"YOU KNOW EVERY BOY SHOULD HAVE A DOG": WALT DISNEY'S OWN ANNOTATED SIGNED COPY OF THE SCRIPT TO THE "STORY OF PLUTO"

DISNEY, Walt. Typed manuscript of the "Story of Pluto," Walt Disney's personal copy, with his annotations. Burbank, California, June 28, 1954. Quarto (8-1/2 by 11 inches), 10 leaves, typing on rectos only, stiff paper pressboard binder, Disney Productions label. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $15,000.

Walt Disney's personal script for the live action and animated production "The Story of Pluto," an episode of the "Disneyland" TV show, signed by him on the front label ("Walt") in pencil, with his annotations on two pages.

In 1954, Disney Studios broke ground for the Disneyland amusement park. In order to fund the park, they formed a partnership with ABC Television to produce Disney's first regular TV show, and named both show and park "Disneyland." The program premiered on October 27, 1954. This item is the shooting script for the beginning of an early episode of the program, here entitled the "Story of Pluto," with Walt Disney himself introducing the program to viewers. The script is dated June 28, 1954, and is noted to be the "first script." The folksy, direct personality that Walt Disney projected in his introductions to his television appearances is already in evidence in this early episode, which is devoted to introducing the public to the Disney film The Lady and the Tramp, then in production (it would be released theatrically in 1955), and to celebrating the "life" of Pluto, Mickey Mouse's dog. Walt Disney made several changes to the script on two pages, in blue pencil. On page 3, he crossed out a number of passages, and edited one, adding "that of a bloodhound" in his hand to the end of the typed sentence: "When Pluto first started back around 1930 he played a small bit part in one of Mickey's pictures." Disney also crossed out the line "You know every boy should have a dog so it was just natural for Mickey to have one." By the time episode aired on December 1, 1954, it had been renamed "A Story of Dogs." The script is headlined with the working title of the television program, "Fantasyland," which was later used instead as the name of a section of the Disneyland park.

A unique piece in fine condition.