Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Ward Kimball's Firehouse Five Plus Two

Here's a picture of the garage that held Ward's Firehouse Five Fire truck and other souvenirs, which was located toward the right side of the Grizzly Flats train depot.
Ward had some career with his Dixieland Jazz Band (made up of Disney staffers including animator Frank Thomas), which traveled to gigs dressed as firemen in a real fire truck!
They were very popular for 22 years recording over 20 albums that sold worldwide (you can still buy their music on CD at amazon.com!). I asked Ward how he got away with having a professional jazz band at night while working at Disney during the day. Ward's response, "Walt didn't mind as long as you got your work done."
If you want to catch a visual sample of the band at their best, take a look at the supplemental material on the Frank & Ollie DVD.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, Brian,

Glad to see you're blogging. I found your blog from Jenny's Blackwing Diaries. (which is also on my top 5 of daily stops )

Hope all is well with you and your family.

D. Nethery
Orlando, FL

Brian Mitchell said...

Hey Dave,
Things are fine here in NY. The blog has been a lot of fun to put together and I'll be posting more fun stuff in the weeks ahead. Stay tooned....