Museum Home
Main Collection
Special Exhibits
Film Theater


True Life Adventures

Seal Island

In a time when cable television is full of all manner of documentaries about animals -- and even features an all-animals, all-the-time channel -- the concept of wildlife as entertainment seems commonplace. But when Walt first began to create his True-Life Adventures series -- the first, "Seal Island," was released in 1948 -- the idea was original. The series origin is described in the book, "The Man Behind the Magic:" "Mystifying his staff, he commissioned a husband-and-wife team of filmmakers (Elma and Al Milotte) to take movies of Alaska. Everyone was baffled by the endless footage of wildlife, Eskimos, forests, and glaciers that they sent in. Walt himself didn't know quite what to do with the miles of snowy film. But after a trip to Alaska with Sharon, he decided to turn it into a film about seals. John Hench recalled, 'You never saw anything so dull in your life as these seals . . . seals scratching their sides and their fannies and sniffing and looking at each other. And all seals look alike anyway. . .. But he was delighted with it.'" Once again, Walt had seen an opportunity everyone else had missed. Create a story line, add music, clever editing, and good writing, and you had a new kind of entertainment.

True Life Adventures

Even Walt's distributors at RKO were dubious. So after "Seal Island" won an Academy Award for Best Documentary, legend has it, Walt took the award down to his brother Roy's office and said, "Here, Roy, take this over to RKO and hit them on the head with it." Meanwhile, the True-Life Adventures were off and running. Between 1948 and 1960, 13 of them were released. Eight won Academy Awards. When Walt decided to make a feature-length True-Life Adventure, RKO balked again. This time, Walt started his own distribution company. The feature was called "The Living Desert." It earned an Academy Award and brought in some $5 million in its original release, on an investment of only $500,000. Purists complained when Walt attributed human emotions to animals and when he used trick photography to create amusing scenes -- as in the scorpion dance from "The Living Desert." Others complained about set-up scenes, but the vast bulk of the footage used was genuine, captured by photographers in the wild who were encouraged by Walt to shoot more, more, and still some more.

Back   Forward

Use of this site signifies your agreement to the terms of use.
© Disney. All rights reserved.