I am deeply saddened to learn the news of my friend and fellow Disney fanatic, Jim Korkis at the age of 72. How to sum of the life and prolific work of this popular and much-loved Disney historian?
I made an attempt in 2013 in contributing this commendation for the back cover of his then latest book,
Remembering Jim prompts me to share the Foreword I wrote to his 2017 book,
FOREWORD
I have something to get off my chest: despite having spent a
disproportionate part of my life collecting and writing about all things
Disney, my earliest encounter with the Mousetro’s work proved deeply traumatic
for me and acutely embarrassing for my parents.
What ended as a nightmare had begun as a treat for my fourth
birthday: a visit to a now-long-gone British institution, the News Theatre on
London’s Waterloo Station. Open daily, from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., the News Theatre
screened a continuous program of newsreels, comedy one-reelers and cartoons. On
this particular day, the bill featured the vintage 1938 Disney short, Brave
Little Tailor, in which Mickey Mouse, in the title role, tackles an enormous
Giant in order to win the hand of the Princess Minnie. At a crucial point in
this drama, Mickey hides in a cart laden with pumpkins and, when the giant grabs
a handful as a snack, Mickey finds himself being hurled into the Giant’s mouth.
Dodging the pumpkins as they hurtle by him like bowling balls, he only avoids
being swallowed by hanging onto the Giant’s uvular. These antics were,
naturally, greeted with hilarity by every other youngster in the cinema – but
not, unfortunately, by me! Terrified at the mouse-threatening scenario
unfolding before me in the dark, I screamed and screamed until my humiliated
parents bundled me out of the theatre and rushed me off to the nearest café to
pacify me with tea and buns.
I make this confession as it may help to explain the
fixation with Disney that has obsessed me virtually ever since that harrowing
day! Without that shock to my young system, that jolt to my nascent psyche,
would I have co-authored several books on Disney topics (from Mickey Mouse and
Snow White to Mary Poppins) or made several dozen hours of radio programmes for
the BBC about Uncle Walt, his company and movies? Probably not.
One of the by-products of this career (of which I’ve only
provided the sketchiest of detail since I’m taking up space in somebody else’s
book on Disney) is the occasional invitation to write a foreword such as the
one I’m just about to get down to writing here.
Within the annals of cinema history there is a small but
growing coterie of dedicated scribes who are dubbed Disney Historians. There is
an urgent imperative to chronicle the life and times of Walt Disney and the
achievements of his studio because it is the story of many people, most of
whose contributions have only begun to be recorded in the past 50 years since
the death of the man whose internationally recognised signature came to
represent the combined talents of an army of artists, writers, musicians and technicians.
Some of us of a certain age can still recall when there were
scarcely more than a handful books about the art and industry of Disney. Today
there are shelf-loads of such books – representing a wide range of approaches
from the academic and authoritative via the critical to the anodyne and
scurrilous. Nevertheless, there are still first-hand recollections needing to
be recorded and new chapters of the story waiting to be written – not to
mention the tedious task of correcting inaccuracies and remedying
misconceptions.
One of the most prolific of these Disney historians is the
indefatigable Jim Korkis (“At last!” you say, “This Foreword is finally getting
to the point!”) whose Disney Vault you are about to enter.
I first met the Vault Keeper sixteen years ago, on 5
December (Walt's birthday) 2001. We were in the VIP lounge of the Norway
pavilion in EPCOT and, whilst I no longer recall the reason for that choice of
venue, I mention it since the fact that EPCOT has a Norway VIP lounge will be,
for some, an irresistible piece of Disney park trivia eagerly learned.
After signing a book of mine for Jim (despite my
protestations that the only valuable copies are the unsigned ones) he gave me a
cracking interview for one of my radio shows as a result of which I immediately
had the measure of Jim’s talent: he was, like Shakespeare’s clown Autolycus,
"a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles", by which I mean that he
collected a wealth of information that others had overlooked or disregarded and
stored it away in his vast memory-bank – or, you could say, vault!
Korkis books are always filled with these discoveries,
fashioned together so as to create a series of diverse narratives of varying –
but satisfyingly appropriate – length where the whole is always greater than
the sum of the parts.
Jim is a born teller of tales, able to engage, excite,
intrigue and amuse us with stories that reveal not just his talent for research
but also his gift of infectious enthusiasm. If something fascinates Korkis he
will make sure we share his fascination. This is not surprising since he has
met and talked with dozens of Disney animators and those theme park wizards
known as ‘Imagineers’ and has been writing about them and their genius boss for
three-and-a-half decades.
Looking through the table of contents I can’t quite decide
where I’ll start: maybe with the stories about Walt’s enthralment with Abe
Lincoln and Charlie Chaplin; or, perhaps, with the appreciation of Disney Park
Dinosaurs; or, possibly, with the articles on the Oscar-winning documentary,
Seal Island, and the zany comedy that introduced the world to car 53 – Herbie,
the Love Bug. Wherever I start, I can guarantee to be riveted and end up
knowing immeasurably more than when I started.
In view of the distressing recollection with which I began
this Foreword, I was wondering if an essay on Disney Giants might be on
offer; but it really doesn’t matter because Jim can always add it to the
possible contents list for his next foray into the Disney Vault; meanwhile
(since I’ve detained you far too long already), you can start enjoying this
one. Right, then! Off you go…
Well, what are you waiting for? Off you go to your bookseller-of-choice and get your hands on one of Jim's many books on Disney, maybe this one, published last year when he knew he was battling the disease that has finally taken him from us to that enchanted Neverland that created by the Dream-merchant whose work he loved and ceaselessly celebrated.
