Disney's Christmas Newspaper Classics

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: These comic strips were created in an earlier time and may contain cartoon violence and occasional historically-dated content, such as gags about smoking, drinking, gunplay, and racial stereotypes.

Needless to say, the characters in these stories wouldn’t mix it up with these elements today; we include them here with the understanding that they reflect a bygone era. Enjoy the show!

MERRY CHRISTMAS, DISNEY STYLE

by Alberto becAttini november, 1960 brought something new to the range of newspaper comic strips produced by the Walt Disney Studio. Frank reilly, who had been the managing editor and administrator of Disney’s comic Strip Department since 1946, thought that the time was ripe for Disney to send christmas greetings to millions of readers by means of an annual newspaper strip. He pitched the concept to King Features Syndicate, which had distributed the Disney strips since their inception in January, 1930.

King Features had once produced its own non-Disney annual christmas strips, from 1935 until 1940, and in 1936 another syndicate, neA, had started a long tradition of christmas strips which would last until 2010. (coincidentally, eleven of the neA strips were drawn by Walt Scott, who had been a Disney story sketch artist and animator from 1938-41.) King’s comics editor, Sylvan byck, heartily approved of the proposal, realizing that the syndicate could exploit the Disney characters’ popularity during the key holiday shopping season. e characters in each story would be drawn primarily from the animated features. Disney and King did not want Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck, who had their own daily and Sunday newspaper strips, to also appear in the special christmas continuities. in addition, Frank reilly had been adapting scores of animated features for the Walt Disney’s Treasury of Classic Tales Sunday series since 1952, which had made him familiar with all of the the studio’s characters. each annual tale was to last three to four-and-a-half weeks, usually ending on christmas eve. (e longest story appeared in 1964, with a total of twenty-eight strips; the shortest in 1971, with just seventeen strips.) e first sequence—which debuted on november 28, 1960—was entitled Peter Pan’s Christmas Story, featuring characters from the 1952 animated movie. initially set in never land, the story saw captain Hook trying to sabotage christmas with a “gift

bomb.” Santa claus, also known as Kris Kringle, first appeared in the series on December 19, 1960, four days before Peter Pan intervened to foil captain Hook’s evil plan. e Seven Dwarfs also featured in the strip, their diamond mine and house having been relocated to the north Pole, which gave Mr. Smee, pretending he was bashful, an excuse to deliver the ticking parcel to Santa. e artwork was provided by Manuel Gonzales, who had been the Sunday Mickey Mouse artist since 1938. in the final strip, dated December 24, 1960, readers saw Santa in his flying sleigh, sending a “Merry christmas to all,” which would later change to “A Merry christmas to one and all.” e strip was a huge success, running in more than four hundred U.S. newspapers, as well as in other countries such as Finland, italy, France, and Poland. e stories were also reformatted in comic book form and published around the world. e “Disney-villain-wants-to-spoil-christmas” formula was regularly repeated, with inventive variations, in subsequent continuities. classic animation villains would join forces to face their respective traditional adversaries who, in turn, joined together.

Drawn by chuck Fuson (with an assist by Floyd Gottfredson), 1961’s Pinocchio’s Christmas Story was a short, alternate version of the classic 1940 feature, with Stromboli’s puppets (including Pinocchio himself) eventually set free by the blue Fairy.

Sleeping Beauty’s Christmas Story in 1962 was the first christmas continuity drawn by John Ushler, who had recently taken over art chores on the Treasury of Classic Tales and Uncle Remus and His Tales of B’rer Rabbit weekly series. in addition to the classic characters from the 1959 movie, the sequence featured Professor ludwig Von Drake, the Austrian-born duck genius who had recently become popular as a co-host (with Walt Disney himself) on the Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color tV show and was also regularly featuring in the Donald Duck newspaper strip.

Von Drake was one of the few Disney standard characters to feature in the christmas series. in the strip, which took place three years after the facts related in Sleeping

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Peter Pan’s Christmas Story

1960

november 28-30, 1960 • 10

Pinocchio’s christmas story

1961

november 27-29, 1961 • 18

The Three LitTle pigs’ Christmas Story 1963

35 • november 25-27, 1963

the Christmas conspiracy

1971

December 6-8, 1971 • 102

the day Christmas was banNed

1978

149 • December 4-6, 1978

a christmas present for mr. toad 1984

193 • December 3-5, 1984

BEAUTY and the beast

1992

215 • November 30 - December 2, 1992

the little mermaid

1997

255 • november 27-29, 1997