What Does Disada Mean?!

Disada Productions got its name many years before it was formally
founded. When Peter Adamakos was about ten years old dinosaurs walked
the earth and there were no DVD extras if you were interested in how
animation was done. There was, however, the weekly one-hour TV show
called DISNEYLAND and Peter always hoped to see one of those
behind-the-scenes of animation episodes such as the making of LADY AND
THE TRAMP.

Hooked on animation, Peter wrote to Walt Disney to say how much he
enjoyed those shows and said that one day he would start an animation
company and call it Disada Productions. The DIS from the first three
letters of Walt Disneys last name, and ADA from the first three
letters of Peter's last name That's how a ten year old thinks.

Amazingly, Walt Disney wrote back words of encouragement, saying how
satisfying creatig animation can be, and ended by thanking me for the
top billing. I didn't know what that meant, and neither did my
parents, not having a show business background.

I started making amateur animation films under the name Disada
Productions and while in elementary school would host fellow students
in my garage, where we worked at rickety desks animating our
characters like Needlenose Dan and Eato the Mosquito.

In high school and university we formed a formal amateur film-making
group called Disada Productions that had about 200 members across the
city. We made animation and live-action films, documentaries, even a
feature live-action film. Most of us were in our late teens and early
twenties, but we had people up into their sixties, united by a love of
making films. We got corporate sponsors, had a monthly newsletter, did
marketing and other duties that served us well when we formed the
professional company, Disada Productions Ltd.

For many years we would get mailings from the Vatican in Italian
asking for money. I guess Disada must have some meaning there. I
remember when Disney actress Hayley Mills dedicated the Walt Disney
Memorial Library that we created after Walt Disney died. She stumbled
over our name and on the recording she called it Disaaaaaaaaada,
stretching it out. For quite a while people at the studio would call
ourselves Disaaaaaaaada and even answer the phone like that for fun.

My parents took the letter from Walt Disney for safekeeping, and over
the years it became lost. I still have my animation scrapbooks from
when I was ten but not that letter, sad to say. Many years later on
one of my visits to the Disney studio meeting with Dave Smith, head of
the Archives, we looked for their copy of that letter. He had warned
that it was unlikely we would find it, as it was written long ago and
not being of a business or legal nature, would probably not have been
kept indefinitely. Sad to say, we were not able to find it, but its
inspiration never faded.