Walt Disney's " Man and the Moon " and " Mars and beyond "

It's the 40th Anniversary of the Man on the Moon and during the next three days Disney and more will do a special tribute to this memorable event. As this is a Disney fan site, we will have a look to the different Disney productions or attractions themed on the "space" theme.



Today the first article is all about the great TV series aired in the 50's "Man and the Moon" and "Mars and beyond". These series were done with the help of future NASA scientists and Walt, always visionary, asked Wernher Von Braun - who will designed later the Saturn 5 rocket for the Apollo missions - what could be his vision of the future space travels. It's also thanks to the series that President Ike Eisenhower after a private screening became more interested in the conquest of space, and then launched the space program...which finally will send a man on the moon!



What is less known is that genius movie director Stanley Kubrick took a lot of inspiration out of these series when he did ten years later his legendary "2001, A Space Odyssey" movie. Kubrick even paid a tribute to Disney animator Ward Kimball Director of the TV series. In the second part of "2001" some astronauts are sleeping "frozen" in a kind of sarcophagus during the long trip of the spaceship Discovery. And the name of one of them - written on the cryogenic coffin - is "Kimball", a tribute of Kubrick to Ward Kimball.



To come back to the TV series, Man and the Moon begin with a humorous look with Man's fascination with the Moon through animation. This segment features the Moon's usage in everything from William Shakespeare and children's nursery rhymes to lunar superstitions and scientific research. Then Ward Kimball comes on with some information on the moon, supplemented by graphics. Kimball then introduces Wernher Von Braun, who discusses plans for a trip around the moon. Finally, a live action simulation from inside and outside the manned Lunar Reconn Ship RM-1 dramatizes what such an expedition might be like, including an almost-disastrous hit by a very small meteor.

Read the full article with artwork and videos of the TV series on the Disney and more Movies section HERE

Pictures: copyright Disney

Walt Disney's Mars and beyond - Photos and videos

At the end of the 50's , the conquest of space was in the air, and Walt Disney produced for his tv show his famous "Man in Space" animated series.




Always visionary, Walt asked Wernher Von Braun - who will designed later the Saturn 5 rocket for the Apollo missions - what could be his vision of the future space travels. Von Braun is the first on the left on the picture below.



Von Braun - who was a man who knew what the word rocket means as he worked on the german V2 project during world war 2 - designed some amazing spaceship, as you will see on the videos below.



Here is Walt and Wernher Von Braun again with models used for the show.



Ward Kimball, Disney's famous animator and imagineer worked on the project - here he is with Walt and one of the model of the spaceship to Mars.



The good thing in all this is that president Eisenhower, after seeing Walt's series became more interested in the conquest of space, obviously it helped to launch the space program.....and finally to go on the moon!



As always, Walt introduced the show, but this time with a special guest , a giant robot!



Thanks to the youtube links below you'll be able to see the whole show, but if you don't have a lot of time, jump to the last two parts, the most interesting one.




















Photos and videos: copyright Disney

You can find the complete series of the three Man in space 1950's tv shows which includes "Man in Space" , "Man and the Moon" and "Mars and Beyond" on the Disney treasures dvd set "Tomorrowland" at amazon.com.