Today on our podcast, we have part two in our story, Screenwriting with Walt. The late

1940s and the early 1950s were a time of transition for Walt Disney productions as the studio

slowly evolved from one focused on animation to one focused on live action, then TV, then an amusement park.

The story of Larry Watkin, who was the main screenwriter at the Disney studio, is one that follows

many of these changes, as Disney begins to create films that will compete head-to-head with

live-action titles released by Warner Brothers, MGM, and Paramount.

In our last episode, we looked at Watkins' early work on the Darby O'Gill Stories,

and in this episode, we will look at a key Disney feature, Treasure Island.

Disney would make more spectacular live-action films later in the 1950s and early

1960s, but Treasure Island was the film that first moved Walt and the studio in this direction.

It's a story about how Walt reimagines what his studio is and will become. But before I get to our story, I would like to thank another round of recent Bandcamp

subscribers.

We're an ad-free, listener-supported podcast, so these are the people who keep this whole

show going.

I am deeply grateful to each and every person who supports us over on

band camp, but today, gratitude is going out to Bagel Batman, Lynn, Melissa, and Mark. Thanks to each

of you for signing up and supporting this show.

And now let's move on to part two of screenwriting with Walt,

an episode that is mostly focused on the making of Treasure Island.

Treasure Island, Mark Disney's entry into live-action features. In the late 1940s, Disney experimented with live-action with Song of the South and so dear to

my heart, but each of these features had substantial sections of animation, which helped sell the film at the box office as a Disney picture.

Though Disney did consider creating an animated film in England using British animators to spend down the company's impounded UK funds,

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