So, today on the podcast, we're continuing our story of Disney legend Mary Blair. We're picking

up exactly where we left off last time, with Mary returning to Disney after a decades-long

absence, when Walt invited her to design the doll figures for the children of the world ride that he was making for the New York

World's Fair, a ride that later absorbed a much more famous name. It's a small world. If the late

1940s and 1950s comprised the high point of Mary's work with animated features, the mid-1960s up through the early 1970s

would be another high point in her career when she worked with wed on attraction design

and art installations for the fair Disneyland and Disney World. And so with that, if you're ready, let's jump back into our story,

to the intricacies of how small world was developed and also the trouble that was then

moving around inside of Mary's personal life. Disney's original plan for the Children of the World Attraction was to have Mary Blair create

character designs for her children's figures, a job she could have accomplished mostly

or even exclusively from her home

in Great Neck, New York. But as the project evolved, she found herself taking over the role

of art director, which meant that she would now oversee visual arrangement of the ride itself

and assignment that included many show stages. This also meant that

after a decades-long break she would again spend many weeks, if not months at the Disney

studio in Burbank, and a new wed compound in Glendale. Around the studio, Mary's name still

garnered respect largely for her artistic contributions to

Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan. For middle-aged Disney artist, Mary was

primarily viewed as a talented colleague, also as a friend. For a few, she was viewed as a threat,

as Walt had a habit of deferring to her artistic

sense, particularly in regards to color.

But for younger artists, Mary was viewed as a local legend, an artist whose name was still

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