Ethan joined Joe Lanzisero to talk about a variety of topics on that Imagineering Roundtable.
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