Disney Dads: Chris Crump on Rolly Crump

In observance of Father’s Day, Chris Crump has contributed this appreciation of his “Disney Dad,” Rolly Crump.

I was very young. Hard to say exactly—maybe six or seven years old. In school, the question was asked in class: “What does your dad do for a living?” My response—that my father worked for Disney—probably got the best reaction of all of the kids. Clearly the coolest job of them all, which in turn increased my cool factor. Hard not to like that. The fact that we could go to Disneyland for free all the time? Well, what kid wouldn't want to have that?

Rolly Crump (left) with Walt and the Tower of the Four Winds model, 1964. © DisneyIn 1964 or 1965, I went to Dodgers games with Rolly—with the Disney Season Tickets. Often, my Mom would drive me to WED after school, and I got to hang out with Rolly in the Model Shop. I was in the building with Walt all the time—I just never met him. “Chris, you just missed Walt, he just walked back to his office!” Rolly would say to me. A couple of times I saw John Hench walking in the hallways, he and Walt dressed the same, and he looked a lot like Walt. Rolly would say, “No that wasn’t Walt, it was just John Hench.” Just Hench! 

I saw attraction models of Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, “it’s a small world,” and at home I was building models of cars, and classic horror movie monsters. All of the small tools and supplies, just like in the Model Shop, were all around me all of the time. So everything that I have been surrounded by—for as long as I can remember—all goes back to the early days of WED. 

When Rolly was finishing up his work on Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room, our family went down to Disneyland before the Park was open to the public for the day. It was my first memory of standing on Main Street all by myself, no Guests. I felt pretty special. As kids, we walked around backstage, onstage. We got to know all of the Cast Member entrances and exits from all of the lands. Once again, how cool is that?

Rolly began his career at The Walt Disney Studio as an “inbetweener” in Animation. He was only twenty-two years old. The Studio offered a wealth of opportunity for him. Walt saw something unique in Rolly and moved him out of Animation and into what was then WED Enterprises, now Walt Disney Imagineering, and he became one of the very first Disney Imagineers.

Any words I can think of to describe Rolly are either overused or unimaginative. “Original,” “unique,” “imaginative,” “creative” (the most overused one of all). Rolly was really his own person. The seemingly simple word “artist” comes to mind above all. Kooky artist, walking to the beat of his own drum. Walt saw that. If there is one thing that Rolly is not, that’s a “yes man.” Rolly was never afraid to speak his mind to Walt, and I think Walt not only respected that, but Walt could count on that. I’ve heard story after story of how people would try to tell Walt what he wanted to hear. Bob Gurr has told me that there are more pictures of Walt and Rolly together than almost any other Imagineer. Bob has also told me that he felt that Walt and Rolly really did have a very unique relationship.

Rolly really loved Walt. Like all Imagineers back then, Walt challenged people to do things that had never been done before. It was like this one-of-a-kind Art School. Walt believed in him, trusted him, as he trusted many of his Imagineers. This “can-do spirit” is the real deal. Back then, there was no Theme Park Industry, these pioneers just did the best they could with Walt's backing. Walt wasn't handing out praise (many Legends have said this in different ways), but when Walt said  “that will do,” then it would be on to the next thing. There wasn’t time (or money) to redo, overdo—or overthink.

Chris and Rolly Crump in Tokyo at TokyoDisney Sea (Arabian Coast), c. 2001. "Rolly told me, 'You know, Walt would really love this place!'" Chris says. © Chris Crump. All rights reserved.I didn’t start working at Walt Disney Imagineering until 1988. It wasn’t like I figured out that I would try to follow in my father’s footsteps (those are really huge shoes), but I understand so much about attraction design by just being around it, absorbed by it. It's really hard to explain. Rolly just loved to talk about what his day was like when he got to spend time working with Walt directly. I do not have a college degree, but I have worked consistently in the entertainment business for almost 40 years. I believe that the ‘you can do anything you set your mind to’ attitude came from my upbringing, and through all of my surroundings.

