Disneyland Tiki Room Designer Rolly Crump in LA Mag

An interview with Disney Legend Rolly Crump is in this month's issue (March 2011) of Los Angeles Magazine.
More here: http://miehana.blogspot.com/2011/03/architect-of-delight.html

Long live Rolly Crump, the beatnik artiste of Tiki!

Highly respected Disney artist/designer. The article was awesome, as was the artwork provided for the article done by none other than KK&JD.

Thanks for posting that, and for all the great related stuff in the blog post. Fun to see the story illustration, and the mischievous photo from the zine article. Rolly Crump is one of those talents who naturally has such humor and whimsy in his work.

-Randy

The entire Rolly Crump article is now online at lamag.com
Enjoy!
http://lamag.com/article.aspx?id=29681

GREAT article thanks for the link

Rolly rocks it.

That link's now broken, try this:

http://origin-www.lamag.com/features/Story.aspx?ID=1365662

Met Rolly at one of his art exhibitions in Oceanside years ago, he has a huge career outside of Disney that's pretty astounding.

There's a Rolly Crump/Dick Van Dyke connection; Rolly did the satiric pro-Cuban beatnik posters for the Dick Van Dyke show where his brother Jerry buys a coffee house. They're in the Stacey Petrie episodes from the 4th season. How did the Van Dyke show designers know about Rolly???!?!?!

One of my favorite paragraphs from the article:

Just as I was wrapping up, Walt said to me, “When people are waiting to have lunch there or whatever, they’re going to be outside. Rolly, I want you to design some preshow tikis for the outside.” I went to the library and got a book called Voices on the Wind that described all of these legends of the South Pacific. I read all the legends, and I picked out some—Rongo, Tangaroa-Ru, Pele, and some of the other gods that they believed in—and I did a series of pen-and-ink sketches of these different tiki gods, adding to them elements that would help them come alive, and in the preshow they would introduce themselves and do something physically while talking to you. I designed all of those, and then Walt asked me to have them sculpted. The top sculptor at WED said he was too busy and suggested that I sculpt them myself. I had never sculpted before, but the sculptor showed me how, and I ended up sculpting the tikis in the WED parking lot, where it was warm enough to make the plasticine clay malleable.

Since reading this I have tracked down my own copy of "Voices on the Wind: Polynesian Myths and Chants" by Katharine Luomala.

Hakalugi,

Great reference, thanks for posting that. How's the book?

DC

Well I love him. Really talented guy.

Not a magazine article but a whole book about Rolly Crump called It's Kind of a Cute Story and you can buy a copy and get it signed by the Disney legend, Rolly Crump, and the co-author Jeff Heimbuch on Fri, Feb 1st at Barnes and Noble located at

Orange Town & Country
791 South Main Street Suite 100
Orange, CA 92868

more info

It's Kind of a Cute Story Book Signings

I believe the Thurs Jan 31 event listed has been canceled and the Saturday Feb 2 event requires a ticket and is sold out.

Thanks for posting that. Just finished reading the book, and it was a real pleasure to read (and SEE)! I was already a fan of Rolly Crump's style, but after reading the book I'm a fan of his personality too - great stories and lots of images of his work. If I was in socal I'd be there in a heartbeat for the signing.

-Randy

Great article. As a late bloomer Im glad to learn about this. Its just funny out of all the times my dad took me to Disneyland, we never went to the enchanted Tiki room.

Purchased.
Thank you :)

Rolly Crump and co-author Jeff Heimbuch, will be signing copies of the book, It's Kind of a Cute Story, at...

Disneyana Collectible Expo at the Crowne Plaza Resort in Garden Grove, Ca. Sunday July 14th and

The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Fransisco, CA Saturday July 20th.

Did anyone go to that? I would have LOVED to see/meet Rolly, especially at the museum!

There was lots of positive response from those who did attend (I was not attendee) the events at Anaheim or San Francisco...

Facebook: It's kind of a cute story

Mr. Crump has lots of amusing behind the scenes stories which he shares at these events including this one...

Disney Park Blogs:Imagineer Rolly Crump looks back on Walt Disneys Enchanted Tiki Room on its 50th anniversary

which appeared previously in this thread but may have been missed by many because of the heavy combat between some Tiki Central members.

