The famous studio was attempting a revival of fortune with The Black Cauldron, based on Welsh myths
Could Disney recapture its old magic? In 1978, the Observer headed to LA to find out what the mouse men had brewing and if Walt would have approved.
Things were changing: the great man’s office had been ‘embalmed’, dismantled and taken to Disneyland to become ‘a shrine gazed upon by the masses’. That felt symbolic of the studio’s ambition to innovate and to finally match the joy (and revenue) of its earlier prestige productions, from Snow White to Mary Poppins. A ‘multimillion-pound resurrection’ was under way; veteran studio artist Eric Larson had examined the work of more than 1,000 young animators and cartoonists and hired 30 of the most imaginative. ‘People who draw well are two a penny. What we needed was the creative artist.’
