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Disney emblem looking for a home


R. Watkins
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The 'best guess' consensus among several fellow insignia buff's I run this design by is that

it was 'Possibly', 'Most likely', et al., a WWII era USN unit design, but again these are just 'guesses'.

 

Can anyone provide the unit of origin of this Disney design?

post-6249-0-33709400-1524251225.jpg

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My database lists the following limited information:

 

Scott Herblen Group

Army Air Base

Spring of 1943

 

A similar design was created for whomever this person is featuring Goofy's head with a bomb below it much like the Donald Duck design you've shown, as well as another design featuring Pluto with the bomb to the right.

 

I haven't been able to locate anything on Herblen at this time.

 

Cheers.

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Connecting so many of these WWII Disney designs with their respective units would be so simple if the people at Disney Worldwide

didn't act as if they were ashamed by their studio's contribution to the war effort.

 

I don't know if any of you have had the dubious experience in the past few years with trying to contact someone at the Disney Archives,

but I do believe that it would be easier to get a luncheon appointment with the President of the USofA.

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As a thought since I worked there for 14 years - The WWII designs were produced by Disney Studios in Burbank - The Studio I think has it’s own archivist if I recall and he used to prowl collector shows and flea markets In California for vintage material for the archives - at least this is the story I heard

 

Bill

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I went through all but one or two of their insignia books back in the 1980s and took copious notes. That is where the majority of my database info comes from. I have entries for around 1,100 designs of the roughly 1,200 to 1,300 their artists created during WW II. Just like song of the south will never be released in the USA I doubt they will ever release a comprehensive book detailing all their insignia. Of the designs I have in my database I have about 800 images and have researched and written around 600 entries containing background on the design and the unit that received the emblem. Would make a heck of a series of reference books.

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I went through all but one or two of their insignia books back in the 1980s and took copious notes. That is where the majority of my database info comes from. I have entries for around 1,100 designs of the roughly 1,200 to 1,300 their artists created during WW II. Just like song of the south will never be released in the USA I doubt they will ever release a comprehensive book detailing all their insignia. Of the designs I have in my database I have about 800 images and have researched and written around 600 entries containing background on the design and the unit that received the emblem. Would make a heck of a series of reference books.

 

Did you come across this design during your research?

 

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Yes. See post number 2 above.

 

The info in that post gives you the info they had noted in one of their insignia reference books that I copied. :)

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Sometimes Disney artists designed insignia for men and not units. They did several like that.

 

In this case, Scott Herblen could have been the serviceman who made the initial request.

 

The entry in the Disney reference book did not indicate which AAF base he was located at.

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Sometimes Disney artists designed insignia for men and not units. They did several like that.

 

In this case, Scott Herblen could have been the serviceman who made the initial request.

 

The entry in the Disney reference book did not indicate which AAF base he was located at.

 

Thanks for the feedback Dave.

 

I was hoping that maybe there had been a notation regarding Scott Herbien's service rank

and/or unit assignment during the time frame that this design request was made.

 

I have seen a major change in the Disney policy relating research requests since I first contact

them in 2003. The changes that have occurred since the time you had the opportunity of perusing

the Disney insignia archives back in the 1980's must be galactic.

 

What the h--l happened?

 

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I have seen a major change in the Disney policy relating research requests since I first contact

them in 2003. The changes that have occurred since the time you had the opportunity of perusing

the Disney insignia archives back in the 1980's must be galactic.

 

What the h--l happened?

 

 

Yes. Huge changes. They pretty much closed the Archives to outside researchers.

 

Someone got access to the Archives when it was still open to non-company types, and from what I have heard, (rumor and conjecture), this person did research related to the Reddy Creek Improvement District. This entity, from what I understand, is the body that governs development on the Disney acreage in Florida. The company was basically able to have their own building code and tax structure, in return for turning FL into a tourist destination.The person who did the research then used the info he had gotten at the Archives in a lawsuit against the improvement district. When the upper echelon at Disney found out the source for all of his lawsuit material, they closed the doors to the vault.