I am only really appreciating how much I have inherited in the last few years. It wasn’t just what I learned about the theme park business from Rolly. I would hang out at WED as a kid, and just get to walk around the Model Shop, or staging areas where scenes from attractions where being programmed. It was everybody at WED that I got to talk to and be around: Blaine Gibson, Harriet Burns, Fred Joerger, the list goes on and on—all Disney Legends.

The “can-do spirit” is really what I think I carry with me to this day—and probably how, indirectly, Walt influenced my life. When I worked with Rolly on Beary Tales at Knott's Berry Farm, Rolly trusted me to build things I had never built before. It gets down to trust, and giving someone something to do—and letting them loose. I use these basic philosophies every day of my life. I have not forgotten where this influence comes from. Somehow, some way, I hope to continue to instill this philosophy with young Imagineers in a more formal way. I try to do this with the mentor program at WDI, but I often need to use real Walt and Rolly stories to drive it home.

I have quite a career that I owe to Rolly, first and foremost. This may just be the best way to let him know that.

Chris Crump is a principal show production designer at Walt Disney Imagineering, working with a project’s creative director to lead the show team during the design, production and installation phases of an attraction. He works with various teams at the facility, the ride, and the show to ensure all of the show elements are completely integrated. His most recent endeavor, The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Undersea Adventure recently premiered at Disney California Adventure Park in Anaheim.

Chris joined Walt Disney Imagineering in 1988 as a production designer on the Wonders of Life pavilion at Epcot. During the early 1990s, Chris was Imagineering’s art director for the Magic Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World Resort. Other projects he has worked on as show producer and/or production designer include The Arabian Coast, Magic Lamp Theater, Sindbad’s Seven Voyages and Caravan Carousel at Tokyo DisneySea; a bug’s land at Disney California Adventure; Tom Sawyer Island Enhancement at Disneyland; and Haunted Mansion Holiday and Monsters, Inc. Ride & Go Seek! at Tokyo Disneyland.

Prior to joining Imagineering, Chris worked on a number of entertainment and corporate events as art director or project manager; and as a special effects model builder on film, TV shows and commercials. He has also worked as a set builder on numerous amusement park and leisure time venues as well as concert tours.

Chris was part of the team that received the 2002 Thea Award for Best New Theme Park (Tokyo DisneySea) from the Themed Entertainment Association.  Additionally, he was a member of the Emmy® Award-winning project “Cosmos:  The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean” before working for Disney.

Disney Dads: Ted Thomas on Frank Thomas

In observance of Father’s Day, Ted Thomas has contributed this reminiscence about his “Disney Dad,” Frank Thomas.

I remember clearly a college break when I was helping my father with brush clearing at our family’s vacation cabin in the hills near Julian, California. I was in the middle of studies, but far enough along to be thinking about, and dreading, being out in the working world. My conversation with Frank that day centered on what was actually a lack of imagination on my part, where I complained about the prospects of what I saw around me—people working long hours in jobs they didn’t like, with commutes they didn’t enjoy, and counting the hours until they didn’t need to do it anymore. Job-hunting, from my limited perspective, looked pretty dreary, and I just couldn’t see myself spending so much time doing things I didn’t want to do.

Some parents at that point might have said something like, “Welcome to the world,” or, “Oh, grow up. What did you expect?” But Frank, with a blinding glimpse of the obvious, asked a question that went to the heart of my confusion, and, in the intervening years, has been very revealing to me about him and his employer, Walt Disney. Frank asked, “What if you were doing something you really liked? Would the hours matter, then?”

Ted and Frank sharing a story on the younger Thomas's wedding day, June 1981. © Theodore Thomas. All rights reserved.

And how my father embodied that idea—with his art, his music, his family, his home—really, one could say, with his life. Except for serving in the Army Air Force in World War II, Frank spent his professional life working with Walt and the Studio, from 1934 until his retirement in 1978, and then via writing books, lecturing and consulting right up until his passing in 2004. Like many great relationships, it’s a complicated matter to try and separate out what Frank contributed to the culture and films of the Studio, and the ways in which he was personally influenced by working with Walt—the thoughts and values that he brought home and passed along to his family. But, I think that each of my siblings would agree that a day doesn’t go by that we don’t think of the influence of our father on us, and by extension, Walt and the Studio.

