Please note: All character art on this page is © Disney

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At Disneyland, for instance, you walk through New Orleans Square at Christmas time and all the decorations are themed perfectly to that particular area of the park. They don’t just throw up tinsel and shiny Christmas ornaments. They put up Mardi Gras masks and a Christmas alligator.

The water tank, and the deco sign post

And so it is at the Studios. The streets are marked with signposts that point out Mickey Avenue or Dopey Drive. Pluto’s corner is marked on a curb with his paw prints embossed in the street (only three—one as to wonder what Pluto was doing when he stepped in that wet cement).

Pluto's corner

There is also the Disney Legends Plaza. Imagine Mann’s Chinese Theatre’s famous footprints in cement and you’ve got the idea, only this is with Disney Imagineers, artists, actors, musicians, director, and so on. It’s a large rectangular plaza surrounded by columns that all bear plaques belonging to the various luminaries who have been designated as Disney Legends. I found some of my favorite animators there, Frank (Thomas) and Ollie (Johnston), Marc Davis, and Ward Kimball. There was Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke and Angela Lansbury. Each plaque has Disney Legends printed at the top with the date and the handprints of the recipient. Under the handprint is the signature, their name, and the reason they have been designated a legend.

Disneyland fans will recognize the four plaques here - Fulton Burley, Wally Boag (above) and Betty "Slue Foot Sue" Taylor (below) are the performers from the Golden Horseshoe Revue in Frontierland. Van France (below) helped establish the Disney University, among many other accomplishments over the years for the park.

At the far end of the plaza is a large bronze sculpture dedicated to the Disney Legends. It’s a striking piece that depicts an open book, out of which pages swirl up into a classic Disney castle that turns into Mickey’s hand holding up a magic wand.

The sculpture dedicated to the Disney Legends

On the front of the swirling pages is a picture of Steamboat Willie and a plaque that reads in part,

The Spiral stands for imagination, the power of an idea. The hand holds up the gifts of skill, discipline, and craftsmanship. The wand and the star represent magic, the spark that is ignited when imagination and skill combine to create a new dream.

As your eye leaps up from the pages of the book to the tip of the magic wand, you suddenly realize something is keeping a watch over the Disney legends, Snow White’s Seven Dwarfs. I’m sure just about everyone has seen a picture of that famous building by now. Yes, that building. The one that employs Snow White’s favorite little guys as columns.

Yes, home to Eisner and gang...

Dopey holding things up

More tributes to Disney Legends can be found on Dopey Drive, in front of the Studio Theater...

...the Sherman Brothers, among many others, have handprints here

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