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from 1997
MARC DAVIS
talks about Pirates of the Caribbean
by Scott Wolf
One of the great pleasures of working for Disney in the 1980s, was
that I had the chance to meet some of Disney's legendary artists.
Although most, like Marc Davis, were retired, with various events such
as the Disney Legends Awards there were always opportunities to meet
these amazing individuals.
Marc Davis had an amazing career in animation and designed and animated characters
such as Bambi and Tinker Bell, but he also went on to design many of the Disney
parks' well-known characters and scenes for some of the most popular
attractions such as "Haunted Mansion" and "Pirates of the Caribbean,"
and "Jungle Cruise."
Marc was actually the first person I ever interviewed, long before I
dreamed of doing Mouse Clubhouse. I was working on a book for Disneyland
and turned on my rundown tape recorder to get a few stories about
attractions he worked on. Although Marc passed away before I had this
website, I'm thrilled to be able to share our conversation with you!
 Scott Wolf: I’ve heard that many of the pirates you designed are
actually caricatures of employees. Is there any truth to that at all?
Marc Davis: Not really. There’s one character down near the end of the
ride when they’re in jail trying to get the key from the dog, and the
guy in the middle (whistling) is the janitor at what we called WED at
the time (now called Walt Disney Imagineering).
SW: Is there an actual storyline in the attraction?
MD: Well, Walt asked me during the work on the New York World’s Fair, he
said, “You know something I’d like to do? I’d like to do an attraction
on Pirates. You know where? Under the New Orleans Square. We can do a
walk-thru down there. Give it some thought.” Which I did and I did a
design for walking down there, I did a lot of drawings, and I could
never get Walt to pause and look at them. So anyway, this went on,
finally after the World’s Fair he knew what he wanted to do. He wanted
to put a building outside of the berm and that would hold a pirate ride
but originally the whole attraction was going to be down in this area,
so when Walt came up with the idea of putting the whole attraction in a
big building outside of the berm, I had all this to fill up, so that’s
where I decided on the skeleton ideas. Then you go thru the tunnel and come
out thru this big area with the ship firing on the shore and go scene by
scene, and finally around where the place is burning up, but it was idea
after idea and it worked out very well I think.
SW: So it was just meant to be entertaining, but not telling a story.
MD: Well, Walt agreed and I certainly agreed that this type of show is
not a story-telling medium. If you want a story, do a film and that was
his attitude. So these things were put in together. It says Pirates. It
says Jungle... but to entertain the people that are coming thru.
SW: Was it ever decided how far to go with Pirates as far as their crimes?
MD: No, I think Pirates was just fun ideas. You know, really the truth
about pirates is a strange story because actually there were more
pirates who did not die in battles at sea and so on, they died of
venereal diseases in bawdy houses (brothels).
So this was the real true story, but I didn’t point that out obviously.
SW: Were these American or Spanish pirates?
MD: Well, this was the Caribbean. A (heck) of a lot of them were British.
The thing was most of them were mistreated British sailors and whenever
they got a chance, they jumped ship. So really the costumes that a lot
of these guys were wearing should have been half British sailor clothes.
And in some drawings I did do this, the sailor pants and that kind of
stuff, but then to use the hats of the time that they might have stolen
from somebody that they killed over or did whatever (chuckles).
SW: (Referring to a photo of the scene with the pirate and the pigs.) Was
there any story behind when you came up with this scene?
MD: I just thought it would be funny, drunk, and he’s lying there in
this pig pen with his pigs and he’s drinking and the pigs have been
drinking with him, and they’re all soused and I thought that made a
funny scene. Then right to the left of this is a guy with his leg
hanging over that’s bare, and with him is a parrot, and they always get
a laugh out of that bare leg with the hair on it.
SW: Did you do any research about real pirates?
MD: If you needed something you could go up to the library and see what
you could find but I wouldn’t call it research. Well, with Pirates I
went to the library and picked up about three books about pirates, and
three different viewpoints on pirates, and I did this with most things.
Why not really see what it’s all about. But I think still, to look at it
from the standpoint of fun, that you’re entertaining people.
More from Marc:
A hilarious jungle ride with Walt Disney
His career in animation
Marc & Alice Davis' Christmas cards
See other interviews
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