As a child I first became aware that my father was an artist, and an animator, at our birthday parties. At the time there was a lending library of 16mm prints of the Studio’s animated films, and employees could borrow them for family screenings. So, I had knowledge of the films and what my father had done in them from a fairly early age. To catalogue my favorite work is almost impossible, but I guess that a short list would include: Mickey and Minnie in Brave Little Tailor, Bambi and Thumper on the ice, the entire Squirrel sequence from The Sword in the Stone, and Baloo and Mowgli in The Jungle Book. 

… And this leaves out Pinocchio in the puppet show, or Lady and Tramp eating spaghetti, or Captain Hook, or Cinderella’s stepmother, or the three good fairies, and so on. There are four decades of standout work, and to measure the depth of feeling, sincerity, humor, and pathos in the scenes is to get a measure of Frank.

I was at opening day of Disneyland, but my three-year-old’s recollections are mostly of hot asphalt and being eye-high to people’s belt buckles. As the years went by I visited the Studio often, and the Park regularly during the summers when Frank played with the Firehouse Five Plus Two. My feeling about both was of fun places where you could learn how to put on a show. That’s because both had this aspect of seeing the finished product, what it was the audience got to enjoy, and the privilege of being behind the scenes and soaking up the logistics, talent, craft, and personalities involved in putting it all together. This was when Disney’s was still a fairly small operation. Everyone was on a first-name basis at the Studio, and the Park was in its first decade or so.

I met and chatted with Walt a handful of times—at a Christmas party, a Zorro wrap party, and twice at Disneyland. We had a conversation about Vaudeville at the first event; the others were social situations or shaking hands and saying “hi.”  But, in truth, he was at our family dinner table regularly.  A story about what happened at the Studio, or what Walt had said or done or wanted to do, was part of the nightly discussion.

And then there was the day in December of 1966, when we came home from school and Frank was there, and our mother urged us to be quiet and leave him alone because Walt had died that morning.

Frank Thomas (right) with lifelong friend and collaborator Ollie Johnston, 1959. © DisneyFrank brought a level of craft and acting to animation that Walt wanted and needed in order for audiences to truly suspend disbelief and enter the emotional life of characters. He set the bar so high that few have equaled it and none have surpassed it. Frank also had the ability to continue to develop and refine a bit of business or a scene way beyond an initial concept. It was a trait that meshed very well with Walt’s desire to explore and push the boundaries of the medium. The great concept artist Ken Anderson once told me that Walt described Frank as his “Abraham Lincoln.” I’m not enough of a Lincoln scholar to guess what Walt meant by that, but I’m thinking that it was in a good way.

For a long time, the Studio’s fortunes were such that the animators didn’t know if they would have a job from picture to picture. Even so, my father was aware that there was no other place or studio where he would have the creative challenges and opportunities that he did working with Walt. 

My father had a boundless curiosity. He felt that Walt did, too.

My father was a perfectionist, and wanted to make things the best that they could be. He thought Walt did, too.

My father was impressed that Walt was constantly thinking and coming up with ideas twenty-five hours a day.

My father often said that, when faced with something new or different, Walt’s comment was, “I wonder what we can do with this?” He had a sense of the potential of an idea, technique, or technology well before there was an apparent need or application for it.

My father was taken by the fact that Walt only involved himself in things that he really wanted to do, and then he expected the same level of enthusiasm from everyone around him.

Which brings me back to the conversation that Frank and I had when I was in college, and I took to heart. “What if you were doing something you really liked?” There are so many aspects of my own work process that I acquired from Frank and the way that he and his colleagues worked with Walt…from a sense of entertainment, to ways of exploring story, to how to “plus” a project, to how to have fun while working, and the pleasure of working hard.

Theodore Thomas is an American motion picture director and producer. He is the son of the late Disney animator Frank Thomas. His films include Where the Toys Come From (1984), a documentary about two of Disney's “Nine Old Men,” Frank and Ollie (1995), and Walt & El Grupo (2009), documenting Disney and his group visiting South America in the summer of 1941.