I was fortunate to be able to tag along with Dan Zehr of Coffee with Kenobi during the Media day preview of the new Disney100 Exhibit here in Chicago which opens on Saturday, November 18th. Members of traditional media outlets as well as online journalists, podcasters and social network influencers were given time to go through the 10 galleries set up at the Exhibition Hub Art Center, which is a large, 35,000 square foot facility northwest of the downtown loop in the Bucktown neighborhood. The exhibit opens on the anniversary of Mickey first appearing in ‘Steamboat Willie’ back in 1928.
While helping Dan out with pictures and video for Coffee with Kenobi, I was able to assemble a little bit of audio for the podcast and thought that this interview i did with Regional Archives Manager Kevin Kern would be a good selection to post in Substack.
I used the MacWhisper transcription software which did a decent job and after going back over and correcting it’s straight interpretation, here is the our chat.
You can check out the full episode for more from the Media preview of Disney100: The Exhibition. For more info or tickets, please visit their site.
First, if you don't mind, could you introduce yourself and what your role is and where we're at?
My name is Kevin Kern. I'm the Regional Archives Manager for the Walt Disney Archives. Previously, I was based in Burbank, recently relocated. Now I work out of the Orlando area for the department. We're here at the Disney100 The Exhibition here in Chicago, which is opening up this coming Saturday November 18th, 2023, which is also Mickey's birthday. It's the fun day for all of us.
If you could talk a little about the origins of the archives, and as far as what goes into an archive and what makes the decision as far as what gets kept.
The really unique thing about our collection at Disney is we were really the first corporate or entertainment archive to exist in this fashion. It wasn't just film material, it was all the correspondence, it was business correspondence, it was a large photo collection. Later on, for the department, it became props and costumes and movie vehicles. So it's a really diverse robust collection. And that's grown over our 50 plus year history. When we started, Dave Smith, Disney legend, who founded our department, really his first goal is to ask what's the catalog everything in Walt Disney's offices.
And that's really how our department got it started. After Walt Disney passed away, the company was trying to figure out what the next steps were. And Roy O. Disney, Walt's brother, business partner, helped found the company, realized, hey, we have a lot of historical material around. Maybe it's time we start doing something formal with it. At that same moment, Dave Smith had said, hey, you guys really should start thinking about starting an archive. So it really was a perfect moment for the company to look back on its history to do something saving it proactively. So since 1970, our team has been around to preserve the magic, if you will, with all manners of Disney company history.
So your role at the archives, what do you get to do and what's a day to day for you?
The cool thing about our gig in the archives is very few days are the same. Every day is very different. We support a very broad line of business across the whole Walt Disney company. It's every business unit. It's not just corporate, it's not just studio, but it's parks, resorts, it's imagining. It's our colleagues that Disney consumer products, it's a little bit of everything. And that's a really dynamic space to work in. And it's really engaging and it's quite honestly, it's a lot of fun. You don't always know what's going to come next, but the projects we get to work on certainly mean a lot to a lot of people.
We love to contextualize the material in our collection. It's not just stuff in boxes around shelves, but we want each of our historical objects, our assets to tell story. And we're kind of the emissaries that help get that story out to the world. There are very few companies that have as much public historical outreach as Disney does with our collection. And we're really lucky that we're supported across the company in that way and empowered to do that. I don't think there's any company that reuses its history as much as Disney does when you think of everything and all the forth thought that Walt had for the projects that he worked on.
We're still seeing the dividends from a lot of those creative output, you know, in examples today. And, you know, we're really here to be the guarantor of that history and to make sure that it has a voice, you know, that it isn't forgotten about in a box. That it's something that we can all look forward to to celebrate. And that's certainly what this exhibit does. We hope it does at least.
Do the archives change over time as far, as like I think you mentioned before about like trying to identify, you know, what is and isn't, but over time like any collector, right?
Yeah, sure.
You do have to have to make hard decisions in space as well, given your location. Can you talk about as far as like, okay, that we're going to have to kind of let go, of this we're going to have to do that.
You know, the department kind of ebbs and flows with the needs of the business, right? The needs of the company as the company grows so to does our collection. You know, certainly the last two decades when there have been some massive acquisitions when you look at Pixar or Star Wars or Marvel, there's a lot of material that comes with that. Along with a lot of really rich and amazing institutional knowledge. We have some fantastic historical partners around the company that do similar work to as to what we do. It's actually not just the archives collection, you know, there are many collections around the Walt Disney company that all have to talk to each other to make sure that we're preserving as much history as we can. Because again, in five years, 10 years, 50 years, hopefully when Disney turns 200, we'll be able to celebrate, you know, in an even grander fashion than we are now.
Can you talk a little bit about what went into the decisions as far as what we are displaying here and if there was any, challenges as far as like how do we get some of this stuff here, especially if it's as valuable as it is?
No, we have some really large objects. We have a couple of attraction vehicles. You know, something we really wanted to showcase and share was again the scale of the collection, right? And how varied it is. You're going to see examples of original art, original props, original costumes, huge attraction vehicles, large models. We hope that that's impressive, right?
Some things that we work with all the time. And certainly all of our shipping considerations take a long time to plan. We're also, you know, very cognizant of where things are going and when they're going. We track everything meticulously. So we're always in the know of where our stuff is. And an exhibit like this that's traveling all over the country is certainly no small feat.
And our team takes that responsibility very seriously.
When you think of all of the things that exist in our collection, the stuff that's here is really just the tip of the iceberg, you know. It's something that highlights specific moments in our company history and also is meant really they're selected to try and reach as many people as possible. We want this to be an experience for all ages. We want parents and grandparents and children to all have something unique to see and take away from it. So hopefully with the selection that's in here that you see, people will be able to have that experience.
Is there something in this collection that you have to do a double take or is there something, I know you can't play favorites, but there is something you go: I'm glad that's here.
Yeah, anything that Walt used, right? That Walt Disney touched, that Walt Disney interacted with, for me is always something really special. And considering we're here in Chicago that adds a whole other layer of special you know, speciality to it. You know, there's a model of a jungle cruise boat that Walt holds on television. You know, like that anytime you can point at that type of object and say like the great Walt Disney was using this material. It kind of does make you do a double take. It's certainly not lost on me at least the specialness of that.
I loved that you are wearing your Disney badge and you had mentioned before there was another one in your collection you really liked. Without going too much into personal history, is there something in your personal collection that you go: I'm happy I have this.
Yeah, we you know we do a lot of special events and exhibits and things and over the years there have been a couple of special name badges that have been designed. One of our managers has designed several of them for us. The one for our pirates exhibit a few years ago is my favorite, I think. You know it's hard again to pick a favorite one. Well, you know, we're really lucky that our cast culture at Disney in many ways is very unified and having something like a name badge, that everybody has is really a helpful tool and it's something that means a lot to each of us to just to have samples. It's a nice it's a nice thing to have to make you feel like part of the Disney legacy.
And so people can find out more about this exhibit. Where would you point them online?
You can go to the exhibit website. We open here in Chicago on Saturday, that's November 18th of 2023 and it'll be here through the spring.
Kevin thank you so much.
You're very welcome.
My thanks to Kevin and the fine folks working at the exhibit for their time.