Walt Disney on America's Founding (1957 & 1958)

On May 29, 1957 Walt's TV show aired the episode called the Liberty Story to promote the release of his film Johnny Tremain. The film is based on the book by Ester Forbes that was published during WWII and won the Newberry Medal in 1944. It is one of the twenty top-selling children's novels of the 20th century. Walt felt this story was important to tell at the height of the Cold War.

In this Liberty Story excerpt, Walt briefly discusses man's history of freedom correctly tying it in with Robin Hood (which he'd made into a film in 1952) before revealing his plans to add Liberty Street to Disneyland. Liberty Street had been announced along with Edison Square but the plans for both were put on hold as Walt and his team focused on the 1964-1965 World's Fair. Neither land was built at Disneyland. Edison Square evolved into the General Electric Carousel of Progress and Liberty Street was re-imagined as Liberty Square at Walt Disney World. In fact, some of the audio for the Hall of Presidents had originally been recorded under Walt's supervision back in 1958.

The film Johnny Tremain aired in two episodes of Walt's TV show in 1958. The Boston Tea Party on November 21 and The Shot Heard Around the World on December 5. We have included Walt's intros to these episodes as well. These two episodic versions of Johnny Tremain were also distributed in schools for decades. When the film bombed in the UK Walt opted to not release it in Europe. A few years later Walt would reach Europeans with another story on Independence set at the time of America's founding but not released theatrically in America, Dr Syn/the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh.

Posted for historical purposes. This channel is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.