from 2007
ROGER PEARSALL
talks about his start with Disney and favorite memories

by Scott Wolf

The first time I spoke to Roger on the phone I knew we immediately hit it off and I knew we'd be friends. He is a colorful storyteller who was part of a golden age of Disneyland entertainment, including the opening team of the Main Street Electrical Parade.

Even after leaving Disney, Roger stayed active in the entertainment industry producing little things like the 1992 Superbowl Halftime show! He continues to stay busy in the business today, but is happy to talk about his Disney days.

It's a pleasure to introduce you to my friend, Roger Pearsall.

Scott Wolf: How did you get your start with Disney?

Roger Pearsall: I was playing drums for Tony Bennett and I opened the Hong Kong Bar at the Century Plaza Hotel with Tony and Oscar Peterson. Lucille Ball came into the place. Richard Boone and a bunch of these old stars came in to see Tony. Morey Amsterdam was a friend of Tony's so Morey introduced me to Lucy and I went to work for Lucy on "The Lucy Show." I became the drummer that lived down the hall. There's a picture of me on that show with Carol Burnett on that show. (see photo)

Lucy and Gary Morton, she was married to Gary Morton then, introduced me to a guy named Sid Gould. Sid Gould was the original partner of Mickey Rooney and he became a writer on "The Lucy Show." Out of that I met Dan Kibbee, he was the producer of "The Mike Douglas Show" and he was moving out to L.A. to start producing television shows for ABC. He hired me off "The Lucy Show” to become the music director for KABC television. I did a show called "Good Day, L.A" and then I did a show called "The Lennon Sisters Show" and "The Everly Brothers Show" and I worked on "The Hollywood Palace" and I got into music clearance for the station.

After that, Sonny Anderson (Disneyland's talent booker) called me down and I met Bob Jani and they hired me away from ABC.

I had known Sonny since I was in high school. I was a freshman in high school, we used to drive out to Artesia because there was no freeway. We'd drive to Disneyland and Sonny was playing drums with Kay Bell and the Tomorrowland band or something like that. I met him there when I was just a young guy. Then years later I'd come off the road with Tony and I would do concerts at schools from around the whole South Bay area. My cousin was a young girl named Tina and Tina wanted to learn how to sing so I'd take her and do these concerts and she'd get up and sing four or five tunes. Sonny called me one day and said, "Do you know any girl singers we can use for the Mustangs over in Tomorrowland?" I said, "Well, you can audition my cousin." So she went out, she auditioned and she got the gig. He and Chuck Corson started managing her and she became Tina Mason and was on "Where the Action Is" for Dick Clark and ended up marrying Fang of Paul Revere and the Raiders.

So anyway, Sonny got me to Bob Jani and Bob Jani hired me and I went to work as the Production Manager for the Entertainment division.

SW: What's a Production Manager?

RP: You're in charge of getting all the live shows, all the live entertainers on in the park everyday.

There was a department of the entertainment division at that time called Show Development. I was in the operational side of it by that point to get it on out in the park. So we had all the Big Band Nights, we had all the stages running. All the live entertainment we hired and the character department was under my jurisdiction, the parades, all that.

SW: What was Big Band Night?

RP: It was just a night we had when we booked every big band we could find. It was at Carnation, it was on the Tomorrowland stage, we set up bandstands all over the park. It was absolutely phenomenal. The difficult part of it was you'd go and hear one band and hear, oh Count Basie's over there! You only have like four hours so you're running around trying to hear them all.

We had (Count) Basie, Harry James, Benny Goodman. Sonny called Artie Shaw and said, "Do you have a band anymore?" and he said, "I haven't had a band for years." He called Sonny back and said, "I'm going to put together a band for this." Sonny said, "We have Count Basie's band, Harry James' band... these are pretty hot bands, they're working together every day. I just want you to know that people are going to compare you." He said, "I'm not worried about."

Two weeks before the gig, he went and hired the best musicians in Hollywood. Jack Sperling on drums, he was with Les Brown's band, he was Dean Martin's drummer for years. Ray Brown, bass player, Cat Anderson on first horn who used to play with Count Basie. He hired the elite of the elite. The best studio musicians in Hollywood that you could buy. He rehearsed them everyday for two weeks. He had them under contract for two weeks, full time. It cost him a fortune.

Well, this band showed up and kicked everybody's butt. All the Basie guys were over there, Harry James band was over there. It was a phenomenal band.

SW: This was quite a few years after the height of the big bands, right? This was the '70s?

RP: Yes, in fact when Harry James was there he had stomach cancer. I had known him for a lot of years and I talked to him and it was interesting, he had been divorced from Betty Grable for years... Sonny was there with me, too, and he said, "I never fell out of love with Betty Grable. It won't be very long and I'll see her again." It was really something. I don't know how she felt about him.

SW: What is this coin from?

RP: Bob Jani called me and said, "We're going to move Walt's office down to the park. I want you to produce an opening of that for the family."

SW: They were moving it to "The Walt Disney Story" in Disneyland I guess?

RP: Yeah, they had it left in the studio just the way it was, so they brought all the stuff down to the park, across from "Mr. Lincoln," and they brought his secretary down and built this englassed office and had her place everything where he had it.

So they asked me to produce and opening with old cars and with dancers and singers. So we took over Town Square and it became the set for like a movie. We had the cars drive in and the singers and dancers do the whole number. Full orchestra, strings, the whole nine yards and the family was there. When it was all done, they gave me that which was a commemorative piece.

SW: Do you have a favorite memory of working at Disney?

RP: Yes, I got to know Buddy Rich (the great drummer) pretty well and he was a nasty guy but underneath he was a pretty nice guy. I'd known him off and on from Reno, from ABC television, and I'm standing close to the Plaza Gardens, looking through a piece of wicker, to him playing right there and I'm looking at him, trying to figure out what he's doing that makes him sound so great.

SW: Sure, because you play the drums, too.

RP: Yeah, and I can't figure it out. He knew I was standing right there and he turned to me and said, "Can't figure it out, can ya?" (Laughs)

Later I found what the answer was. He was a tap dancer first, they called him Taps and he learned to do anything with any limb that he could do with any other limb. As a tap dancer you become ambidextrous so he could play a roll with his right foot or do anything with any limb. What a normal drummer would play something with their left hand or right hand, he'd just select to play it on the bass drum with his foot.

He was amazing, but the big bands bring back the fondest memories for me.

And I guess working with Bob Jani.

You know, the floor where the entertainment division was, where Bob Jani's office was, it's like marketing or something now. They have no idea of the magic that was created there.

That was a floor that was as close to creating nirvana as I could imagine. It was a team spirit, taking on projects, pitching in, creating things that nobody had done before. Bob Jani was a master.

He used to pitch all the entertainment in the park with these cards he’d have made up and it would have a big picture of the group or the show or concept with a description below it and budgetary issues and all that. He would put these on easels. A few on each easel and he would go down to the studio, in front of Card Walker and all those people and he would dance from easel to easel explaining how this would work and one easel would start to collapse and he'd reach back with his foot and catch it.

Card Walker said one day in a meeting, "I always leave in budgetary meetings, and we always cut the budget by thirty or forty percent, but I always stayed through Bob Jani's." And he always gave him all the money he wanted because he was so fascinated by how he could flip those cards around.