Adventure Thru the Walt Disney Archives

In the 1970s, MGM was in financial straits and decided to sell off pretty much everything...props, costumes, sets....the works. As a result, a lot of history was lost to private collections. Fortunately, you learn in "Adventure Thru the Walk Disney Archives" that the Disney Corporation isn't making that mistake but is actively working to conserve and preserve its past....but not just the movies but parts of the parks and Walt's home itself (though no mention was made about his home post 1950...whether or not they are preserving this is unknown).

The show is hosted by Don Hahn, a Disney employee who takes viewers on a tour of the various facilities in the Los Angeles area which are being preserved by the studio. Oddly, there's no mention of the Disney museum and home up in San Francisco.

Overall, it's a real delight to look behind the sceness are the various props, costumes and memorabilia...and it's the only chance most of us will have to do so. Well worth seeing for fans of the man, the park and the films.

There are a number of documentaries on Disney Plus now about the company and its various aspects. It's an obvious way of Disney providing low cost content for its streaming service but content that Disney's rabid fan base would be interested in seeing. "Adventure Thru the Walt Disney archive" is one such feature, full of interesting moments but perhaps lacking the depth to properly display the bounty they have.

Don Hahn is a producer with the Walt Disney Corporation who has worked on some of the animated classics in the 90's and some of the live action remakes in more recent times. Here he guides us on a tour of the archives of various departments of the Disney Corportation, culminating in a visit to the restored office of Walt Disney himself.

When this documentary acted like a documentary, it was good. Excellent even, give us a once in a lifetime view of props, costumes, notes, art and designs from across the years of Disney. They even have some of the stuff they've inherited in the relatively recent purchase of 20th Century Fox, which they are starting to explore and integrate. There are interview segments with Disney luminaries like Kevin Feige and Pete Docter as well as Disney Legends like Kurt Russell and Mark Hamill. Those are OK, but really it's the things pulled from the archive that are the real stars of the show. The only thing that might have topped them is Richard Sherman playing "Feed The Birds" on the same piano he used to play for Walt himself.

Where it's less successful is the stilted scripted interactions that Hahn has with his colleagues. Each suggests that he should visit another department, rather than heading to Walt's office and being as kind as I can be, it's not hard to see why many of these people don't do a lot of work in front of a camera.

Interesting, if perhaps more shallow than I'd have hoped, I'd love to see a series delving deeper into what we see here.