Monday, September 18, 2006

TOONFEST AT MARCELINE MISSOURI

We’re kind of ashamed to say that we’ve been to Disneyland many times, but have never visited Walt Disney’s boyhood home in Marceline, Missouri. The sad thing is that Marceline is less than 200 miles from where we live. Finally, this past weekend we made the trip and visited the town where Disney became a dreamer. The added bonus for us was that Marceline was throwing their annual Toonfest festival. It was so much fun that we’ll try to attend every year!


Toonfest is a celebration of the life of Walt Disney with a parade down Main Street USA, cartoonist seminars, meet & greets with popular cartoonists and animators, contests, crafts and many Disney related events.

Pete Docter(Director of Monsters Inc.), Dan Piraro (Bizarro), Lynn Johnston (For Better Or For Worse), Chris Browne (Hagar the Horrible), and Mike Peters(Mother Goose & Grim) entertained the packed 1930's Uptown theatre! It was a wonderful opportunity to see and visit with this group who are some of the best cartoonist working today!








We really enjoyed visiting the Walt Disney Hometown Museum that is housed in the old Marceline Santa Fe Depot. Some priceless Disney artifacts are displayed here, including his school desk and a Disneyland Midget Autopia Car from the attraction that Disney himself donated to the town. Also, they have some wonderful photos of Disney during his 1956 visit along with some informative information!

Marceline is definitely a place that shouldn’t be missed and we really need to visit the town again on a normal day and take the proper tour!

2 comments:

Ed South said...

Awesome picutres! I'm jealous! I'd love to visit but I'm even further away here on the east coast!

Great Blog!

Todd Franklin said...

Thanks for visiting and for the comment!