Dubai: Disney, the entertainment giant, has a special reason to celebrate on April 10.
It is not the birthday of the gigantic company, or one of its globally beloved fantasy characters. But it is the 50th anniversary of one song, titled It’s A Small World.
The song was composed by Walt Disney and some of his big artists more than five decades ago.
When it was produced, it was meant to be the song for the pavilion of the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) at New York World’s Fair in 1964-1965. Walt Disney was assigned with the task of designing a number of pavilions, including that for Unicef showing the world and its wonders.
Walt already had not only the experience but also a group of excellent “imagineers” who were with him in opening Disneyland in California in 1955.
He “turned” to the artist Mary Blair, one of the top talented artists who illustrated the landscape of the “universe”. She had already done the universes of Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan for Disney’s theatrical releases, a Disney statement said.
According to the initial plan, the attraction was to be titled “Children of the World”, and it involved small colourfully dressed dolls from many regions of the world singing their national anthems in their own languages. But after it became clear that it would be impossible to implement it, the national anthems were replaced by a song written by brothers Richard and Bob Sherman, talking about unity and brotherhood.
The musical boat cruise in the pavilion was so successful that Walt Disney moved it to Disneyland after the fair.
“Since then, all the other four Disney Resorts that have opened around the world have created their own version of the iconic attraction,” a Disney statement said.
Five decades later, Disney is celebrating the song at the five parks in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Paris, Florida and California.
At each resort, cast members, students and children will gather and participate in the giant singalong relay, the statement added.
A major ceremony will take place at Disneyland Paris on April 10 to support Unicef and children. The programme includes: a concert, educational workshops and major moments where dreams of sharing and solidarity come true, Disney’s statement said.
Disney Company is also donating $150,000 (Dh550,953) to Unicef, plus every singalong video submitted to a special website launched in March 2014 (SmallWorld50.com), and up to $100,000 for every Small World doll created and shared.
Already a group of European artists and fans have announced plans to cooperate and participate by uploading videos of themselves singing the song’s lyrics, which say “there’s so much that we share that it’s time we’re aware, it’s a small world after all”.