 

Luckily, I did a lot of research there before the change in policy. I would attend a big Disney collectors convention almost every year in the early and mid-1980s and during my trip to CA I would spend one full day at the company Archive in Burbank doing research on a myriad of topics.

 

I was also quite good friends with the head archivist and the second in command. They helped me quite a bit whenever I had a question about an insignia design. They would often go to the correspondence files, which I never accessed, and they could pull and quote info included in the original letter sent in by the serviceman who had requested the design.Unfortunately, both my contacts retired.

 

I spent one full day going through all of their insignia volumes save one from 1943. I took handwritten notes for 900-1,000 designs...YIKES! They have photos of all the designs, the month and year the insignia was created, and the name of the unit the design was sent to. And like I mentioned above, they also have most, not all, of the related correspondence sent in by the serviceman requesting the design.

 

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Yes. Huge changes. They pretty much closed the Archives to outside researchers.

 

Someone got access to the Archives when it was still open to non-company types, and from what I have heard, (rumor and conjecture), this person did research related to the Reddy Creek Improvement District. This entity, from what I understand, is the body that governs development on the Disney acreage in Florida. The company was basically able to have their own building code and tax structure, in return for turning FL into a tourist destination.The person who did the research then used the info he had gotten at the Archives in a lawsuit against the improvement district. When the upper echelon at Disney found out the source for all of his lawsuit material, they closed the doors to the vault.

 

Luckily, I did a lot of research there before the change in policy. I would attend a big Disney collectors convention almost every year in the early and mid-1980s and during my trip to CA I would spend one full day at the company Archive in Burbank doing research on a myriad of topics.

 

I was also quite good friends with the head archivist and the second in command. They helped me quite a bit whenever I had a question about an insignia design. They would often go to the correspondence files, which I never accessed, and they could pull and quote info included in the original letter sent in by the serviceman who had requested the design.Unfortunately, both my contacts retired.

 

I spent one full day going through all of their insignia volumes save one from 1943. I took handwritten notes for 900-1,000 designs...YIKES! They have photos of all the designs, the month and year the insignia was created, and the name of the unit the design was sent to. And like I mentioned above, they also have most, not all, of the related correspondence sent in by the serviceman requesting the design.

 

 

Thanks for the background history on this subject Dave.

 

It's really a shame how one or two individuals can misuse and screw-up the whole works for everyone else. You would think however that

someone like yourself, with a good past working relationship, would not be lumped in with these schmucks and be excluded from future

access to these archives, but I suppose that's life in the big corporate world.

 

It's just a real shame all the way around though. In my case, all I was hoping to do was give Disney copyright credit in my Battle Colors series

for many WWII era group/squadron designs that have appeared over the years lacking any creative source credit whatsoever. You would think

that any normal company would appreciate this type of effort, but apparently not the folks at Disney. Oh well!

 

Thanks again for this information, much appreciated.

 

Bob

 

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ocsfollowme

I've always wondered about everything that you said. Do you think that Disney believes that it is not worth the monies that would come in from military books vs the public images of being associated with war (even though it was WWII in stopping Hitler)?

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  • 6 months later...
Johnny Signor

I personally think if they were to put out a book or volumes set/s on all thier military unit emblems with proper titles etc to them, they could and would make more money than they realize , there are so many people like us here at the froum who would very much enjoy seeing them all and finally knowing which is hich etc , I would be first in line(and probably a long one) to get the book/s !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

it's History that should be shared not locked away like way too many archives of important peices of our countries past history that made this nation what it is .........

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I personally think if they were to put out a book or volumes set/s on all thier military unit emblems with proper titles etc to them, they could and would make more money than they realize , there are so many people like us here at the froum who would very much enjoy seeing them all and finally knowing which is hich etc , I would be first in line(and probably a long one) to get the book/s !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

it's History that should be shared not locked away like way too many archives of important peices of our countries past history that made this nation what it is .........

 

In addition to the historical aspect I would think that the public relations value alone would make such a project worthwhile. The fact that

Walt Disney established and staffed a special department dedicated to creating designs for a long list of organizations, both military and civilian, represented a significant contribution to the morale of the Allied cause, especially during the dark early days of WWII.

 

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