Here is a report of the Learning from Walt with Rolly Crump event at The Walt Disney Family Museum. It was written by Keith Gluck who writes for and volunteers at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. He also runs a Disney blog called thedisneyproject.com.

It also gives a summary of Rolly Crump's career and where he learned about tiki's when he was assigned to design the Enchanted Tiki Room exterior.

DisneyProject: Learning from Walt

And a podcast where Co-author of Rolly Crump's book, Jeff Heimbuch, talks about doing the presentation and meeting Diane Disney Miller during his visit.

Communicore Weekly: Disney Family Museum

[ Edited by: King Bushwich the 33rd 2013-08-01 15:44 ]

Pic from the event at the WDFM in SF (which was great!)...

Also saw TC oldtimer Mike Tikihula there. Maybe there were other TCers too, but anyway, lots of happy people. Diane Disney Miller (Walt's daughter) chimed in too during the talk Q&A with some memories.

-Randy

Another chance to meet Rolly Crump in person along with a whole mess of other Disney Legends. This time at the D23 Expo at the Anaheim Convention Center

D23 2013 Expo August 9-11, 2013

He will be at the MiceChat booth in the Collector’s Forum area at D23.

MiceChat: D23 Expo information

Rolly is scheduled Saturday August 10th from 1pm until 3pm.

It's kind of a cute story: Events

[->>King Bushwich 33rd on Hulu.com

This is one of the times I love to be alive in the age of Twitter. I'm following so much of this D23 event, its kinda fun. Would love to be on the West Coast for all these Rolly events!

A web page concerning R. C.: http://dangerousminds.net/comments/disney_legend_rolly_crumps_vintage_drugs_beatnik_commie_posters

Mercury News article about Rolly Crump

Mercury News:Longtime Disney 'imagineer' Rolly Crump recalls Walt's magic

L.A. Times article about Rolly Crump

L.A. Times: Rolly Crump

We've been discussing that new article in some of the Disney forums (fora?) that I'm on. The line "Fall in love with Disneyland, and Disneyland can break your heart." particularly resonated with me. Modern Imagineers are capable of doing amazing things when they're given free reign to do so... 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth in Tokyo DisneySEA and Mystic Manor in Hong Kong Disneyland are three of the finest attractions Disney has ever done for quality and originality... but there also seems like there's far too much meddling with the past instead of learning from it (lookin' at you, Pirates of the Caribbean), too much corporate decision making, and not enough appreciation for the function of the spaces in the parks.

Good article, that. I’m with Rolly, and you, EnchantedTikiGoth: I’ve been to Disneyland twice, and there are things here and there that I really love (like the Tiki Room), but the place that I first fell in love with from Walt’s old anthology show was long gone before I ever visited, and that breaks my heart.

If I could go back in time, I would bug my parents to take me to Disneyland as my high school graduation present in 1995. Everything looked about perfect right then. All the major attractions were place (including Indiana Jones, which would have just opened), while most of the classics like Country Bears and a functioning Tomorrowland were still around.

Unfortunately, in real world 1995, I would have been way too cool for Disney and my parents too poor to take me anywhere. At least I can be nostalgic about my first trip in 2005, which is still before too much damage had been done. During my next trip in 2006, they had already shut down Pirates to vandalize it with Johnny Depp.

Finally getting to Disneyland for the first time ever on the 30th and it looks like the Tiki Room in closed for refurbishment. Such is life. It's still Disney though and it will have magic.

On 2018-09-09 15:08, rum on the rideau wrote:
Finally getting to Disneyland for the first time ever on the 30th and it looks like the Tiki Room in closed for refurbishment. Such is life. It's still Disney though and it will have magic.

If you're going to be there for a few days, there is hope: Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room – closed for refurbishment. Reopens October 3

Very cool. I'm actually in the middle of finishing up the book about the Haunted Mansion and he is mentioned several times (of course).

On 2018-09-13 18:56, donhonyc wrote:
Very cool. I'm actually in the middle of finishing up the book about the Haunted Mansion and he is mentioned several times (of course).

Hey there DonHoNYC, good to see you, or read you again after your long absence. TikiCentral misses your sardonic humor.