WHY WALT MADE PETER PAN

The new Peter Pan 2-Disc DVD reveals why Walt Disney created the beloved cartoon.

The beloved animated story of Peter Pan, the boy from Neverland who refuses to grow up is now available on DVD revealing why Walt Disney created the cartoon. The studio archives uncovered a magazine article written by Walt himself entitled ‘Why I Made Peter Pan.’

Inspired by Hans Christian Anderson bedtime stories, Walt and his brother Roy rushed out to see a road company production of the play Peter Pan in Marceline, Missouri, near Disney’s farmland and he did whatever he could to get tickets.

“I had took most of the contents of two toy savings banks to buy the tickets but my brother Roy and I didn’t care. For two hours we lived in Neverland with Peter Pan and his friends and I took many memories away from the theater with me but the most thrilling of all was the vision of Peter flying through the air.”

In the early unreleased version of Peter Pan John was left out of the flying adventure to Neverland with Wendy and Michael until 1948. Animator Ron Clements explains.

“In the film Wendy, Michael and John all fly away to Neverland with Peter Pan leaving Nana at home. In some of the earlier versions John was left behind for being too practical and serious. And John was left out of the adventure until 1948 when writer Ralph Bright sent a memo to Walt suggesting to make John a strong character, a comic little replica of his dad and John goes along only to protect Wendy on this dangerous experiment though he tries to disprove everything. At he bottom of the memo Walt wrote, ‘good.’”

Extras on the 2 Disc Platinum Edition include multi-level games, the deleted The Pirate’s Song, a music video of Neverland, and a sneak preview of the upcoming Tinker Bell movie.