Kelvin Cedeno at UltimateDisney.com has posted a recent interview with Tony Baxter the Senior Vice President of Creative Development at Walt Disney Imagineering. In it they talk a bit about Tony’s history with the company, his revived Little Mermaid project and the newly released two-disc DVD set entitled Disneyland: Secrets, Stories & Magic.
On this disc, you can see the way Disneyland was born and the audience it played against. It helps us think, "What do we need to continue as part of our legacy, and what things are that we have to grow on to keep relevant to a much more sophisticated audience?" I’m really proud that’s in there, because it really does showcase a very special place and time in America where Disney had a huge impact on changing the way people think about things in both the park, obviously, and the popular myths that were embedded into it.
Then Ed Hobelman came to me with all that construction footage and said, "Would you be interested in looking at some of these amazing things we’ve found in the B-roll footage?" So that bonus material, we’re really excited we got a little bit of that in there. In some ways, it’s one of my favorite parts on the disc.
A big thanks to Tony and Ultimate Disney for a great interview. Also, good luck to Tony as he keeps watch over projects coming to the Disneyland Resort.