Ramona’s Reviews > Bill Peet: An Autobiography > Status Update

I love the ending although it seems too quick and brief! Bill writes a book, called "Chester", about the Worldly Pig". It is in reality mimicking his life - the ups and downs, heartaches and rewards. In the end, Bill becomes a famous author and writes books for children, that are read all over the world!

January 29, and Bill had worked 27 years for Walt Disney. Walt is in a bad mood over the voices for Jungle Book film, and he tells Bill to see the "Mary Poppins" film. It is the last time he sees or speaks with Walt, as he quits. He is working on the book, "Randy's Dandy lions", which I remember. A year later the newspapers carry the headline news of Walt's death.

Bill is put in charge of the film. He even wrote the "feature-length screenplay"! Then he was asked to do "The Sword in the Stone". A big surprise when one day Walt comes in and confides to Bill about his childhood. Walt dies a few years later, and Bill is now a well-published author of children's books. Next he works on "Jungle Book". He also came up with the idea of the song, "Bear Necessities"!

Bill is in Walt's doghouse. He is demoted but he doesn't mind working on shorter films, a smaller scale. He creates stories for Goofy shorts: "Tiger Trouble", "Knight for a Day", "California or Bust", "African Diary". I actually remember watching some of these as a child! He writes another short story, Huge Harold, about a very large rabbit. Then Walt sends Bill the book, "The Hundred and One Dalmatians"!

Anyways, Disney has many projects going at once - Sleeping Beauty, "live action features, the true-life adventures, the TV show's and "Disneyland, which had outgrown his most extravagant dreams". Bill worked on Peter Pan peanut butter TV commercials. Walt likes Bills sketches of a tiny elephant called Goliath II. He also has a book published - Hubert's hair-raising Adventure, by Houghton Mifflin, in 1959.

Homer would be about a country bumpkin pigeon who goes to the big city and runs into trouble. Ella is a spoiled prima donna circus elephant who runs away and the farmer who "un-spoils" her. Jennifer is an old-fashion car adopted by Josephine, an alley cat. Bill worked on Alice in Wonderland during this time. Walt wanted to convert all the children's classics into Disney films.

Bill then tried his hand at magazine cartoons. The cartoons in the book are funny! The next handful of pages in the story are illustrations from stories Bill made up, all great, but he isn't a writer. He fills notebook after notebook with these great illustrations - a lion cub dropped by a stork in to a group of lambs, a car auto-biography, taking it from new to the junkyard to a restored hotrod!

The success of Cinderella allowed Walt to make a profit, keep his dreams alive and build Disneyland. Bill knew his success wouldn't last forever, so he started planning a new career for himself - he planned a number of paintings in miniature to enlarge on canvas, later, and sell at the Los Angeles art gallery. He returned to his first loves of the circus, his Aunt's farm, and trains. His painting was no good.

Bill next worked on Peter Pan - one of my favorites. then WWII hit and overnight the fantasy factory was producing training films and propaganda films to sell war bonds. Bill now had to produce war pictures that included parodies of Hitler, and weapons. His sketched of New York City being bombed to pieces stunned Walt and the Military men. He was glad that storyboard was rejected - it was too real for them.

Walt built a new modern studio in the San Fernando Valley, near Burbank. The illustrators were used to the old atmosphere of poverty, and shabbiness that spurred the creative mood. Bill was assigned to work on Dumbo. He loved those 18 months, as his first son was born, and was influenced by his baby. He faced Walt for the first time, with his storyboards, but did not become a full-fledged story man on the films.