RON CLEMENTS EXHIBITION 4

PART 4: BUILDING THE SHOW

Having made our first trip to Disney in California in planning the
exhibition on Ron Clements, we finalized details for its contents and
then began work on the actual construction of the show. We obtained
the measurements of the large exhibition hall space (floor, walls,
ceilings etc) and planned where the full sets would be placed. Nick
made architectural-type drawings in detail for Aladdin's marketplace,
the streets of London for The Great Mouse Detective, ancient Greece
for Hercules, an undersea grotto for The Little Mermaid and the deck
of a pirate ship for Treasure Planet. He made a model of the entire
exhibition area to scale, right down to the artwork reduced in size.

This we took to the museum in Sioux City where we met the crew that
was to build the sets and support elements. One day I came across a
new line of Behr paints, their Disney colors line, and arranged for
Behr to join the list of sponsors for the exhibition and provide all
the paint needed. We made trips to California and Sioux City again,
and in Ottawa I wrote the monograph on Ron that would be published in
conjunction with the exhibition and worked on press releases and
publicity. Returning to the museum we saw great progress had been made
and everything was falling into shape thanks to Nick's careful and
exact detailed planning even though the location was thousands of
miles away.

We heard many stories from Ron about his career, but one has to be
told. In the 1980s there was in Disney animation something called The
Gong Show. People were expected to propose ideas that might eventually
be produced as an animation film. Ron was trying to think of something
for the meeting and he ended up in a used bookstore one day, looking
at the volumes. One was the collected stories of Hans Christian
Andersen. There he found the story of The Little Mermaid. It was brief
and short and as Ron told us, “it starts out sad, gets sadder, and
then she dies.” Perfect Disney material!

He bought the book and wrote up a one-page treatment by hand. Of
course he turned it into a happy ending, the one we know in the
produced film. What he did not know when he presented the idea to the
others, is that back in the 1940s, considerable time and effort was
put into developing a Little Mermaid feature. There is some beautiful
concept art at Disney from that period. The film was not made back
then because they never could turn it into a satisfactory “happy”
Disney film. Though many tried, no one succeeded. But Ron was able to
do so easily and quickly. We saw that one page handwritten treatment
he brought to The Gong Show. It is framed in his bedroom at home.

The staff at the museum went all out to make the show a success and
make us feel welcomed. We attended a party one night at the home of
one of the key staff members. We got to know Sioux City and its
services. In the corner of Iowa, it borders three states, so one day
we decided to have breakfast in Iowa, lunch in Nebraska and supper in
South Dakota, travelling no more than twenty minutes to do so. Plans
were now being made for the big opening of the show. TO BE CONTINUED.